Prestige

 JMSmith talks about how prestige colors our perceptions:

The Halo of Prestige, Where Did It Go?

Very few people know that the word prestige first indicated a conjuror’s trick. The word was rarely used in English before 1800, but when it was used it had a meaning identical to the Latin præstigum, a magical illusion. A writer in 1777 for instance speaks of “expert jugglers and prestige-practicing impostors,” and the word prestige long continued to mean merit that was apparent and not real.

The modern sense of prestige is said to have begun with Napoleon Bonaparte because the first Emperor of the French was in the minds of his countrymen and others so much larger than life. No one doubts that Napoleon was an extraordinarily talented man; but it is equally doubtless that Napoleon’s talents were greatly magnified by the magical illusion of prestige. Such magnification is the essence of prestige. It is the magnification of prestige that makes a great general appear invincible in the public eye.

Prestige magnifies a good man into a saint, a good scientist into a genius, a good athlete into the greatest athlete of all time.

You can read the whole thing here.

The were a couple of movies about magicians that came out in 2006. One was The Prestige and the other was The Illusionist. The Prestige gave us an explanation of the term, but at the time, because I had never heard of it used that way before, it sounded like nonsense.

And then there is the word prestidigitation, which refers to sleight of hand or legerdemain, meaning the quick, skillful manipulation of objects, often used in magic tricks or illusions.