Shutters

"Don't forget to open your shutters!" I reminded my daughter as she emerged from her bedroom, ready for school.  As the words came out of my mouth, the oxymoronic sound of "open your shutters" caught my attention.  

Yes, I knew that the original purpose of shutters was to bar a window against thieves or stormy weather!  In fact, I've heard a friend who specializes in historical architecture complain about modern decorative shutters that are so much narrower than the windows they frame that if the shutters were truly functional, they wouldn't even cover the glass.  But . . . it had never actually dawned on me that the word "shutters" started out as the simplest way to express the simplest function: shutting the windows.