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September 29, 2006
On Swearing and Concubines and Other Palace Shenanigans
Simon at dawar akher has a great post on the etymology of Hebrew word šēgal. The word means something in the range of “concubine.” The etymological path Simon maps is abnormally interesting. It also has an important element missing from many etymologies. It is correct. Give Simon's post a read.
Following the lead of Simon and Erratio, I thought I'd put in my two cents on more general subject of sweating. As usual with such controversially issues, I will make my point vicariously through the good offices of Mark Twain who was skilled in these matters.
He began with that word "H". That's a long word and a profane word. I don't remember what the word was now, but I recognized the power of it. I had never used that language myself, but at that moment I was converted. It has been a great refuge for me in time of trouble. If a man doesn't know that language he can't express himself on strenuous occasions. When you have that word at your command let trouble come. - Speech, 2/19/1908Walter Frear reported that Twain said the following to the Reverent Joe Twichell,
My swearing doesn't mean any more to me than your sermons do to you.
As to swearing in Hebrew, I'll leave that to the experts. All I know is that when I was in Israel there seemed to be a small collection of frequently used single syllable English loanwords that sounded very familiar. I've noticed that same phenomenon other places in the world as well.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 29, 2006 2:00 PM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |
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