Transparent printing

Traces is the word I usually use when speaking of things that linger from the past and show themselves in the present.  I think that is because traces is a word used in the linguistic literature to show underlying grammatical structures that have disappeared but that still have prints on the surface structure of a modern usage.  But the word traces lacks the idea that the prints left from past use are still extant because they are so very important to the people still speaking the language.  The prints have merely survived for one reason or another through accidental fortune.

When it comes to experiences that have indelibly imprinted my current way of thinking and acting, I believe that a different word is better.  Latin had two words that have come to us.  The way the roots came into English were the same,  via French, and were only separated by a couple of hundred years for their entrance into the language.  The second word meant the same as the first, but had an aspect the first one didn't have.  The first word shows up in a number of  examples like tract, retract, detract, contract, subtract, and a few others.  The past participle form of trahere is tractus  which meant to drag.  That implies that someone can see evidence of the item being dragged.  Tractus morphed into a verb in French during the Middle Ages when French customs and language were fashionable in London.  That French word  became the word trace.  But, another Latin word was making its way into English, also via the French influence on English, at almost the same time, vestigium,  footprint.  That word showed up a little later in English as vestige.

So, now two words exist to choose from that are very close in meaning.  As I consider my current way of acting and believing, I want to choose the more recent word.  It is not merely a fortunate accident that I have become what I am, it is because someone's live and active footprint stepped into my life.  Someone walked with me and became a part of the fabric of my soul, my psyche.  The memory foam of my mind recorded the exact print and it lives in a place within even today.  The vestige of that print is extant... deliberate... and very important still... for anyone to see.