Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA14349 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 8 Apr 2001 15:27:45 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [209.240.220.151] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 10:23:31 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F7aiRNhFCfywEsGmjm00000107b@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Apr 2001 14:23:31.0651 (UTC) FILETIME=[7CD60930:01C0C037] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme
>Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 22:08:01 +0200
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Douglas Brooker <dbrooker@clara.co.uk>
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 11:30 AM
>Subject: RE: The Demise of a Meme
>
>
> >
> > > Arbitrary = without reference to the state or process of affairs
> > > purportedly represented. Thus, onomotopoeic words (such as
> > > 'hiss' for the sound a snake makes) are not arbitrary or by mutual
> > > convention, since the sound of the term resembles the sound made
> > > by the referent, while the name 'snake' to refer to the no-legged
> > > critter that so hisses is an arbitrary term, agreed upon by mutual
> > > convention; we could just as well call snakes 'egbert's', if we all
> > > agreed to..
> >
> > This is ok so long as you keep within the boundaries of the system -
> > the English language. But do all languages follow this pattern for the
> > sound a snake makes? If they don't, which is likely (just an opinion)
> > why have generations of English speakers chosen to use a word that is
> > onomotopoeic?
>
><< Considering the Dutch language, no...I don 't recall any patterns that
>would follow this concept as for the word ' hiss ' that is.
>But on the other hand, we did and still use what you can consider slang,
>or flash, jargon, gibberish, lingo, double Dutch ( what 's in a name, he
>!?).
>We have names for animals in our language that refers to the sound
>they make, like " oehoe ", that is a owl or " karekiet " that is a kind of
>bird,
>or jif- jaf, a kind of bird etc.
>But for the sound that a snake makes, we don 't use another word than
>snake. That is in general, if we put the word in context we use the exact
>term, we give the snake a name....boa, anaconda, viper etc.
>For the word " hiss " there is no translation....
>
> > I haven't looked up the etymology of snake, but the slightly hissing
> > sound of 'SN' evokes an echo of an hiss. This is only to suggest that
> > what appears arbitrary today may not always have been so. It's
> > apparent arbitrariness may be derived from a collective forgetfulness
> > of the word's origin.
>
>Etymological the word snake, or " slang " in Dutch comes from to swing,
>from to dangle, from to wind, from to move in twisted ways,...the ways
>by which a snake moves.
>
>Best,
>
>Kenneth
>
>( I am, because we are)
>
>
My _ Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.)_ lists a similar Old
High German word *snahhan* meaning "to crawl". There's also the Old English
*snaca* and Old Norse *snakr*. All this etymology stuff is a mystery to me,
much like entomology.
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