I was thinking about how the word 'fair' was used to describe positive things--and also a person of light skin and hair color. Now--I am NOT saying that people with light skin and hair color ARE "better"; but it has been evidenced in many ways that people perceive this quality as more desirable. My question is: how did light come to be associated with positives: the fair-haired boy; light on one's feet; a light cake, or biscuits; walk in the light; clothed in white occurs all through the Bible; even on TV shows, the good guy is nearly always dressed in lighter colors than other characters.
Ah, but the light shines in the darkness! No darkness...no light!
the good guy is nearly always
dressed in lighter colors than other characters.
Exceptions: Hopalong Cassidy(Sp?), Johnny Cash, Norman Swartzkopf (Ugh - Blackhead!), Arnold Swartzenegger, and, in Mel Brooks' movie, "Spaceballs, "May the Swartz be with you!"
Bracing against the cold. Was it Prometheus who brought the fire? My mythology is ragged and torn, I'll admit. And there's the common experience of people who have died who speak of going into that tunnel of light, and heliotropes bending toward the light. We're drawn to light as moths to flame. That's one reason Frost's "November Guest" is interesting and amusing--see the poetry thread; Frost poses a character who finds beauty in the darkening days. I even heard a brief discussion about Joyce's use of Molly Bloom and the daughter Millie, the open, warm vowell in Molly over the yet undeveloped, more closed vowell in Millie, not as warmed and developed as Molly. Yesterday in music class I worked with some seven-year-olds in developing a warm tone quality and used many images of heat and light to help them move from a decidedly harsh, cold, brittle tone to a warm one that I wanted in the passage we'd been working on, not that a cold, brittle tone isn't a useful part of the auditory palate at times.
Now the sure test of a person's warmth is the buttercup blossom placed under the chin! Sure wouldn't want to use deadman's fingers for that test!
Butter regards,
WW
I am NOT saying that people with light skin and hair color ARE "better"; but it has been
evidenced in many ways that people perceive this quality as more desirable.
Ah, but Jackie, do you not remember the hauntingly lovely song, "Black Is The Color of My True Love's Hair?" How about you, WW?
I wonder if hair that looked like gold was considered a favorable omen.
Someone's bound to have a ready reference here for the sonnet in which the most illustrious bard, Dub Senior, writes of his love for one with dark hair and foul breath.... Wish I had it here...
When I wrote above about our attraction toward light, I wasn't really saying that we don't have attraction for the dark. Comes a raconteur before you and says, "Would ja' like to hear a story of light and sunshine and happiness, or one that's gots midnight, star-tossed lovers, liver and sech?"...You'd probably say, "Tell me the midnight 'un!" There's nothing quite so wonderful as driving through the fog in the night and suddenly seeing a buck leap over the front of your car--a demon buck quickly there, and quickly gone. And, heh, triboluminescence in the daylight just wouldn't be a big deal, even in the darkest of garderobes.
Best regards,
WordWitch
Ah, but Jackie, do you not remember the hauntingly lovely song, "Black Is The Color of My True Love's Hair?"
Ah, I might have known. Yes, I know that song--I've sung it. Notice I did not say that light coloring is desired by all people at all times. But...think of the expression: blondes have more fun. I was also thinking that, among some of the black people I have known and/or read about, there have been expressions that indicate "lighter is better". Think of Hitler and his elevation of Aryans.
By the way--I am aware that I did not really ask a question about a word; it was more about a concept, and I nearly changed it to Miscellany. But...it is, after all, a serious question, so I left it here.
i think light(ness) or light coloring being associated with good, is similar to right handed-ness being associated with good.
Natural blonds tend to darken with time (not all but most) so truly light blonde hair was sort of biological marker for youth.. fair skin, often meant blemish free-- again, one of those old fashioned biological markers for good health.. and the lighter skin, the more a blemish will show. so to be fair (lightly colored, and free of blemishes.. with light colored hair, was a sign of youth and good health.) just the thing you want in bride, since a young healthy woman will bear children easier..
until very recently, it was very hard to bleach hair.. but many vegetable will dye hair a darker tint, walnut oils, henna, and so on. so a woman getting on in age, could more easily hide her grey hair if she had brown or chestnut red hair.. but a blonde couldn't..
and with out clorox -- white, was a very hard color to get.. linen, wool and cotton, were not pure white.. but rather shades of beige. whiteness required effort..
Dear WW: is this the sonnet you had in mind?
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,--yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Ah, wwh, you're angel indeed! That's the exact sonnet I was thinking of! I love rembering it, if only in essence rather than in lines. You've provided those!
Best regards,
WW
Geoff:
I think you will find that it's not Swartz, but schwartze, which is a Yiddish pejorative for a black person. Akin to the N-word. In the following URL it's schwartz, but I believe the pronunciation had an "eh" on the end, two syllables. The w is most often pronounced as a V.
http://tomsquotes.amhosting.net/movies/space/space.htmIn another of Mel Brooks's wonderful movies, Black Bart's childhood is revealed when his parents are excluded from the wagon train circle when Indians attack. They circle the wagon, riding it around and around. Mel Brooks, incongrously garbed as an Indian chief in full regalia, rides up and says, "Ugh, schwartze! Cop a walk!"
After fifteen seconds of intense laughter, my Jewish girl friend and I looked around the theater, where no one else was laughing; they were instead staring at us. Buncha Philistines!
TEd
by my experience of yiddish, and as edited after LIU:
shvartz black (the color)
shvartzer: black person, male; rarely used
shvartzeh : black person, female -- but usually used to mean "housemaid"
At least one recent source states that after some years of debate, the terms are now considered offensive. It is unclear, however, whether this conclusion simply reflects the editor's PC bias.
Yiddish also has a specific term for "black person". However, that term is not suitable for use in an english-speaking society, as its pronunciaton is uncomfortably close to "nigger".
I think you will find that it's not Swartz, but schwartze, which is a Yiddish pejorative for a black person....
----------------------------
I'll hafta go rent the movie again and check that out, Ted.
Buncha Philistines!Your cutting remarks are just making a mountain out of a moylehill.
Goy boy Geoff
I was also thinking that, among some of the black people I have known and/or read about, there have been expressions that indicate "lighter is better".
For a good, contemporary study of this see Spike Lee's film, School Daze.
>Your cutting remarks are just making a mountain out of a moylehill.
Let me get straight to the point. It was due to circumcizes beyond my control.
I have heard that a rabbi who used pinking shears and cut on the bias caused inaccurate aim.
Actually, Jackie, this is a very timely post, as we turn our attention to the holiday season. Take note that Midwinter festivals, Celebrations of Light, date back to ancient pagan rituals, and include among others throughout history, the Roman Saturnalia, and, of course, Christmas. As the nights grow longer and the dark encroaches, finally arriving at its zenith on December 21st, it was only natural to focus on, and re-empower light, in the midst of all that cold and darkness. And to counter the barreness of life as well, thus our elevation of the evergreen. But, indeed, the deepened dark enhances the value of light. You can never let the fire go out or the wolves staring hungrily in the distance will move in and devour you.
Interestingly enough, however, it now seems, according to a just released study (does anyone have the citation on this?) that our immune systems actually need an extended period of true darkness each night to sustain their vitality. Thus, nightlights or any other seepage of light into one's sleeping quarters may be inhibiting your ability to maintain your health! So perhaps we don't respect enough the value of darkness after all? Nature is a crafty balancer...all influences accounted and provided for. We still have so much to learn about so many things. Most folks don't realize (or don't want to admit) how
primitive our state of civilization really is. We have a long ways to go folks. May the force go with you!
And may you maintain your light in the darkening days just ahead.
"As the nights grow longer and the dark encroaches, finally arriving at its zenith on December 21st" Dear WO'N; Since we are dedicated to finding le mot juste, I wonder if you might not be able to find a better word than "zenith" in the above sentence. I always think of "zenith" as meaning noontime with the sun overhead.
Whoa, Sweet WO'N, what a good post! I think you are exactly right about keeping the wolves at bay, and I never heard about needing darkness for health reasons. Interesting. Wonder what the people near the poles do? That is, what their health is like, in The Land of the Midnight Sun?
I have seen articles about increased health hazards from working nights and then not sleeping in the dark. I think it was claimed that a group of nurses under these conditions had a greater incidence of breast cancer. I find this a bit difficult to accept, until further studies get similar results.
I worked nights for quite a few years and hated it. But I wore an eyeshade to make it easier to sleep. I wonder if that would have protected the nurses in the above mentioned study.
in The Land of the Midnight Sun?
It's also the Land of the Noontime Dark too, though, so maybe it evens out.
Ah, but Dr. Bill!...you see the innate prejudice? The fullness of dark, the fullness of night is not allowed to have its zenith, but light is?
And clarify
le mot juste for me, please...French is Greek to me.
My speculation is that the image comes from the medieval and earlier times, when night was a dangerous time to be out because wild and vicious predators (4-legged and also 2-legged) prowled the non-urban areas.
It is likely an image that arose long ago, as in "forces of light vs. forces of darkness".
Before I came to Indonesia I was thinking about taking a job in Iceland. I did hear that people from more Southern areas working there were very prone to clinical depression during the winter.
Bingley
One of my professors gave a lecture on how in literature fair haired women were often portrayed as wicked sluts and darker haired women were more innocent and intelligent. He had his examples which conveniently I have forgotten. But I think I do remember a French song that had a title like Brunettes aren't Prunes. And there was a song in Earth girls are easy, 'Cause I'm a blonde, about being blonde and stupid, (but sexy).
Duct tape is like the force, it has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together.
Come to think of it, how can you shed light? Light has no mass, so how can you shed it?
And we never speak of shedding some dark, do we?
I always understood the "shed" in "shedding light" on something to be used in the sense of "to distribute" or "to cause to be dispersed." I think you can substitute "cast some light on" for the same meaning.
Ladymoon, it's nice to see you back.
And thank you for giving "the other side"--reckon we all fall prey to generalizations sooner or later. 'Duct tape'...!
Interesting, O Wizard WO'N--no, we never do say shed some darkness, do we?
i dunno jackie-- we tend to shed thing we don't want too, a winter coat, comes to mind.. shouldn't we want to shed, (to discard) darkness, too?
Why yes, I suppose we could shed 'the cloak of darkness', if we wanted to!
I think there's something buried deep in the human psyche which equates the light with "good" and the dark with "bad". It probably harks back to when we were nomadic hunter-gatherers being hunted ourselves by the animals around us, almost all of which had and still have better night vision that we poor generalised human-type people-things.
Our ability to make and to control fire was the great leveller which enabled us to survive, particularly once we left the African savannah and ventured out into less hospitable terrain. It enabled us to ward off attacks by predators and it was also used as a tool for hunting as well as cooking. I saw a TV programme quite recently in which it was shown that cro-magnon man almost certainly used fire to drive woolly mammoths over cliffs in the periglacial regions during the ice ages. We also know that neandertal man used fire effectively. And, of course, fire = "light", and light = "good".
Yet the association pair light = "fair", in the sense of "light-coloured", and that being desirable, is a sometime thing. How many of those of us of the caucasian persuasion lie out in the sun whenever possible to try to get a tan? Being too pale is seen as a sign of something like unhealthiness. Having said that, it's not only the Michael Jacksons of this world who aspire to being paler than they were born. If you read the matrimonial sections of Indian newspapers you see a lot of ads for and by women who have "wheat"-coloured complexions. And the ads for skin-lightening potions of various kinds and dubious provenance are legion.
Yet that's the allure of darkness...the depths...of walking in darkness unafraid...taking its on cloak, to insert here Jackie's cloak, and dancing in darkness, moon children...astronomers, dazzled by the jewels in the sky with their various colors...in fact, astronomers seek the darkest skies...cities annoy them...and they range further into darkness to mine their beauties from above...there's a lot to be said for the good in the night.
Don't think I'd enjoy so much popping a bottle of champagne in the light--lets those shooting stars find their path in the night.
Stars in my eyes,
WordWonderer
followng up on CK's point above, and mine a bit previously:
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues01/jan01/spirit.html:
when people relied on sources such as torches, hearth fires and candles for illumination, night assumed a different character in the human imagination. The hours of fear descended every night, when one could easily lose one's life by falling into ditches, ponds or rivers, or being thrown by horses unfamiliar with dark paths. Demons, witches and night hags, it was widely believed, held sway in those hours. Ruffians and robbers could wreak their havoc
What an interesting discussion!
A few comments: living in New England gets you a range of light and dark ... come Dec 21 it will be pitch black at 4:30 p.m. EST and sunrise is about 6:15 a.m. Then in on June 21 it stays light until about 9:30 p.m. EDT and sun rises at 5:30 a.m. And talk about temperature fluctuations! Summers we can get up to 95 no problem and in winter it can go down to 20 below zero for days at a time! There's a general attitude that if you survive to 40 you'll live to be 90!
Years ago the US Air Force discovered that most pilots who ferried airplanes around the US had problems adapting to constantly changing light and temperature. There were a few who seemed to have far fewer difficulties. On researching "why" it was determined that the pilots with greatest adaptability to changes were all from the North East!
As to complexions. I met my India friend Roshan in Spring when I had my very pale (Irish) winter pallor while he had a sun burnished complexion I envied. When he visited in July he noted my tanned skin and commented "You have lost your lovely color." It's all in the eye of the beholder!
It is Dec 1 and 70 degrees on NH Seacoast today ... breaking a record set in 1802!(/i)
Keiva quotes: "when people relied on sources such as torches, hearth fires and candles for illumination, night assumed a different character in the human imagination."
...During the Great Ice Storm of 1999, we were cabin bound here at the farm for five days. A bit of romance is a few hours of candlelight, but five nights of nothing but that plus hearth light is lugubrious. I could barely look at a candle without a falling heart for the next year.
--no, we never do say shed some darkness, do we?
Some do.
...I could barely look at a candle without a falling heart for the next year.
Nor can I.
For those of you interested in light, there's an absorbing article with some really good photos of the aurora borealis/australis in November's National Geographic. There's also a link to their website where you can see a model of the aurora phenomenon.
Oh, and for WhirlWind and the Chi-town Shyster, there's also an interesting article on -
hippopotami - ta-daaaa! - in the same edition!
Mud, mud, gloooooorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow ...
Down to the hollow ...
And there let us wallow
In gloooooorious mud!
This was one of the most fascinating articles I ever read, Keiva ! ( I subscribe to
Smithsonian). I'm so glad you brought the link into the discussion. Even as a history buff I had assumed some figment of light in the night (torch, candle, or gas light in the cities, at least) for most of history. This article points out that streetlights of gas didn't make their appearance in urban areas until the late 18th Century! And traveling at night was such a hazard on horseback most folks waited for day, or sometimes a full moon. People, both tipsy and sober, were known to ride their horses right over cliffs in the treacherous darkness of the time!
I recommend everybody click over and read this to experience something they may have never even considered ...true dark at night....during fairly recent civilized history. Thanks again, Keiva!
And speaking of gas light, it was a sad fact that in the late 1800's, more than one country boy on his first visit to the big city, made the fatal mistake of blowing out the gas light.
Being too pale is seen as a sign of something like unhealthiness.In Victorian society it was just the opposite. A tan was the sign of a common laborer, someone of the working lower classes whose job kept them out in the sun. So Victorian ladies of proper society were careful to maintain as fair a complexion as possible, thus the fashion of parasols and wide brimmed hats.
Any dash of extra sun-touched pigmentation was viewed as repulsive. So many folks, endeavoring to emulate the upper crust as is the want of human nature [
], tried to keep themselves as pale as possible. It all got turned around with the dawn of air travel when the upper crust began to spend more winter time in sub-tropic and tropic climes (the jet set), and having a tan year-round became a sign of having money. So we spent 60 some years (give or take a few) baking on sunny beaches to look rich only to find that we're now flocking to doctors in droves to have cancerous lesions removed. So perhaps, this century, the pendulum will swing back to a fairness of complexion again.
neadertal Hey! watch it, CapK!...you know how I feel about that! We discovered it's a matter of preference...
but I want my "h" back, dammit! Neandert
hal, thank you!
And, of course, fire = "light", and light = "good".Are you quoting the blind man in Young Frankenstein?
Damned funny scene!
Are you quoting the blind man in Young Frankenstein? Damned funny scene!Guilty, m'Lud. Only I had forgotten where it came from ...
the blind man in Young Frankenstein
Wasn't the blind man played by played by Peter Boyle ... the same fellow who is now seen in the role of the father of Raymond in the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond?"
Or was the blind man Gene Hackman?
Re "tan" -- my Irish skin will not tolerate much sun so in late July my "tan" is actually a pale shade of bisque! Oh, and isn't the depression caused by reduced sunlight called SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder? Prevalent, I understand, in lands of the far north (Scandanavia and Alsaka) and not unknown in New England!
ALERT - Background note :
the good guy is nearly always
dressed in lighter colors than other characters.
Exceptions: Hopalong Cassidy
In 1951 I was in Houston Texas with my Dad, staying at the Shamrock Hotel. Also at the hotel was a convention of the "Flying Farmers of America" and the star attraction was Hopalong Cassidy. I met him. A most charming gentleman. He was clever too ... he was a movie idol in the early movie days and was smart enough to have it in his contract that all the rights to the old movies in which he starred would revert to him. So he was in a position to sell all the Western films he had made to TV when The Box was eating up everything it could get its hands on ... and thereby he resurrected his career and became a TV star in the 1950s!
Wasn't the blind man played by played by Peter Boyle .
If my coprolite containing cranium cogitates correctly, Boyle played the monster, and Mel Brooks hissef played the blind man. Gotta go rent that flick again an' see fer mysef!
Now, as regards William Boyd, AKA Hopalong Cassidy: He was friends with a pogo stick-riding nun, Hopalong Chastity.
More on the subject: Just returned from a Scandanavian Festival, where "Lucia, Queen of Light" was crowned. Thank goodness, I left before anybody opened the lutefisk!!!
FrankensteinThat's Franken
schteen to you!
--Mel Brooks
Or was the blind man Gene Hackman?
Yes.
traveling at night was such a hazard on horsebackThere are some great dark-night stories in
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember the delicious chills of fear I felt when my mother read aloud the story of the time Laura's grandfather rode through the dark woods at top speed, trying to escape a black panther which was pursuing him. And then there was the time Pa mistook a big tree stump for a bear...