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From: James Hogg on 25 Feb 2010 02:14 Robert Bannister wrote: > Andrew Usher wrote: >> Robert Bannister wrote: >> >>>> 'One' is not, grammatically, a pronoun. It is a nominalised >>>> adjective (the number one) that is used in place of a pronoun. >>> Are you positive it isn't related to French "on" (as opposed to >>> French "un")? >> >> Well, it certainly could be, and that is the usual derivation >> given, although I don't think there's any direct proof. >> >> Anglo-French 'on' and Middle English 'one' would be very close in >> pronunciation, both being some variant of [On]. But still, I think >> if that was the origin it was assimilated into English as if it >> were the number one. >> >> Andrew Usher > > The equivalent in other Germanic languages is not the same as their > word for the number "one". Some languages use the word for "man", e.g. German and French. Swedish has "man", but the object form is "en" and the possessive is "ens", both from the word for the number one. -- James
From: Trond Engen on 25 Feb 2010 02:57 Peter T. Daniels: > On Feb 24, 3:27 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Some examples of modern-day non-Trinitarians, who would reject the >> key Nicene doctrinal tenets: > > Then they are, by definition, not Christians. > > The wannabes don't get to say who is a member of the club; the > gatekeepers do. Is that a tenable definition? Every time there's a schism both sides claim to be guardians of the truth and gatekeep the other out of the club (the club being Christianity, or the Party, or the IRA, or whatever), but both movements are "sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists". -- Trond Engen
From: Peter Moylan on 25 Feb 2010 05:06 John Atkinson wrote: > Androcles wrote: >> "Michael Stemper's blunder" is a contraction of "Michael Stemper, his >> blunder". >> >> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contraction >> : a shortening of a word, syllable, or word group by omission of a >> sound or letter; >> > Like most of what you write, this is false as it stands. The 'his' > genitive did indeed have a short vogue in English around 1600, though > probably only in writing and as a folk etymology, not in the spoken > language. The apostrophe s spelling in place of etymological '-es' may > indeed have originated from the false belief that 'his' was the original > form; it would have then spread to the other genders. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_genitive Hmm. I'm not sure where to look this up, but I have the strong impression that the spoken -s form entered English before the (brief) appearance of the 'his' genitive. Indeed, the false belief you mention probably could not have arisen before some version of the apostrophe s, whether or not the apostrophe was actually used at the time. At some stage, the pronunciation of the -es genitive ending changed. The above-cited Wiki article suggests that it was being pronounced -is prior to the rise of the 'his' genitive. At a later stage - I don't know when - it must have become an unstressed schwa, and a little later English speakers stopped pronouncing the vowel, so the -es became a simple -s. That is, it became so in speech. Spelling tends to lag behind spoken changes, so the -es would still have been there in the consciousness of writers ... except that eventually the writers started putting in apostrophes to indicate letters that weren't pronounced. I'm quite convinced that today's "possessive apostrophe" is, historically, simply a "missing letter" apostrophe. -- Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page.
From: Mike Lyle on 25 Feb 2010 06:57 sjdevnull(a)yahoo.com wrote: [...] > > I'd suggest that if you actually have a definition of Christianity > that excludes Quakers, Adventists, the various Apostolic Churches and > Churches of Christ, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and the like that you > should state it and explain why it's superior to what most recognized > lexicographers have settled on. Your general point is right, but note that you don't have to be a Christian to be a Quaker. Muslims, Jews, pagans, whoever. I've read that about of a quarter of British Quakers are atheists. -- Mike.
From: Peter T. Daniels on 25 Feb 2010 07:31
On Feb 25, 1:27 am, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Feb 25, 12:16 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > > > > > On Feb 24, 3:27 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > On Feb 24, 2:08 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > > > On Feb 23, 7:07 pm, António Marques <antonio...(a)sapo.pt> wrote: > > > > > > Hatunen wrote (23-02-2010 22:47): > > > > > > > I believe that a great many of the churches which once split away > > > > > > from the church of Rome considered themselves the true catholic > > > > > > chuch. > > > > > > > Certainly the Anglicans do. The Anglican covenant says, > > > > > > > "(1.1.1) its communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic > > > > > > Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy > > > > > > Spirit." > > > > > > Of course they do. But when it comes to self-identify, only one church on > > > > > this planet consistenty refers to itself simply as 'the Catholic Church' (it > > > > > also uses other names, namely 'the Church', and where pragmatism requires > > > > > 'the Roman Catholic Church' - but the 'Roman' adds nothing, unlike 'Old' or > > > > > 'Polish National' - the RC doesn't see any added value in Roman, it doesn't > > > > > contribute to the meaning with anything that wasn't there before).. > > > > > > Besides, until recently, no other church lived for a universal ('catholic') > > > > > vocation. Sure, many of them did have one, but not as a central structuring > > > > > element. Notice the RC was never 'the Italian Church' even when popes were > > > > > italian for centuries long. > > > > > Doesn't _every_ extant Christian church use the Nicene Creed? (With or > > > > without the _filioque_.) > > > > Not at all. The Nicene creed was explicitly designed to advocate a > > > Trinitarian position and to brand non-Trinitarian sects (the Arians in > > > particular) as heretics. It quite intentionally defines one subset of > > > Christianity (and not every Trinitarian sect uses the Nicene Creed-- > > > Quakers, for instance, explicitly reject using any creed). > > > > Some examples of modern-day non-Trinitarians, who would reject the key > > > Nicene doctrinal tenets: > > > Then they are, by definition, not Christians. > > > The wannabes don't get to say who is a member of the club; the > > gatekeepers do. > > FWIW, after looking at Merriam-Webster, the OED, and Wikipedia, all of > the above seem to fit squarely within the definition of Christianity. > > I'll certainly state my biases ahead of time, and say that although I > was raised in the Catholic tradition all of the churches I described > seem to sit clearly within the bounds of what "Christian" means--even > when used by Catholic priests. I intentionally tried to avoid any > faiths where I thought there was even a remote chance of controversy > (e.g. Mormonism, Jews for Jesus, Unitarians, etc). > > I'd suggest that if you actually have a definition of Christianity > that excludes Quakers, Adventists, the various Apostolic Churches and > Churches of Christ, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and the like that you > should state it and explain why it's superior to what most recognized > lexicographers have settled on.- Lexicographers have the power to determine who is a Christian? |