I bet you didn’t know that if you have trouble determining your own ubication, you might not be in possession of a strong viatic urge.
“Ubication” and “viatic” are at least obscure and probably obsolete words, but they go together pretty well. “Viatic” means anything related to travel. “Viatic” has the same root as “via,” which is, surprise surprise, the Latin word “via” (way). “Via” appeared in English in the late 1700s, which seems to be about the same time “viatic” was used as well. While “via” is still used quite widely, and means “by way of,” “viatic” seems to have succumbed to its own viatic urges and fled common usage for parts unknown. But who knows; it might just reappear unexpectedly one of these days.
“Ubication” means “relation to a place”; it’s the awareness of where you are. It comes from Latin too, but in this case modern rather than ancient Latin. It’s the English version of the Latin word “ubicatio,” which means “in a specific place.” Its root word is “ubi,” meaning location.
“Ubi” is also the root of “ubiquitous.” In Latin if you add “que” to make “ubique” (which you certainly could, since “ubique” is itself a Latin word), it means “all places” or “everywhere” — and that’s where we got “ubiquitous.”
“Ubication,” like “viatic,” disappeared from common use sometime in the late 1800s, not that they were ever particularly common in the first place. They don’t even appear in most dictionaries any more, but you cam find them if you happen to have handy a copy of the Vest Pocket Dictionary by J. Jenkins, published in London around the 1860s. Most people don’t have a copy these days; I blame modern trends in style. Vests and their corresponding pockets are getting more and more rare.
