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Reader question: Please explain this sentence and “par excellence”: The moon-god is par excellence the god of nomadic peoples, their guide and protector at night when, during a great part of the year, they undertake their wanderings, just as the sun-god is the chief god of an agricultural people. My comments: Nomads are people who move like migrating birds. They move in search of greener pastures, so to speak. And a lot of times they move at night, when they don’t have the scorching sun to deal with. That’s why nomadic peoples worship the moon like no other. To them the moon-god is what the sun-god is to agricultural people, people who grow crops and stay in the same place year after year. Hence the statement that the moon-god is par excellence the god of nomadic peoples. In other words, the moon-god is in a class of its own, more revered than all other gods. Par excellence? That’s actually French in origin, literally by excellence, by the standard of excellence; par meaning by, as in Par Avion, by airplane. The young generation no longer sent love letters by mail and so may be excused for not knowing what “Par Avion” is about; It’s, writ large, on many envelops. Used to be the case, at any rate, in the not too distant past, 1990s, for instance. Anyways, par excellence means by the standard of excellence, excellence being the adjective form of excel and excellent. We talk of performances that are excellent and we talk of people who excel in sports and other walks of life. And when we do that, we mean to say that the said performance or person is better than anyone else. | 
