Singing Potatoes
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Wednesday, 5 February 2003
Etymology belies meaning

I was arguing with someone recently — I don't remember who — about the meanings of words. He or she had taken the stance that the only valid definition of a word was its original definition, and that it was wrong for a dictionary publisher to alter the definitions of words to keep up with current usage; I asserted that language changes, get used to it.

Today I learned something surprising about the etymology of a word I hadn't ever given much thought to:

symposium [1580–90; < L < Gk sympósion drinking party, equiv. to sym- SYM- + po- (var. s. of pinein to drink) + -sion n. suffix]

Well, that kind of explains the Buffy symposium.

Posted by godfrey (link)
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As soon as the Buffy Symposium proceedings are out, I shall rush right down to my bookstore like my feet are on fire and snatch it from the hapless clerks stocking it.

Drunk party, yeah....didn't you read the Symposium? Where they all pass out while Aristotle is talking with Aristophanes about comedy?
Posted by Moira on 5 Feb 2003 19:10
No, I'm ashamed to admit I don't have a very good grounding in Greek texts. But I was in a (very lame) production of The Birds once, which went right over the head of the director. She kept throwing away Aristophanes' lines and inserting new ones because it was supposed to be a comedy, and she didn't find it funny.

Naturally, this was here in Tampa, where a cultural event isn't truly appreciated unless it happens on Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Posted by Godfrey on 5 Feb 2003 21:01
She kept throwing away Aristophanes' lines

yeek. (Although granted, in Aristophanes sometimes you do have to go to the footnotes....but the good dirty stuff is always in the footnotes!)
Posted by Moira on 5 Feb 2003 21:16
Well, that and the political allegories just turned her off. (So why choose that one to do?) Oh well. When it was over, I crapped on the hood of her car.

(No, not really. But it seemed a birdlike thing to say.)

Posted by Godfrey on 5 Feb 2003 21:22
"The Birds fairly sparkles with the boldest and richest imagery within the province of the fantastic. It is a mirthful, buoyant creation, bright with the gayest plumage, a piece of the most harmless buffoonery, which had a fling at everything, gods as well as men, but without anywhere pressing toward any particular object. Yet some have found in it a complete historical allegory of the Sicilian expedition, and others an aspiration toward a new and purified Athens."

source
I prefer the Hitchcock movie. Maybe I just have a thing for Tippie Hedron.
Posted by Darren on 6 Feb 2003 06:42
"Oh well. When it was over, I crapped on the hood of her car.

(No, not really. But it seemed a birdlike thing to say.)"

See, Godfrey, there's a fundamental difference between you and I.
Posted by Lunchbox on 6 Feb 2003 10:38
I haven't mastered HTML yet, I was highlighting the Not Really part. But you know my deeds.
Posted by Lunchbox on 6 Feb 2003 10:39
Closed now?

Aha.

Use a slash to begin the closing tags, and close them in the reverse order you opened them:
<b><i>...</i></b>

Weird: Opera applies the italic style to form controls contained within it, so as I type these words, they're coming out italic.
Posted by Godfrey on 6 Feb 2003 11:09
Birds is dull....we read it at St. John's only because it is the play that supposedly had some impact on Socrates's trial. FROGS IS GREAT. Frogs is hysterical. It's my favorite Aristophanes play....Lysistrata is superb, too.
Posted by Moira on 6 Feb 2003 21:00