Whence comes the name Greyhound?
Webster: From Old English grighund and/or Old Norse greyhundr, the latter prefix from Indoeuropean ghru-, variation of gher-, to shine, whence also gray.
In other words, Webster ignores grig- and simply describes the derivation of grey-.
But the meaning to shine brings to mind the Irish for sun, grian.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED): “The etymology of the first element is unknown; it has no connexion with grey or with grew, Greek, nor with grey = badger.”
The OED does note that the Old English grig- or grieg- is equal to the the Old norse grey-.
It also notes that the variant grifhound is from variant pronunciation of grewhound (grew- being a corruption of grey with the idea of the breed having a “Greek” origin, i.e., an association with the origins of human civilization).
But perhaps the prefix grif- stands on its own. In French a griffe is a claw, as derived from the Frankish grif. In German, griff is a noun for catch. Both of these fit the greyhound.
Further possibilities are suggested in Irish. Gadhar (pronounced “geyer”) means hunting dog. Gaothar (“g’ee-her”) means like the wind. Gaobhar (“g’eer”) means near, which is applicable as the greyhound was the companion of chiefs and kings: The legendary warrior Fionn Mac Cumhail’s favorite dogs were the greyhounds Bran and Sceólan (who were his cousins); the name of the other legendary warrior Cú Chulainn, whose mythical cycle is that of the sun (grian), actually means the (grey)hound (cú) of Culann.
Rather than pinned to any of these, the name, and the creature herself, would seem to contain them all.
Irish provides yet another possibility with the word for hare: giorria (“giriyeh”). The word is geàrr (“gyarr”) in Scottish, from gearr-fhiadh, meaning short deer, which is the same in Irish and also means hare. It is pronounced “g’areeyeh” or “g’arig”, which is similar to the Irish pronunciation of grig-, “gurrig”. Since most hunting hounds take a name from their prey, this seems to suggest a likely derivation for greyhound.
Indeed, in French, the words for greyhound are lèvrier (masc.) and levrette (fem.), clearly in reference to hare, lièvre. (In English, a young hare is called a leveret.)
Gearg, pronounced “gyerrig” is the Irish word for quail, but greyhounds are not retrievers (nor were retrievers used in hunting back when the word was taking form).
And Webster says hare comes from the Indoeuropean root kas [or has (whence ashen)], meaning gray! However, the OED says it is not related to similar germanic words for gray.
June 14, 2015
The thousand names of Greyhound
May 30, 2015
Why had it to go on and on and on?
—Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark, 1996
May 12, 2015
An Milleánach
Flann O’Brien’s The Poor Mouth is titled An Béal Bocht nó An Milleánach in the original Irish (and “edited” by Myles na gCopaleen). As noted in a recent Irish Times article about it by Mairin Nic Eoin, an milleánach means “the fault-finding one or the one from the land of fault-finding”.
Milleánach is the adjective form of the noun milleán, blame: i.e., blameful or censorious. In Patrick Dinneen’s 1904 Irish-English dictionary, milleánach is defined as “blaming, rebuking”. In the shorter 1938 edition for schools, it is defined as “blaming, finding fauth with”.
Technically, I think, it should be in the genitive masculine form, milleánaigh, because it describes an béal, which is masculine. But also technically, its use in the title is as a noun, which it isn’t. The solution is to imply the subject, i.e., “The Censorious [One/Thing]”, or follow the analogy of oileán (island) to oileánach (islander) to come up with the nonsensical “one who lives in (to?) blame”. Why not simply “The Censor”? Or perhaps, on the analogy of iasc and iascach (fish and fishing), “The Blaming”?
What is clear, however, as also noted by Nic Eoin, is that Brian Ó Nualláin’s primary intention was to echo the title of Tomás Ó Criothann’s classic memoir of life on The Great Blasket, An tOileánach.
My Irish teacher (who earned her certificate around the same time that An Béal Bocht was written) thought that An Milleánach meant The Millionaire (an milliúnaí in modern Irish; no entry in either Dinneen). That certainly makes more sense as an ironic comment on the main title instead of mere word play.
And in fact the hero of An Béal Bocht does venture to Cruach an Ocrais and takes the horde of the legendary Maoldún Ó Pónasa, the lone survivor of the Deluge of Corca Dhorca, which he buries for himself (after fleeing the corpse’s reanimation into all-too-familiar storytelling).
Furthermore, na Gopaleen wrote in his “Cruiskeen Lawn” column in The Irish Times (as reprinted in The Best of Myles (New York: Walker, 1968; reprinted by Dalkey Archive Press [Normal, Illinois], 1999), “A lady lecturing recently on the Irish language drew attention to the fact … that, while the average English speaker gets along with a mere 400 words, the Irish-speaking peasant uses 4,000. … The 400/4,000 ratio is fallacious; 400/400,000 would be more like it. There is scarcely a single word in the Irish (barring, possibly, Sasanach) that is simple and explicit. … In Donegal there are native speakers who know so many million words that it is a matter of pride with them never to use the same word twice in a life-time.”
Ó Criomhthain himself, whom na Gopaleen particularly praises, cherished that language given to him by his parents. For example, after his mother dies, joining his father, he writes:
Sin críoch leis an mbeirt do chuir sioladh na teangan so im’ chluasa an chéad lá. Beannacht Dé le n-a n-anam. (That was the end of the two who put the sound of this language of ours in my ears [on the first day]. May the blessing of God be on their souls. [Translation by Garry Bannister and David Sowby.])
One might also consider the suggestion of milleanna, bell flowers, and millteanach, terrible. Not to mention meilleanna, grimaces (poor mouths!).
May 3, 2015
Findtan is Bith is Ladra.
Cesair, then, said the Angel to Caillin, the daughter of Bith, son of Noah, first occupied this religious angelic island, i.e. Ireland. Fifty women, moreover, came with her. Three men came with her likewise, to wit, Finntan, son of Labraid, son of Bith, son of Lamech; Bith, son of Noah, son of Lamech, from whom Sliabh-Betha is named; and Ladru the pilot, from whom Ard-Ladrand is named. He [Ladru] was the first that died in Ireland before the Deluge. He died of female persecution. Forty days before the Deluge they came. They all died before the Deluge, except Finntan alone, who was asleep during the Flood.
Findtan is Bith is Ladra. Gabrat ar tus in banba; Is ccoiggad ingen ngel ngrind, Da fichet la re ndilind. In lucht sin huili ba marb, Re ndilind, ba mor in plag, Achtmad Findtan in fer seng, Na cadlad re re ndileand. Finntan, and Bith, and Ladhra, Occupied Banba at first, With fifty fair, sprightly maidens, Forty days before the Flood. All that band died, Before the Flood—great the plague— Except Finntan, the subtile man, Who slept during the period of the Deluge. |
—from: Leabar Fidhnacha, The Book of Fenagh, edited by W. M. Hennessy, translated to English by D. H. Kelly, published by Alexander Thom, Dublin, 1875
April 25, 2015
Climate science denial of environmentalism
There is great anxiety in certain quarters about convincing "nonbelievers" of the dire truth about anthropogenic climate change.
The desperation of that effort suggests that accepting climate science isn’t in fact the real issue. That’s because there is no reason to question the science, unless one has doubts about what is being done with it.
The fact is that most people in line with the science aren’t doing anything more meaningful about it than people who question the science. Climate science is used mostly as a cudgel to promote new businesses (that are just as harmful to the planet, such as nuclear power, or even more so, such as biofuel) or – perhaps even more importantly – as a distraction from other, usually more immediate, problems that have obvious – but politically more challenging – solutions (eg, climate change is probably the least serious of the threats to The Everglades, but since nobody is directly to blame, nobody has to worry about being forced to actually do anything about it).
A glaring example of the cynical use of climate change – in the win-win-win of politicians and businesses expressing concern while promoting each others’ purely venal interests and of environmental groups taking their cut and keeping membership numbers growing by making it easy to save the planet with mere symbolic gestures. The lack of seriousness regarding climate change is most evident in the acquiescence to animal agriculture. Animal agriculture is conservatively estimated to contribute as much greenhouse effect as all transportation (not to mention its being the leading cause of many other environmental effects, such as deforestation and water depletion and pollution). Furthermore, most of that greenhouse effect is due to methane (CH₄), which persists in the atmosphere a small fraction of the time that carbon dioxide (CO₂) does, so that decreasing it would have almost immediate climate benefit. In contrast, benefits from reducing CO₂ would not be seen for many decades, even centuries. Yet reducing consumption of meat and dairy – which is as easy as switching lightbulbs – is almost never mentioned by those who fight to defend the science of climate change.
Accepting climate science does not make one an environmentalist. It actually often seems to enable a denial of environmental concerns.
Most real solutions to social and environmental problems would also benefit the carbon balance of the atmosphere, so accepting climate science is not actually important. Analogously, one doesn’t have to accept (let alone understand) the science of biological evolution to support protecting species and habitat.
These are culture-war sideshows that only serve business as usual, not positive change.
April 21, 2015
As long as we exploit animals and kill them for food, we will exploit and kill each other.
… I no longer accept that cows must be repeatedly impregnated to give us milk, must be separated immediately from their newborns and ultimately must be slaughtered long before the end of their natural lives to produce low-grade hamburger, leather, glue, gelatin and pet food. I can no longer accept calves being raised in horrific conditions before they are killed for the veal industry, developed to profit from the many “useless” males born because dairy farms regularly impregnate cows to ensure continuous milk production.
Once the right of the powerful to exploit the powerless – whether that exploitation is of animals by humans, other nations by an imperial power, other races by the white race, or women by men – once that right is removed from our belief system, blinders are lifted. …
Farmers often display genuine affection for the animals they abuse and send to slaughter. They do this by normalizing the abuse, believing that it is a practical and unquestioned necessity, and by refusing to emotionally confront the suffering and fate of the animals. This willful numbness, this loss of empathy and compassion for other living beings, was something I encountered frequently in the wars I covered as a reporter. Prisoners could be treated affectionately, much like pets – the vast disparity of power meant there was never a real relationship – and then killed without remorse.
A culture that kills, including for food, must create a belief system that inures people to suffering. …
“Because cruelty is inescapable in confining, mutilating, and slaughtering animals for food, we have been forced from childhood to be distracted and inattentive perpetrators of cruelty,” Will Tuttle writes in “The World Peace Diet.” …
The animal agriculture industry is an integral part of the corporate state. The corporate state’s exploitation and impoverishment of workers and its poisoning of the environment, as well as its torture and violence toward animals, are carried out because of the obsession for greater and greater profit. …
April 20, 2015
Scríobhann “Myles” na gCapaillín
Our correspondent Myles na Gopaleen writes:
The other day a writer on the leader page of The Irish Times referred to the revival of the Irish language, not, indeed, for the first or last time in our rough island story. He said:
Surely the Government has realised by this time that it is very far from an easy task to eliminate and extend the use of the Irish language [sic] [sic] in place of English. The task would be hard enough in normal years […] but at such a time as the present, when children all over the world are trying to keep pace with an influx of new words as a result of the war news bulletins, it becomes well-nigh impossible. Parents who confine the family meal-time discussions to conversations in Irish must find it very difficult to explain such words as air-raid warden, incendiary bomb, non-aggression pact, decontamination, and Molotoff bread-basket. […]One can imagine the stormy philological breakfasts that obtain in the households of the Gael:
Mother: Anois, a Sheáin, caith do chuid bracháin.
Shawn Beg (peering into The Irish Times): Ní maith liom brachán agus ní réidhtigheann sé le mo ghoile. Cuir Gaeidhilg ar ‘Molotoff bread-basket’ le do thoil.
Mother: Anois, a Sheáin, bí suaimhneach agus caith do bhreicfeasta. Ní fhásfaidh tú aníos gan brachán agus bainne.
Shawn Beg: Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil aon Ghaeidhilg ar ‘Molotoff bread-basket’. Ní’l sa Ghaeidhilg seo acht sean chanamhain ghagach. Cad chuige nach dtig linn Béarla a labhairt sa teach seo?
Mother: Mura mbíonn tú ’do thost ní bhfuighidh tú do phighin Dia Sathairn. Caith do brachán!
Shawn Beg: But, Maw! What’s Molotoff bread-basket?
Mother: BI DO THOST, ADEIRIM!
Shawn Beg: Aw Maw, maith go leor. Ní chaithfead brachán go deo agus ní bheith aon mheas agam feasta ar Ghaedhlaibh.
Mother (leading with her right): Bhéarfad-sa Molotoff bread-basket duit, a thaisce, a aingilín léigheanta.
—“Cruiskeen Lawn”, The Irish Times, 4 October 1940
(A passable translation.)
—Now, Shawn, eat your porridge.
—I don’t like porridge and it doesn’t sit well in my stomach. Put ‘Molotoff bread-basket’ into Irish, if you please.
—Now, Shawn, be quiet and eat your breakfast. You won’t grow up without porridge and milk.
—I don’t think there’s any Irish for ‘Molotoff bread-basket’. This Irish is nothing but an old dried-up language. Why can’t we speak English in this house?
—Unless you be quiet, you won’t get your Saturday penny. Eat your porridge!
—But, Maw! What’s Molotoff bread-basket?
—BE QUIET, I SAY!
—Aw Maw, alright. I won’t eat porridge as long as I won’t have any more opinions about Irish.
—I’ll give you a Molotoff bread-basket, my dear, my learned little angel.
(ciseán aráin Mholotoff?)