BS: Philology

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 02:29 PM

///DigereeDooDoo   
Wettest crap humanly possible that a person can take
"After a crazy night of partying and take-out I took the worst DigereeDooDoo, it smelt sacreligious and wrong...""////

I had one of those this morning--a fitting retribution for last night's shameless debauchery.

Regard "ex" meaning to cut or remove and actually being the word "ax" I just remembered "ex calibur" Arthur's sword. It means "cut precisely" or IOW a precision axe. Pretty neato, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Ed T
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 01:16 PM

DigereeDooDoo   
Wettest crap humanly possible that a person can take
"After a crazy night of partying and take-out I took the worst DigereeDooDoo, it smelt sacreligious and wrong...""

Fuck You Tax
A non-discretionary charge or fee placed on orders or purchases from certain companies, frequently ticket retailers and cinemas. The charge never relates to a specific cost incurred by the company and is purely an additional fee to boost profits. So called as the company in question knows the consumer has no option but to pay, so their charging it is the company saying, "Fuck You, Pay it."
£1.50 'Booking fee' on my cinema tickets - that's just a 'Fuck You tax'!
Source, Urban Dictionary

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 01:01 PM

Gotchs, friend. Asking for sources and facts rather than wild speculation & spurious nonsense is "picking a fight".

Get a life. Or better yet, a brain.

PS: its alien abduction causes Autism, ya know? Those horrific experiments.....

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 11:29 AM

///Good job of confirming my suspicions. Thanks.///

If you want people to respond to you in an approving manner, you ASK NICELY. You don't pick a fight. When you pick a fight, you get your ass kicked and it proves nothing except that you're an asshole.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 11:22 AM

////Also as you have probably noticed Greg, no sense of humor either.////

Yeah, no kidding.

////*grin*...'ex' is a has been, and 'spurt' is a drip under pressure. It's clear as mud, cat.////

Ah,ha! Sorry, it was a slow day yesterday and even slower today since I was out til 4 am.

Expert, of course, shares the same root with "experience."   It comes from the Latin "experiri" ot "to try". Experiment is another variation obviously.

The "ex" really comes from "ax" or "axe" and indicates cutting or separating or removing. Hence ex-wife, excision, exorcise, exorbitant, extend, exact, etc. I don't think it applies to expert in that sense but it might.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 10:04 AM

Well, Spaw, when the aliens beam these explanations into his head he's forced to accept them as absolute fact under threat they'll abduct him & torture him again.

I wouldn't want to be in that position, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 05:56 AM

Also as you have probably noticed Greg, no sense of humor either.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 08:05 PM

Accept it or don't, asshole. I don't have to prove anything...

Good job of confirming my suspicions. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 07:51 PM

*grin*...'ex' is a has been, and 'spurt' is a drip under pressure. It's clear as mud, cat.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 06:05 PM

"Expert" has no such meaning.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 05:59 PM

Oh, it make perfect sense.... just as 'expert' can be dissected to mean a "has-been drip under pressure"

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 03:46 PM

Accept it or don't, asshole. I don't have to prove anything to you or anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 12:51 PM

I don't give sources anymore because they are never accepted...

Or, more likely, because there ARE no sources and/or its complete bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 11:37 AM

I was looking up the meaning of "prevaricate." It means "bow-legged." Here's how:

We often use the word as a synonym for "lie." Actually, it means to deviate from the truth. Like when your kids get in a fight over something and each starts off with the same account and subtly veers off from there to make the other look totally guilty.

It comes from the Latin "praevaricari" or "to act in collusion." But its roots are "prae" or "to" and "varicare" or "straddle." To straddle.

Varicare descends from "varus" which is "bow-legged."

So if you're bow-legged, you're a lying son of a bitch.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 11:13 PM

C-flat, your point is well taken. In the early Christian communities, various types of believers sat next to one another in the services. What united them wasn't their beliefs but the language. "Christ hung on the cross and gave his life for the world and then rose from the grave after three days" meant vastly different things to these believers. But each clung to that language and, through it, to one another.

In contrast today, look at Americans--conservatives and liberals utterly loathing one another, ready to tear America apart to have their way. Unable to agree to disagree and unwilling to take the high road. The language now isn't unitive but divisive. We'll never find common ground in beliefs because we are all different. We must find it in the language in which we express those beliefs but we have done too much to destroy that as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 10:59 PM

Penny, just do what I do. Take from sources what you're comfortable taking. Let the rest of it go. I'm not enamored with Theosophy. But I do like comparative religion. I really the Jordan Maxwell article. I think he gets it.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 09:24 PM

Hmmmmm...

A lot of what I thought I remembered wasn't there ... maybe it's further down in longer quotes ... read in more detail ... elsewhere ...? Anyway, these are the first four items quoted:

1919 Huon Times (Franklin) 24 Jan. 4/3 The nigger crew is making merry with the Diridgery doo and the eternal ya-ya-ya ye-ye-ye cry.

1919 Smith's Weekly (Sydney) 5 Apr. 15/1 The Northern Territory aborigines have an infernal—allegedly musical—instrument, composed of two feet of hollow bamboo. It produces but one sound—'didjerry, didjerry, didjerry—' and so on ad infinitum. … When a couple of niggers started grinding their infernal 'didjerry' half the hot night through, the blasphemous manager decided on revenge.

1924 Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Dec. 24/1 Didjeridoo—didjeridoo! A blackfellow blows through a length of bamboo.

1925 M. Terry Across Unknown Aust. 190 The didjiri-du … is a long hollow tube, often a tree root about 5 feet long, slightly curved at the lower end. The musician squats on the ground, resting his instrument on the earth. He fits his mouth into the straight or upper end and blows down it in a curious fashion. He produces an intermittent drone.

[It may also be that I read some of these quotes in rather more "politically correct(ed)" form!] Anyway, there id no doubt that all the authors of the earliest citations were sure that the instrument made a "~ didgery sound" - so there is no foundation for the invention of a very convoluted fake Oirish source for the name!

Regard(les)s,

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 09:10 PM

G'day Freda,

I don't have the references in front of me, but the (proprietor / editor / printer / distributor / ... street-seller ... ?) of the Huon Times didn't give a name ... merely complained about the sound (and characterised if as "~ ... didgerry, didgerry ...) so the claims above that the instrument doesn't make that sound rather quickly founders.

The possibility that the instrument was shared with visiting Malays is quite high. Various Islanders from north of Australia traditionally used modern Northern Territory and North Queensland areas as shore bases during their traditional fishing activities ... and also planted gardens / orchards for their food supply (even good fresh fish can get boring ... ).

Certainly some of their words must have been picked up by coastal-dwelling Aborigines ... it's probable that bamboo didges were used, particularly as 'starter' didges, as a really good 'anted out' hardwood limb was a valuable rarity ... and would have been more common in the arid interior! I'll see if I can't get the exact Huon Times quote online (via Australian National Dictionary ...?)

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: freda underhill
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 05:34 PM

G'day Bob

That's interesting re the bamboo didges. The article I linked to also says "As there are many Aboriginal languages in Australia, so there are numerous Aboriginal words for this musical instrument. Some examples are: bambi, bombo, illpera and yidali. "

Bambi and bombo could possibly relate to bamboo.

Here's some more info about the history of the didgeridoo, and it's referred to as a trumpet. This site says that in 1925, "the word didgeridoo came into being, attributed to Herbert Basedow". In 1926, Anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner commenced field research at Milingimbi, and later published "A Black Civilization: A Social Study of an Aboriginal Tribe", the first ethnographic study of an Australian Aboriginal tribe. Mention is made of the Iraki, a "trumpet about four feet long".

Herbert Basedow was an early anthropologist and environmentalist. It's said he coined the word, but without having access to more info about that, it's hard to know it it was just because he was the first white person to use it.

fredalina :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 04:58 PM

And it goes on to discuss matters which you have, Vishnu and Oannes being linked, and the fish link with various parts of the Bible. As an atheist, you will not agree with much of it.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 04:48 PM

josepp, I know you did not invent Oannes - it is the links I find unlikely. I basically selected from the first sites that google threw up, and I admit I did not read the last text - but it was the only one that remotely looked like something original. It hasn't been scanned very well, has it?

I'm glad Atlantis makes you wince, and clearly the Hyperboreans had some sort of existence, though in some places the meaning is stretched in directions the original references do not support. But they were invoked in some of those places, along with the ideas you have been putting forward.

The last text, by the way, gets better scanned further in, but is not a primary source - I would call it gnostic, except it calls itself theosophy, and proclaims as truth various concepts without explaining where it gets them from. The style looks 19th century or early 20th.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 04:31 PM

G'day freda, (freda underhill - PM Date: 05 Feb 11 - 12:16 AM)

This Irish attempt to invent a 'spud-irish' "origin" for the Australianism "Didgeridoo" splashed through the MudCat waters a few years back. I pointed out that the Huon Times article was the earliest printed source and hadn't claimed the word as Aboriginal ... or as the "name" of the istrument ... but referred to it as the sound of the instrument (played, not by Aborigines, but by ~ Malay sailors on a sailing vessel moored nearby the shed from which the Huon Times was published!

(Incidentally, for those who claim that bamboo didges are a modern corruption ... those described in the paper - the first known reference ... were bamboo ...)!

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 04:12 PM

I don't give sources anymore because they are never accepted, it never changes anyone's minds, people go off on ad hominem attacks on the authors--it's a waste of time. You should be old enough to know by now that people believe whatever they want to believe and nothing you have to say about it is going to convince them otherwise. so why waste your time? I'm giving you the info, I could care less whether you accept it.

The intenet is ok for research but it is also a cesspool. Go the libraries and bookstores and get books. Anyone can start an internet site and say whatever they want.

With that said, I saw nothing wrong in those links you listed except the Meerwing article and the last one which I did not understand. It seems you posted it because it had the name Oannes in it. I did not make Oannes up and he is not an invention of New Age internet weirdos. I first read about him in college which is where I first learned the story of the fish-man or reptile-man that impregnated the woman that started the Meerwing lineage. No one made that up but the Meerwings themselves. The other articles seemed to me to be perfectly good.

As for Hyperborea, it is often used to mean the races that inhabited the Northern and Arctic regions. It generally excludes modern Scandinavian culture except that Scandinavians themselves often think of themselves as Hyperboreans. References to Atlanteans makes me wince. Hyperboreans not so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: C-flat
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 03:59 PM

Our language is constantly evolving and mutating but we seem to be getting further away from understanding the linguistic sources.
Our ancestors had a much deeper understanding of the meaning and significance of words, often intentionally using them as allergorical references, fully expecting each other to be able to identify the reference or sub-text and using language almost playfully.
As a race we may be more scientifically advanced but on an individual level we seemed terribly dumbed-down by comparison.

Great topic josepp.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 03:49 PM

Sorry, the Fisher Kings link lost in translation.

Fisher Kings

I could post a musical link, in that there's a song about a fisherman in the Marrow Bones collection, in which he turns out to be the local lord, and the notes suggest a link with Fisher King mythology, but I can't find the lyrics on line.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 03:38 PM

So I've done a bit of fishing (not deliberate figure of speech, but hey, leave it in) and come up with the following sites. In some cases self described as esoteric or occult, with references to Atlantis, the Hyperboreans, and Primordial Tradition (capitalised). I could find no vestige of a beginning in most, or source for what is stated with such confidence. One is supposedly an ancient document. My search terms were "Oannes, bishop, Vishnu"

Oannes

Fisher Kings

comparative religion?

Seeking truth?

Look, the merovingians are in on it!

And Celtic Christianity

A primary source text

There's more out there. If you are interested.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 03:10 PM

Still no reference to sources.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: mayomick
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 02:52 PM

I hope nobody opens the auld rigadoo thread after reading Freda's reference to the origin of the word didgeridoo.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 01:13 PM

When I mentioned Oannes the fish-man being the precursor or the pope, this is what I mean:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_ciencia/matrix14_04.jpg

It's all fish cult symbolism. One other thing I just remembered were the nuns. She wears black to commemorate Saturn but her name is the Hebrew letter nun which means what? Fish. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 12:55 PM

Sorry, he's a working link showing the Durham doorknocker.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/16/23256651_94b3d57056.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 12:28 PM

People knew about the rings long before Galileo. That's the same thing you hear about prescession--it was discovered by Hipparchus in 127 BC. Bunk it was known far longer than that.

Saturn was called the Greater Malefic because it stood in opposition at the edge of universe to God's central light--the sun, of course. In the old legends, Saturn was imaged as a serpent biting its tail or the ouroboros. There is your ring again.

There was a Cult of Saturn at one time, they called him El. His color was black, his metal was lead, his bird was the crow. So his priests wore black as they still do. Priests, nuns, judges all wear black for that reason. Saturn's number was 7 and is responsible for the 7-day week and he is the last day in that week--Saturday. For centuries, his day was the sabbath before Constantine switched it over to Sunday. Early Christians still observed Saturday as the sabbath because they were closer to being El woorshippers than Sol worshippers.

Monks (whose name signifies the moon) still paid homage to Saturn by shaving their heads in a ring. Magicians enclosed themselves in protective circles, married couples exchange wedding rings, Jews wear the yarmulke as does the pope and his cardinals all to commemorate Saturn's rings. When the yogi puts his thumb and forefinger together it is commemorate the rings of Saturn. When a sovereign wears a crown, it is to commemorate the rings of Saturn. Corona and Cronos sound alike for a reason.

But eventually a Cult of Jove arose and Saturn became demonized. His orbit also enclosed those of Venus and Mars and Jupiter and Mercury--his children so he was said to have swallowed his children. Jove overthrew him, however, because he was the leader of the new cult. The story is told in Matthew as Jesus supplanting Herod as the new king. When Herod/Saturn saw a new "star" that others hailed as king, ordered a massacre, i.e. Saturn rules the darkest time of the year--winter in teh sign of the goat.

Saturn simply beame Satan. Said to be horned because if you look at Saturn through low-power lenses, he appears to be horned. Galileo thought of him as "eared." Many old images of the ouroboros show a horned serpent.

http://www.absentofi.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/ouroboros2.jpg

http://enjoyingliterature.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ouroboros.jpg

In esoteric Christianity, before there was a sun, Saturn was a "Dark Lord" in the form of a searing heat that attacked the universe threatening to dessicate it into dead matter. A hero arrived--a man sporting a long blond mane, wearing a mantle of stars and riding in a chariot--who strummed his lyre and roared out a victory song of life and light and the brilliant blasted the darkness to the edge of the universe in the form of the ouroboros and Saturn even takes that form in miniature--a universe surrounded by a ring. This hero is seen on the door of the Durham cathedral--a doorknocker imaged as a fearsome lion forever guarding against the Lord of Darkness--the evil horned one--Saturn. That old serpent.

The tarot tells that story and here is the Hero:

http://www.nodntap.net/tarot/images/the_chariot.jpg

He is also called the Lion King and we know him best as Leo. The blond mane, of course, being the golden rays of the sun because he is the sun--the Great Hero--and Leo represents the time of year when the sun is at its greatest strength and the ruler of the sign of Leo is the sun.

The Lion King Hero guarding the sanctuary at Durham

So, yes, humanity knew Saturn was ringed long before Galileo. We need to knock off with this European saviors crap. We keep acting like the world was chaos and ignorance before the Europeans arrived. It was mostly chaos only after.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Feb 11 - 05:45 AM

When you refer to a ring of Saturn, do you mean what most people currently visualise as Saturn's rings? Which no-one knew about before Galileo? Which can hardly be a throwback to ancient knowledge.

And where have you discovered all this hidden knowledge?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 07:19 PM

Often prayers just seem to be a list of instructions to God, telling him/her what the person who is praying wants, with 'Amen' finishing it off and sending the wishlist on its way.

I recently heard an account of Mother Teresa talking about prayer. When asked what she said to God, she replied, 'I don't say anything. I just listen.'
When asked what God said, she replied, 'He doesn't say anything. He just listens.'

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 05:55 PM

////I recently heard 'Amen' described as 'the biblical equivalent of "Send"'.////

So is it "send" or "so be it"? See what I mean? They disguise the source of the word. Amen is the Hidden God that you pray to in private and never tell anyone what the prayer was for. This has roots in magic and such going back centuries. In hoodoo, for example, one buries an object in the casting of a spell and nmust never tell anyone where. The spell being what? A desire for a certain outcome. In short, a prayer.

I was reading this book on sex magic and it mentioned that after practicing a sex magic ritual, if one has a desire of some sort, reduce it to a symbol and draw that symbol on a piece of paper. And then never look at it again. The symbol shold be fairly complex because you want to forget what it looked like. You never tell anyone about it. It must be secret. Now, I'm not saying this works or doesn't work, I wouldn't know, but it demonstrates that when we pray, we pray to the Hidden God and that prayer is a secret. In this sense, group prayer for a specific outcome might have been seen ancient Christians or magic practitioners as totally useless because prayer must be individual and it must be known only to that individual to be effective.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:35 PM

My Oxford dictionary (1993 edition) cites as an example of the use of 'amber' as an adjective:

A. WILSON      I regard this as the amber warning.

But it doesn't say where the quotation comes from or give a date.

It also includes 'yellow alert' – 'the preliminary stage of an alert, when danger is thought to be near but not actually imminent; a warning of such a situation.'

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:15 PM

I recently heard 'Amen' described as 'the biblical equivalent of "Send"'.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 04:14 PM

Interesting article on the didgeridoo, Freda. I had always assumed it was an aboriginal word. I'm surprised the word only goes back to 1919. That would indicate that it is not an aboriginal word. I looked it up on Wiki which states the word is probably of Western derivation and likely Irish. I'm inclined to agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 03:52 PM

I'm well are of "epi" and "scopus" but you have to understand that the organized religions borrowed older terms and titles because it was what people were used to and then had to obscure those meanings. Another example is "Amen" which means "hidden." We are told it means "so be it." Ridiculous. It is the Egyptian word for the Hidden God, the god of prayer and supplication. Amen is that force in the world that moves things along but is unseen, unheard.

Jesus talks of Amen in Matthew:

Matthew 6:4
    That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

Matthew 6:18
    That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

Matthew 6:6
    But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father WHICH SEETH IN SECRET SHALL REWARD THEE OPENLY.

Since the Jews came out of Egypt, according the standard histories, they had adopted many Egyptian modes of thought and belief. When they broke away, those modes couldn't be changed--that's throwing out the baby with the bath water. So they changed the meanings underlying. That's why we think of Moses being a Hebrew name. It's Egyptian and can be found in such Egyptian names as Thutmoses.

Same with the sun disc--Aton which was renamed over the centuries as Adon, Adonis, Attis, Odin, Eden, etc.--but you look in bibles and what not and they tell you all sorts of crap.

It becomes necessary for the new cult to both incorporate and, at the same time, obliterate the old one. So the term episcopal can have its fish cult source hidden by its Greek counterpart which has nothing to do with fish.

Here's some examples:

http://www.calvaryoakgrove.com/clientimages/21771/logo_rgb.png

http://acl.asn.au/wp/uploads/old_logo_baptistunion.jpg

Here two Christian denominations use the sun as a symbol because Christianity is solar worship. The bottom logo was the old Baptist logo. I read up on it and the Baptists were insisting that it is NOT the sun, damn it! But, of course, it is. The sun disc, more precisely. It is Aton all over again. For that reason, I believe, the Baptists stopped using it as their official logo.

The top logo shows Aton and the four cardinal points--the solstices and equinoxes. It can also represent the intersection of the ecliptic and the celestial equator. Ask someone from that denomination and they will emphatically deny it means any such thing--it's Christ the Light of the World giving his life on the cross for the world. Metaphorically, however, that is precisely the meaning of the sun as it crosses the intersection of celestial equator and ecliptic in the spring and fall.

Look at an analog watch or clock. Notice it has three hands. The shortest hand that moves very slowly is the hour hand, the longer one that moves faster is the minute hand Where does the word "hour" come from? From "Horus" the Egyptian solar god. His name turns up in horae and horoscope and probably the houris as well--the 72 virgins the Muslims morons are blowing themselves up for. What about the minute hand? Well, what does "min" mean? It means "moon". The minute hand represents the moon. But look up history of the word "minute" and it won't tell you that. Yet, what is a clock? A representation of the heavens, of course. The sky was our original clock.

So what is the second hand representative of? A clue is that it is the fastest moving hand on the clock.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 03:44 PM

Ebbie: Agree re 'yellow' ~~ I was brought up to Red Yellow Green; but Amber is the official designation in our Highway Code. I still think the traffic-light sequence the real origin of the phrase this thread dealt with, & the case of Amber Hagerman was probably linked to it by headline &c association, leading to the sort of backformed folk etymology I have already suggested. After all, that wasn't till 1996; surely the usage is older than that?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: gnu
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 03:31 PM

josepp... fascinating stuff!

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 03:18 PM

I think everyone n the US knows what is meant by 'Red, Amber, Green', but in my experience it is far more common to call the amber light 'yellow', i.e. "the light had just turned yellow when I started through it."

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 02:58 PM

Except that the word splits as epi - scopus and is equivalent to overseer. And sexton derives from sacristan, and looks after the sacred objects. I admit origins suggested for deacon are alittle forced.

What is your source?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 11:36 AM

Most of our ancient titles derive from astrology and have carried over into religion and govt which were the same thing for many centuries and still is in places like the Middle East and South Asia. Cleric is the same word as clerk for example and derives from a time when religious clerics ran fulfilled those particular governmental functions.

Minister comes from "min" or moon and "ster" or star. If it ever meant a servant outside of a public servant (which is really a master) it would only be because a later solar cult displaced and degraded it. Magister or "Great in the stars" as in great in reading them--a black-robed magi. He was Old Father Time--the Judge. Saturn was imaged as an old man because it was the slowest moving planet observable to the ancient peoples. So The magistrate symbolized Saturn. The minister at a church still carries this symbolism forth by his collar--the ring of Saturn. Saturn's representative on earth. Even though Christianity is a solar religion, it carries forth much of the symbols of the earlier lunar and stellar cults which all held great sway at one time.

Same with deacon--same as decan which was used in astrology. His job, originally for time-keeping purposes, was to watch for when the decan constellations rose which was every 10 days and hence the term "decan". In modern Christianity, he is a "cleric."

Same with the sexton--the cleric who rings the bell and digs the graves and so on. Why should his title have anything to do with the number 6? Because at one time his job was to go outside and take a reading of various celestial bodies for time-keeping purposes and the device he used was an adjustable graduated 6th of a circle which we call a sextant.

The Catholic Church has the title of cardinal, why? For the cardinall points of the zodiac--the two solstices and equinoxes. They surround the pope who represents the sun. These particular days were considered hinges of the year and cardinal is Latin for hinge. Their red robes verify that the sun shines on them--that is, they are near the pope and receive some measure of his authority.

Bishop derives from vishnu, the god who rose from the mouth of a great fish (sound familiar?). He is the priest of the piscean cult--of Jesus Christ and he wears the mitre hat which is really a fish-head in honor of Oannes, the fish-man who came from the sea to teach humans and who was depicted a man wearing a fish skin. Today we call Oannes the fish-man by Christianized name of John the Baptist. Born 6 months before Jesus, according to the gospel story, he was on the exact opposite side of the zodiac so that with he and Jesus together, the year is complete--the waning and waxing halves, as they are called.

Now, you'll read that "bishop" comes from "bisceop" and shares the same root as "episcopus" and yet look at the latter word. Pisces is hidden inside it!!

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 08:40 AM

They called themselves [Tolkien et al] "The Inklings" ~~ nice punning name; they met at The Eagle & Child, near St John's College.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 08:21 AM

Incidentally, Barfield was one of the friends who met with Tolkien and C S Lewis at a pub in Oxford to discuss this sort of stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 08:19 AM

Hi, josepp, interesting thread. I do think that you might not be right about magister/magistrate. Magister is a pair with minister, and both prefixes are to do with size or status. A minister was originally a servant(and jolly well should remember it), while the greater (magna) person was the master.

Wich and wick had to do with trade in some cases - some are salt sources. A port or market, usually, or a manufacturing centre (Chiswick for cheese, eg). A few have been connected with Viking "vik", or inlet. I'm wondering which Sandwich is, being a major port in the early middle ages, but also a sandy inlet.

Though castra meant camp, not all places with the element were Roman forts. Rochester in Kent was a city retaining its Roman walls, as was Gloucester. The English were free with their definitions, and did not distinguish forts and cities.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 06:44 AM

I agree, josepp, that language is a kind of fossil, which can be broken open to reveal ancient usages and aspects of life. A long time ago I studied Linguistics & Phonetics at Uni, and was fascinated by all this. Geographically, for example, one can trace here in the UK the progress of various settlers and invaders by the place names. Here in Norfolk, 'thorpe' is an Anglo-Saxon word for settlement. I feel that Amber as a girls' name is with regard to the beauty of the fossil when used in silver jewellery, as it was by the Vikings/Danes in the Dark Ages. I have only recently become reconciled to the fact that language is constantly changing and 'mutating'. Common modern usage will confer status on a new expression or word. Instead of being irritated by 'ghastly' modern jargon, I now try to embrace it as 'evolution'. For instance, 'haitch' for 'aitch' jarrs dreadfully, but probably one day it will be universally accepted. Your thread is fascinating, thank you josepp!

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 05:53 AM

The fasces, or bundle of rods + axe, symbolised not only strength thru unity: they were carried before the Roman consuls, or chief magistrates, whose office became elective after the Tarquin royal dynasty were expelled, by their lictors [official guards and attendants]; and they represented rods+axe for punishment/execution, to symbolise the power of the State, represented by the consuls, with regard to law-enforcement ~~ surely the reason for Mussolini's having adopted the name Facisti for his totalitarian party, and used the fasces as its symbol.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: josepp
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 02:31 AM

Odd too that natives of the Americas had Greek words in their language. Potomac meaning river and potamos meaning water. The Teocali meaning house of god same as theou kalia. Tomahawk means cut and whack. Toma is cut and atom in Greek means not cut.

Other strange words are "fascinate" which shares the same root with "Fascism"--both come from "fasces" which are white birch rods tied together with an bronze axehead protruding to symbolize the strength through unity. Fasces means "bundle." The symbol in Ancient Rome evoked feelings of deep loyalty and hence fascination. It used to be on the backs of American dimes but has since been replaced by a torch.

A type of Croatian neckwear appealed tot he French who called it croate which became crovate then cravate and finally cravat.

Trumpet, trombone, drum and thunder are all essentially the same word.

English towns like Manchester, Lancaster, Gloucester and Dorchester get their name from the Latin castra or camp. And I have heard that the wich and wick in town names as Norwich, Sandwich, Southwick, Eastwick etc also means camp.

Thing is Viking and means an assembly. "This thing" "This assembly." Thingvoll, Assembly Wall.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Egnlish slang for a girl--bint--is also the Arabic word for a girl. The old name for Ireland was Scotia and was taken over by Scotland. Scotia is Greek for dark.

Curfew is of Norman-French derivation--couver-feu or cover the fire, put it out as in go home.

Magister and Magistrate from which master is derived both contain "magi"--someone who mastered the stars, someone of great learning or ability or power.

Gasket is from the French for "little girl." The first gaskets were made of braided rope and resembled a girls braided pigtails. Screw means pig because of the curly tail. Torque means torture and refers to tightening as with a rack or thumbscrews. So an instruction as "position the gasket and cover and install four screws in cover and torque screws" really means to position the little girl and cover and install four pigs and then torture the pigs.

Disposition comes from astrology and related to star location which they believed affected a person's mood and hence "He was of a jolly disposition."

Mathematics derives from the Greek mathein or "to learn."

The Romans were not studious or pendantic. When the needed a word for a place of learning, the took it from the Greeks--schola. That became the Latin word for "school." But to the Greeks, talking about philosophy, mathematics, dialectic, debate, etc. was a natural way to spend one's time and hence these disciplines classified as schola which is Greek for "leisure."

The word jot came from the Greek letter iota.

Paper is derived from papyrus for obvious reasons.

Mystery derives from the Greek muein or "to keep silent" but which became "to initiate" which gave rise to a body of secret teachings or mu-sterion which became in Latin "mysterium" and finally mystery.

Apoplexy is Greek but in Latin is "sideratio" meaning star-struck. Likewise a crisis meant a point at which a disease turned either for the better or the worse and depended upon the conjunction of the stars.

Ammonia is Egyptian and named for an alkali in the soil of Libya near where stood a temple to Zeus-Ammon. Autumn, where nights grow longer than the days, is derived from the Egyptian god Atum--the god of the setting sun.

Temple is derived from temporal because the priests of the temples set the calendars and were seen as the keepers of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Philology
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Feb 11 - 12:16 AM

Here's an interesting article discussing the origin of the word didgeridoo. Some think it's not an Aboriginal word, but is of Irish or Scots Gaelic origin.