There are two possible derivations for the word “about”.
One has been assiduously researched by experts.
The other we just made up.
On the one hand
From French we have au but, “to (or with) the aim, goal, objective, purpose [of]…”. But itself seems to be semantically (or at least morphologically) related to au bout, with bout literally indicting the extremity of an object (e.g. tip, end, point), or the limits of a specific space-time (e.g. bottom of the bag, end of the road, completion of the journey). Worth noting is that bout can also be used to indicate a fragment, morsel, or portion (a bit of cloth, a slice of cake, a part of the way).
On the other hand
From Old English we have abutan (adv., prep.), earlier onbutan “on the outside of; around the circumference of, enveloping; in the vicinity of, near,” also in Late Old English “near in time, number, degree, etc., approximately.”
We don’t remember which we made up.
So, to ask “what is this about?” is effectively asking “to what end are you doing this; what are your limits?”
Thus, an ‘About Section’ basically exists to draw a neat little border around the totality of everything one should expect to encounter in a given forum.
But honestly, being expected to circumscribe this whole venture and prefigure its ideal form… sorta seems like a bit of bullshit.
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