When we feel really bad, we can declare ourselves "on the verge of death".

Stéphane Bern retraces Thursday the origins of this expression which means to feel dying, in a hyperbolic way or not, in the emission "Historically yours" on Europe 1. And it was born from the diversion of a Latin formula. 

If you are reading these lines it means that you are not at "the article of death", at least not in the original sense of the term.

Because if these days we use these words to say that things are not going strong at all, it is because we are misusing a Latin expression.

As Stéphane Bern explains, Thursday, in the program Historically yours on Europe 1, it initially designated the very moment of death.

And "article" did not, at the time, at all have the meaning given to it today.

"At the moment of dying"

The "article of death" has nothing to do with the newspaper article or the one you find in a store, nor with the determinant used in grammar.

This 16th century expression comes from the translation of a Latin phrase, 

in articulo mortis

, which meant at the moment of dying.

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The difference in meaning is clear, it does not mean about to die but to breathe its last breath. 

Articulo 

in Latin is a declination 

of articulus,

 which in this context means part of the time between two others. 

Articulus

 has also given articulation, the joint between two bones.

Expressions in the English language

If we had to use another Latin formula to really mean the article of death, that is to say the last moment of life, we could use an already existing one: 

in extremis

.

A formula that we use very often, while forgetting that it is Latin.

Extreme anointing thus evokes this same moment.

Internationally, paradoxically, a lot of pictorial expressions are used to signify this.

In England, we can say "

to have a graveyard cough", to

 have a cemetery cough.

While in Australia we prefer "

don't buy green bananas".

 "Don't buy green bananas."

A tip that indicates that the person concerned will not have time to mature them.