Below

"O blessed breeding sun... below thy Sisters Orbe Infect the ayre."
Timon, Act IV (William Shakespeare, 1607)

BELOW: in or to a lower place, rank, or degree; farther down; often used as a nautical term.

The word comes down from Middle English bi + looghe (low), used first as an adverb telling where the action was done. Once more, the Old English prefix "be" makes itself useful. Wouldn't it sound strange to say, "It was ten degrees low last night"? We're so used to be + low that we use it without thinking.

I find it interesting that on maps we can use below to mean farther south, because maps are often hung on the wall (therefore making south "down" and north "up").

The little country of Georgia lies below Russia, and the international news has been full of this latest tale of nations in conflict over land, ethnic independence, and power.

Whatever our view of the row over the diminutive South Ossetia, it must be admitted that Georgia (population 4.4 million) is completely overshadowed by its Herculean neighbor to the north (142 million people).

I don't really think we understand what it must be like to be a small country dwarfed by such a giant next door. We're used to being physically/economically larger than Mexico and politically/militarily more powerful than Canada. No one's shadow ever looms over us quite like Georgia experiences.

I wonder... if we were below Russia, and were a modest enclave of 4.4 million Americans, how would that change our perspective on the world? Like our own language, we take for granted our superpower status. What if America was so little? Yikes... it beggars description (but let's try anyway).