"God sees everything," says George Wilson, the disconsolate husband in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby." God may not see everything, but He sure sees plenty of ways to sneak his name into our words.

In fact, "god" lies at the heart of the word "giddy." Granted, we might not see God as all that giddy a guy. We're not likely to picture Him jumping up and down, excitedly shrieking: "I did it! I did it! I made a solar system!"

But speakers of Old English believed that someone who acted in a strange way was under the influence of God. So, they created a word derived from the word "god" to describe such people: "gydig," which meant "insane, possessed by God."

The Middle English derivative of "gydig" — "gidy" — came to mean "foolish, stupid" and, eventually, "dizzy." By the 1600s, "gidy," by now spelled "giddy," had combined the "foolish" sense and the "dizzy" sense to produce its current meaning — "lightheartedly or exuberantly happy."

God lies at the heart of "enthusiasm," too. The ancient Greek root for "god" was "theos," which gave rise to the adjective "entheos" (inspired by a god), the verb "enthousiazein" (to be inspired by a god), and the noun "enthousiasmos" (inspiration by a god).

When "enthousiasmos" was adopted by English as "enthusiasm" during the early 1600s, it had the same meaning as the Greek noun, but it soon came to mean "an extravagant or excessive display of religious emotion." By the 1700s, it had acquired its current secular meaning: "excitement or passion for a cause, endeavor or subject."

The Greek root "theos," of course, also shows up in a number of English words, such as "theology," "theocracy," "atheism" and "polytheism," while the Latin root "deus" is readily apparent in "deify," "deity" and "deism."

God sneaked his name less obviously into "gossip." (By the way, don't fall for this widely promulgated but completely discredited folk etymology: Politicians seeking to learn the opinions of their constituents would send their buddies to local taverns with the instruction, "Go sip some ale," so information gleaned in this way was called "gossip.")

In fact, "gossip" derives from the Old English "godsibb," which first meant "related by God" and, eventually, "godparent." If you've ever heard a garrulous godparent prattle on about cousin Henry's drinking or Aunt Ellie's flirtation with the preacher, you can see why "godparent" came to mean "gossip."

Like God in "The Great Gatsby," a gossip sees everything.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to WordGuy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.