Luscious

I was listening to a local San Francisco TV Reporter last night. He and the young lady that is on with him were discussing forest fires and parks and stuff and things. He was talking about one particular park in the Red Woods and described a waterfall as a "Luscious" waterfall. That struck me as odd--what was he going to do? Eat it? Luscious = having a delicious taste or smell-sweet-appealing. From the Latin "lucius". I suppose the water from the waterfall might taste sweet or something. Maybe there was a dead skunk up stream. I couldn't give up--so! Luxuriance = fertile, rich, luxury. From the Latin "luxe". "A rich waterfall?" I don't think so. Lush = soft-tender-growing with luxuriant foliage-thriving. "Maybe along the banks it was thriving with foliage?" Then you have "lush" as in drunk--source unknown. Seems to me the Reporter could have found a better word to describe a waterfall. One of our Word members is an Editor/Reporter--I better be careful.

Star of David

The Magen David (shield of David, or as it is more commonly known, the Star of David) is the symbol most commonly associated with Judaism today, but it is actually a relatively new Jewish symbol. It is supposed to represent the shape of King David's shield (or perhaps the emblem on it), but there is really no support for that claim in any early rabbinic literature. In fact, the symbol is so rare in early Jewish literature and artwork that art dealers suspect forgery if they find the symbol in early works.

Scholars such as Franz Rosenzweig have attributed deep theological significance to the symbol. For example, some note that the top triangle strives upward, toward G-d, while the lower triangle strives downward, toward the real world. Some note that the intertwining makes the triangles inseparable, like the Jewish people. Some say that the three sides represent the three types of Jews: Kohanim, Levites and Israel. While these theories are theologically interesting, they have little basis in historical fact.

The symbol of intertwined equilateral triangles is a common one in the Middle East and North Africa, and is thought to bring good luck. It appears occasionally in early Jewish artwork, but never as an exclusively Jewish symbol. The nearest thing to an "official" Jewish symbol at the time was the menorah.

In the middle ages, Jews often were required to wear badges to identify themselves as Jews, much as they were in Nazi Germany, but these Jewish badges were not always the familiar Magen David. For example, a fifteenth century painting by Nuno Goncalves features a rabbi wearing a six-pointed badge that looks more or less like an asterisk.

In the 17th century, it became a popular practice to put Magen Davids on the outside of synagogues, to identify them as Jewish houses of worship in much the same way that a cross identified a Christian house of worship; however, I have never seen any explanation of why this symbol was chosen, rather than some other symbol.

The Magen David gained popularity as a symbol of Judaism when it was adopted as the emblem of the Zionist movement in 1897, but the symbol continued to be controversial for many years afterward. When the modern state of Israel was founded, there was much debate over whether this symbol should be used on the flag.

Today, the Magen David is a universally recognized symbol of Jewry. It appears on the flag of the state of Israel, and the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross is known as the Red Magen David.

Months

One of the Word Members asked me about the months of the year--ought to know better than that--she'll get a "book".

Januarius or Janus was the two faced Roman God--he looked back at the old year and ahead towards the new.

Februarius was the God from Sabine--Februus--the Purifier (we get fever from febris). This was the last month of the year. (In Saxon, by the way, this was called 'solmonath' which translates into English as "mudmonth". I suppose in olde England it was pretty muddy in Feb.).

Martius is from the Roman God Mars and is the first month of the year. Mars is associated with the Greek God of War--Ares.

Aprilis--the meaning is kind of "dim". It may have come from Aphrodite--the Greek Goddess or it could of come from the Etruscan God--Aplu (Apollo)--nobody knows.

Madius comes from the Roman Goddess Maia--the daughter of Fauna and Vulcan. Vulcan was the God of Fire and Fauna was an early San Francisco "flower" child. Fauna actually has more to do with small animals.

Uunius is from the Italic Goddess Iuno--later called Hera--Romans felt that the Greek Gods were more "classy" than Italian ones.

They then gave up naming months after Gods.

Quintilis--means fifth. (Count March as 1). It was renamed Julius for Julius Caesar just after his death.

Sextilis (6th) was later named Augustus for Augustus Caesar.

Septem (7th)

Octo (8th)

Nouem (9th)

Decem (ten)

Soigenes from Alexandria, suggested that the calendar was all messed up and came up with the 365.25 days, with an extra day every 4 yeas. Caesar called the new day "punctum temporis" (point of time). It repeated day 6 before the Kalends (the Ides of March fall within the Kalends). So he called it "bis-sexto-kalendae" wich survives today as the word "bissextile" meaning "leap year".

Leap Year in Saxon/Norse is "hlaupa". We kept the "laup" part and it became "leap" in English.

The calendar worked pretty well for the next 12 Centuries.

By the way the months was broken up into kalends, nones, and ides with the "nefasti" following them. The concept of a week was unknown. The modern Sabbath every seven days comes from the Hebrew Calender--which had 13 months--the Hebrews called this extra month "Adar" and it came in mid-winter--sometimes called a second Adar. Their calendar came from the Babyloians.

Christian Emperor Constantine I in the fourth century AD--introduce the 7 day week.

The French Revolutinaries on the other hand--had no imagination at all: Vendemaire--vintage Brumaire--misty Frimaire--frosty Nivose--snowy Pluvose--rainy Ventose--windy Germinal--seedy Floreal--flowery Prairial--meadowy Messidor-harvest Thermidor--hot Fructidor--fruity

The week was replaced by a 10 day week--decade with a day of rest at the end.

The 5 intercalary were holidays--Virtue, Genius, Labor, Opinion, and Rewards--with a 6th thrown for good mesure--the Feast of the Revolution every 4 years

Corny!!

We finally changed our Calender again in 1752--Makes George Washington's Birthday about 11 days off. He kept Feb. 22nd as his birthday even though it was wrong in the new calender.

One last thing--week comes from Latin--meaning "to turn".

Enuff already!!!

Naugahyde

Just a short word for now.

Naugahyde was first made in Naugatuck, Connecticut and since it sort of looked like leather--they misspelled "hide" and made it "hyde"--Nauga plus hyde. Isn't that clever.

Had a little "filler" in the newspaper and I cut it out for my files.

The poor old Indian that the town was named after probably never saw a real live nauga running around, let alone know how to skin one out.

Fred

OK

We have done this one before, but one of the new members asked. O.K was first used in the 1840 presidential campaign. Nicknames were very popular. Everyone seemed to have one.

Van Buren was running for president and they nicknamed him "Old Kinderhook" after his birthplace in Columbia County, NY.

His New York supporters formed a club in his honor to promote his run. They called it the O.K. Club and "O.K." became the rallying cry.

Van Buren lost, but OK won and it is the most widely used word in America and is a close third in the rest of the world.

More modern spellers spell it "Okay" and I have seen it with and "e" as "Okaye". Sometimes folks are educated beyond their intelligence. "O. K." is the original--with two periods.

Hey! Six (6) days until our Second launch of four Globalstar satellites down at the Cape. Getting hectic around here. We have loaded all the upgrades to the software so we can handle 8. The 4 we have flying and 4 more.

When we launch 12 at once at the Baikonur missile site in the Ukraine---that is going be fun! July 15th is the schedule.

Picayune

From Lynn in Charlotte

When we were being petty about something, my grandmother used say that we were being 'picayune' about it, being small or (hello!) picky.

Once a common Spanish coin in NO, the picayune was worth 6.25 cents. It was also the cost of the daily newspaper, still called the Times Picayune.

Pickaniny

Fred's reply to picayune:

Reminds me of pickaniny, an Old South expression for a small child. From Spanish; pequeno (small) and ninyo (boy or child). The two words "pequeno ninyo" were rolled together by the blacks and whites--thus "pickaniny" was born. Sure a lot easier to say--try saying "pequeno ninyo" three times in a row--fast.

Podium

I have recently been watching all of the politicians running for office here in Calif. I can't vote here as I am registered in Nevada, but it is kind of entertaining--I entertain easily.

First the MC will invite the guest speaker up to the "podium".

Now that is interesting. That would mean the speaker would have to put his or her elbows on the floor.

When I was a kid the thing you put your elbows on was the "lectern" and you stood on the "podium".

'Pod' of course found is way from the Greek into Latin a long time ago. Pous (pod) means foot in Greek.

(Ped for children came into use because kids sat at the feet of their teachers--hence a pediatrician or a bike "pedal").

Podium in Latin is also a low wall at the foot of something.

A Church Pew--pew coming directly from the Greek--pous.

Now a slight case could be made for the MC's usage--Caesar sat in a throne called a "podium". This had the connotation of his courtiers "setting at his feet".

Lectern on the other hand comes from "legere" in Latin--to read--so thru the years it has come to mean "reading desk" or "lecture desk".

"Pulpit" might be a better word--it means "to stage" in Latin. Most politicians are on stage anyway--they should belong to the Actor's Guild in Hollywood.

The old Saxons and modern Germans say "pult" for a desk. That came from the Latin "Pulpit" as well.

So the next time you are asked to 'lecture' and "would you please step up to the podium", be sure you rest your elbows on the floor. (Lordy--at my age that would be really hard to do).

Someone asked about "hain't, ain't, 'tisn't, and all of those forbidden words----I have an article on them somewhere in Las Vegas--I'll try and dig them out this weekend.

I am still looking for the real meaning of "dig" as in, "I really dig your music, man!".

I searched thru "The Story of English" to no avail. I have a feeling it came from the Jazz era and that book has a section on Jazz English--but no "dig".

Pooped

Hey Gang!

Fred’s on the road this week, visiting the wilds of Texas (yipee), so he asked me to try and fill in.

Had an unpleasant experience with the dentist yesterday morning, and felt pretty poopy for the rest of the day. And that got me thinking –we feel poopy or pooped (a bad thing), but we get the straight poop (a good thing), and then there’s the scatological meaning – presumably a bad thing. How do they all tie together? Or do they?

Turns out it all comes from – SURPRISE – Ye Olde Latin, where the stern (back) of a ship was known as the "poppa." The term, in changed form, survived into English as "poop," and the poop deck is on the back end of the ship. Today, the captain does his captainly thing from the middle of the ship, but the old sailing vessels had the captain positioned on the poop deck. (It was usually the highest deck, so he – and it was always a he – could keep a better eye on things.) So any information that came straight from the poop deck meant it was good, reliable info – the straight poop.

Now at this point I had it all figured out. Certain unruly sailors didn’t trust their captain, so the word got changed around to mean the poop was really something worthless. It made sense to me that the bad sense of the word must surely contain the seeds of mutiny.

But it was not to be. The word, as all good sailors must, eventually came ashore and came to signify the seat at the back end of a carriage. From there, by extension, it came to refer to the back end of a horse, and from there to people. So that explains the scatological meaning, and it all stays tied together, tracing right back to the Latin.

To feel pooped developed the same way. The bow of a ship is designed to withstand and cut through high waves. But the poop of the ship isn’t. So a ship sailing before high winds stood a chance of being "pooped" – swamped by a high wave that could smash in the poop and let water into the ship. So if you were pooped – you were sunk.

As it turns out, then, all three meanings are related, even if they have come to mean both good and bad things. And my beautiful (I thought) theory was smashed on the shoals of research.

Poopy!

Word: The Lowly Latinate Preposition

Hi Ho Fellow Word-ers!!! Fred is tied up this week with customers and other out-of-this-world stuff, so he asked me to do a fill-in stint.

Casting about, I remembered a recent conversation with a co-worker about English grammar (I know - yuck!) and thought it might be of some interest.

"THERE ARE SOME THINGS I WON’T PUT UP WITH!!!!"

Oh, all the purist tongues are wagging now --- we all know you should NEVER end a sentence with a preposition. Let us be GC (Grammatically Correct) and say

"There are some things up with which I will not put."

Huh?

So -- just maybe -- sometimes following the rules is a communications roadblock instead of a signpost. May be -- especially if the rule is especially silly.

The English language struggled along for many centuries without a real, formal grammar book. People talked, people listened, people understood. The language grew and changed as the culture grew and changed.

Then came the Age of Rationalism -- roughly the 18^th century. Newton discovered Laws of the Universe. Science became God. So, by God, people figured the language ought to have rules, too! And thus was born prescriptive grammar, which says, "This is how you ought to talk." It’s opposed to descriptive grammar, which says, "This is how people in the real world actually talk."

(Personal note - I think the truth lies, strangely enough, somewhere between the two.)

Anyway, the linguists of the day (whose names I ought to remember, but don’t -- and all my reference books are in boxes in Feenix) needed a model so, naturally, they looked to Latin and the grammar books they had for that venerable old language. They pulled out a lot of stuff that worked with English -- subject-verb agreement, gerunds, etc. They also pulled out a lot of stuff that worked pretty well in Latin but … well, English was a language of a different color. One of the rules they transferred from Latin to English was to prohibit the "singular their" -- so today, we aren’t supposed to say, "Everyone should bring THEIR pencil" -- even though we all say it, but NEVER write it.

Another rule they brought over was that a sentence MUST NEVER end with a preposition. There’s a really funny reason for that one. As you students of Latin already know, Latin always ends a sentence with the verb. So, strangely enough, a Latin sentence can never end with a preposition. Or a noun. Or an adjective. I honestly don’t know why the 18^th century legalistic grammarians singled out the poor preposition, except maybe because it tends to be small and rather defenseless -- but they made up the rule that, to be more like Latin, a sentence should never end with a preposition.

And that’s all there is to it.

They drummed the rule into their students’ heads, who drummed it into their students’ heads, who … you get the picture. Today, the only reason not to end a sentence with a preposition is because people look at you funny when you do it.

Yep, there are just some things up with which I will not put!

Y’all have a good week!

Tom

Money Symbols

Working here at Globalstar I get to see all kinds of "stuff" from all over the world. We are dealing with 38 countries.

I keep seeing math and money "stuff" from overseas with a comma(,) in place of the dot or period (.) in formulas, money, time, dates. The Europeans also seem to use lots of "dash" marks and "slash" marks. I had no idea why.

So I thought I would look up the periods and dots and commas to see how come. I did a little research and found marks that were used in papers written between 1500 and the late 1700s.

It really gets confusing:

The period and the comma were both known as the "jot" from the Greek Iota. (Remember one of the "Words" sometime ago when we talked about the "J" and the "I", i.e., King Iames as found in the King Iames (James) Bible?). Iota was pronounced Jota (College Frat Houses would have a problem with that one).

This is a little sick, but the dot was originally the head of a boil or sore. (Even a pimple was called a "dot"--yuk!).

The "tittle" was a label or title (remember the old sayings about a "tittle and a jot"?

If you wrote a story, you gave it a "tittle" or title.

The "asterisk" (*) was used to show that something was left out.

The "obelus" was a minus (-). In Greek it means "skewer". The "lemniscus" was a divide sign.

The "virgula iacens" was the slash (/). Means a little rod or switch or even a slender branch in Latin.

However the word got switched (no pun intended) to "virgule" in French which means both a comma and a dot.

The "dash" (-) comes from olde Saxon; to rush, to strike with violence--the idea being that the "written word is mightier than the sword" or wanting something done in a hurry. If you "dashed off" a letter---you would use a lot of dash marks as I just did rather than fill in all of the missing words, etc.

In French the dash is a "tiret". Tiret comes from a long line of mispronounced and mis-used words leading back to having "ones head chopped off". Actually from Martirier (hence martyr) and further back to the Greek word for a King--Tyrannus--or tyrant in 20th Century

English—tiranz = executioner: again back to "off with your head".

I can't quite make the connection (or disconnection in the case of ones head) of the dash symbol and losing one's head--unless it depicts the Executioner's Axe??

All of that from a poor little dash and a bunch of periods and dots that I read in a Statement of Work from a company in Europe.