Ce n'est pas un blog
I suppose what makes Magritte's painting so interesting is the verbal word play. I read a webpage in preparation for this post that insisted that "pipe" only means blowjob. (rolling eyes) Subtlety is obviously lost on some people. I guess what amazes me is how much absolute tripe is floating around on der interwebs.Not that tripe is all that bad. Dynersty has a pretty good tripe dish, so long as you can handle the spice.
So, prompted by Mike and JD's (fo rizzo) banter on the nature of the obscene, I did a little looking into the word's etymology and found this. Frankly, it sounds like complete bullshit. But what surprises me is that I doubt my own knowledge that the word can't have a Greek origin simply because Wiki says so. I know that those articles are written by morons just like me, and yet I'm more apt to think that somehow there's a vast gap in my Greek education than that some numbnut has no idea what he's talking about. I have this strange desire to find a copy of Smyth's grammar so that I can know for certain what the answer is. But why should I trust Smyth? The only reason I ever did in the past is because people told me to. But people are just as dumb as I am! What am I to do?!
Which doubt only confirms in my mind that I was never a very good Latinist. A real Latinist would make absolutely absurd pronouncements and later obfuscate their obvious bullshit with all sorts of labrynthine etymologies when a finicky graduate student should happen to call them out. It's getting to the point where it doesn't even have to be a graduate student. There used to be an age when classics grad students walked about with the fear of God in them. Nowadays, they struggle at being hopelessly out of fashion.
I am a master of inventing plausible bullshit, so I know utter crap when I see it.
Edit: After another read through, this post seems really disjointed, but I'll leave it as is. I'm not sure I have a means to better represent my consternation. (err... split infinitive, gomen ne)
posted by Nicholas Theisen @ 10:34 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Here's what the OED has to say on the matter:
< Middle French, French obscène indecent, offensive (1534; a1592 as obscne (Montaigne)) and its etymon classical Latin obscenus, obscaenus inauspicious, ill-omened, filthy, disgusting, indecent, lewd < ob- OB- + a second element of uncertain origin (see note). Cf. slightly earlier OBSCENITY n., OBSCENOUS a.
Classical Latin obscenus, obscaenus has been variously associated, by scholars ancient and modern, with scaevus left-sided, inauspicious (see SCÆVITY n.) and with caenum mud, filth (see CNOSE a.). The derivation from scaena SCENE n., one of several suggested by the Latin grammarian Varro, prob. represents a folk etymology.
i refer to ross chambers who, if i'm not mistaken, wrote the OED:
"My hypothesis is that events and experiences that are traumatic, whether collectively or to individuals, and become the object of witnessing practices have the cultural status of the obscene; and conversely, that the cultural category of the obscenity defines what a persons experience as traumatic. I have in mind a sense of the word obscene that etymologically relates to the word obscure: each of these two words (and a number of others) is conjectured to derive from an Into-European radical *sku, denoting coverage or protection, whence Greek skene and ultimately English scene. The obscene, then would be the 'offstage' or 'backstage' space that delimits, and is simultaneously inseparable from, a scene of activity on which attention is focused. [...] Dubious as the etymology may be, it highlights the crucial idea that what is culturally known may not be readily acknowledged."
that's page 23 of his book, Untimely Inverventions.
Well, I don't like to comment on comments, but here goes anyway:
Generally speaking, when I make up something out of thin air, it's merely for the purposes of entertainment. Now, I've never met/talked to/read of/heard rumors about Ross Chambers in anyway, so, knowing that y'all hold him in very high esteem, what follows may come off as OMGWTF.
"Dubious as the etymology may be, it highlights the crucial idea that what is culturally known may not be readily acknowledged."
I dislike this statement intensely; it bothers me, and unfortunately not in the "it really made me think about my assumptions" sense. Perhaps I never quite freed myself from the strictures of vile vile science, but I'd like to believe that there is a certain accountability of data/info, call it what you will. Honestly, that statement alone (I qualify because I'm not familiar with the context) reads to me as "it does not necessarily matter that what I say is verifiable in any way, so long as it supports the conclusion I've made."
Seeing as there's absolutely no likelihood of the MeiDai library having a copy of Untimely Interventions, now I've got to talk to that annoying woman at the loan desk.
Edit: Okay, I have heard rumors.
Post a Comment
<< Home