Haggard Hawks 29

Exclamations, admirations, and divine retribution

POPULAR THIS WEEK

THAT’S THE POINT

 

Most popular on HH this week was the fact that the exclamation mark, !, was once known as the point of admiration. 

 

Exclamation marks were known as admirations or admirative points as far back as the late 1500s. But we backed the fact up on Twitter with a quote from the lexicographer Randle Cotgrave’s 1611 Dictionary of the French and English Tongues, which listed “point of admiration or detestation” as an equivalent of the French term admiratif. In either case, the name reflects the fact that statements of admiration (or detestation, for that matter) are often punctuated with a !—which is the same reason the ! came to be known as the exclamation mark in the mid 1600s, as exclamatory statements are so often punctuated with a ! too.

 

But if none of these names floats your boat, how about one of these alternatives: wonderer (1500s), shriek-mark (mid 1800s), screamer (1890s), christer (1920s), bang (1950s), and, er—dog’s cock (1980s, journalists’ slang)?

 

Elsewhere this week we found out that: 

 

  • if you can see more of the moon that you should be able to, you can blame earthshine
  • because 5 is “ha” in Thai,  the Thai version of LOL is somewhat mathematical
  • Thomas Hardy coined a beautiful word to describe anything flying westwards
  • why say “and so on” when you can say et patati et patata...
  • ...and why call it a “porcupine” when you can call it a thorn-swine?

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STAMP DUTY


The fact that philately derives from a Greek word meaning “exempt from tax” popped up on the HH feed earlier this week—and we thought you might like to know a bit more about it. 

 

Stamp collecting has been known as philately since 1864, when a French stamp enthusiast (or timbromaniac) named Georges Herpin coined the term from a mix of Greek roots meaning “love” or “fondness”, philos, and “exemption from tax”, ateleia.

 

that was the closest Herpin could find in the classical vocabulary to the very nineteenth century concept of the postage stamp: before then, the cost of posting a letter was borne by the recipient rather than the sender, but by attaching a prepaid postage stamp to the envelope the sender could cover the cost of the postage in advance, thereby freeing the recipient from any obligation to pay. The letter was ultimately was “exempt” from what was essentially a postage “tax” from the receiver’s point of view.

 

Philately first appeared in English in 1865, a year after Herpin invented the term, and has remained in use ever since. 

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INESCAPABLE YOU

 

The fact that an Adrastea is “an alluring woman from whom you cannot escape” cropped up on Twitter last week, which sparked a few comments and emails over the weekend asking for a bit more background information. And, as always, your wish is HH’s command. 

 

As we mentioned over on Twitter, Adrastea is an allusive reference to a character of that name from Greek mythology. Not, confusingly, the mountain nymph named Adrastea who is said to have helped raise Zeus when he was an infant, but instead the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares (though some versions of the story claim that her father was Zeus), who was the sister of Eros, the Greek god of love and sexual attraction.

 

Ares, meanwhile, was the Greek god of war whom Adrastea was said to accompany into the heat of battle. Through association with him, she came to be considered a symbol of rebellion, revenge, destiny, and the balance between good and evil, and ultimately was often depicted alongside—or even considered interchangeable with—Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.  

 

But because you cannot escape your fate, Adrastea’s name literally means “she from whom you cannot escape”; at its root is a Greek word essentially meaning “not running away”. And it’s that literal meaning, more than Adrastea’s role on the battlefield, that ultimately led to her name becoming a byword for any alluring, inescapable woman. 

TEMPLATE No. 22

 

Four more tricky template puzzles this week: only one dictionary word (that we could find) fits each one of these word templates. What are they?

 

_ _WP_X

V_ _WP_ _ _ _

_ _ _WP_P_

_ _OWPO_ _

 

[Answer to last week’s puzzle: KVETCH, ADVENTURE, CALVADOS, CIRCUMVENT]

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