Be interesting to see the same etymological examination of institutions/potions in other English speaking countries. And if anyone is so minded in countries where English is not spoken just to see if there is any correlation.
For myself I get the distinct feeling snake oil salesmen were legalised in private then lionised in public.
I'd love to know how anyone is going to fight for a humanity which overwhelmingly seems to be onboard with being told what to do by an authority outside of themselves. The numbers thrown around willy nilly are just numbers. The thing that pumps them out is the outside authority and there is no way to check the veracity of them, much like dating of history, in fact exactly like dating of history.
But numbers aside evidence on the ground round here and in chatter scant as it is reveals people are compliant. Masks hang from mirrors in cars or sit on the dashboards, they litter the streets, the seashore, the countryside. The overwhelming majority wear them in shops,, walking to and from shops, going to take kids to school and picking them up, senior schools round here all enforce twice weekly home testing and masks in unless outside for the entire school day, bus passengers (but not bus drivers), taxi passengers and taxi drivers, train passengers (but not train drivers), cops, paramedics, firemen, all wear them. College students are in the same position as the senior school kids. Churches, temples etc are all closed. Funerals are now accompanied by universal mask wearing and spacing to keep a mythical enemy at bay.
Binmen on the other hand do not wear them and they never have,
All business owners/operators have signage up telling people what the authority says they can and cannot do. So here at least it is a case of pissing in the wind.
There is no way to save people from themselves.
Not a single business owner I have spoken to has ever received any legal notice to close their legal entity aka their business. None have received legal notice to plaster their shop in perspex, window stickers, warning notices, qr codes, demand personal details from shoppers/customers before they enter their building but they all went along with some twats twattering on the telly. Not one stayed open, not one contacted the authority asking where the legal notice to close was.
The importance of the lack of legal notice is not even discussed. Yet it is of prime importance.
No-one is fighting for me and frankly I wouldn't want or expect them to fight for me. I have found through experience that the one thing outside Authority needs is the consent of the individual. Protests en mass in cities are a wasted effort because the cities and their Authority are set up in the main to cope well with protest marches, least they are over here.
Withdrawing consent by ignoring Authority paper or shouting the Authority employees down as the Polish Pastor and an Italian cafe owner from a few months back did is effective but not complying with outside Authority is to scary for the simple reason the media arm of outside Authority lie about the state of non government aka Anarchy. NOBODY wants to be seen as an anarchist.
Better the devil you know seems to be the default position for most people, sadly.
Edit to add this.