the.com/tameness
the slow surrender wolves made to wagging tails, all for a steady supply of scraps
means The quality of being calm, docile, and unthreatening — whether in a domesticated animal, a subdued person, or something that's lost its wild edge.
from From 'tame,' rooted in Old English 'tam' (domesticated, gentle), with cousins across the Germanic family — Old Norse 'tamr,' German 'zahm.' These likely trace back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to subdue' or 'to tie down,' the same ancient idea that surfaces in Latin 'domare' (to tame) and Greek 'damao.' The '-ness' suffix is the old English way of turning a quality into a noun, so 'tameness' is simply the state of having been brought to heel.
- foxes
- Soviet experiment bred tame foxes in 60 years
- floppy ears
- tameness brings floppy ears and spotted coats
- self-made
- humans likely self-domesticated, growing friendlier over millennia
- brain shrinks
- domesticated animals have smaller brains than wild kin
service dogs — golden retrievers and labradors bred and trained for tameness to guide blind people and assist disabled individuals