Dennis asked: My question concerns the word "Ghost," in view of the expression "Holy Ghost."

Hmmm. In my world, Ghost is a particular effect piece of software which copies the exact contents of one disk drive to another.

Faldage has actually given an extremely good, pedantic and factually correct answer. Now we can have fun with it.

And, as Helen, whose computer launched a thousand MIPS said, welcome.

--- i think christians miss a lot by not having a tradition of commentary the way the Jews, do-- we might have avoided the whole roman/protestant thing, if there had been some organized way to discuss, word by word, biblical meaning...

I don't see how, Helen - it hasn't saved the Jews from some very bitter sectarianism - and thats not including, of course, two sects which broke away completely and which have both, over the past few centuries, persecuted the religion to which they owe their very existence.

Here's a bit of commentary on the words ghost and spirit. As noted in foregoing postings, Holy Ghost was the translation used for the Latin Spiritus Sanctus and Greek Hagia Pneuma. Do you notice something about the words spiritus and pneuma? They have to do with breath . Indeed, there is a connection in both Latin and Greek between spirit in the sense of disembodied being and the breath. Curiously enough, this goes right back to the opening of the book of Genesis, written in Hebrew, a language unrelated to Latin and Greek, which speaks of the ruach Elohim, translated as the "spirit of God" [moved upon the face of the waters]; ruach means either breath or spirit.

Bobyoungbalt points out that ruach means either breath or spirit

And if you look ghost (rather than Holy Ghost) up in your AHD you find: Old English gast, breath, spirit.

Interestingly enough if you look up host (meaning army) you discover that ultimately it derives from the Indo European root ghos-ti-.

Presumably there is a connexion because the Latin is just a translation of the Greek, and they borrowed or calqued their philosophical terms holus-bolus.

Hebrew /ruh./ (or "ruach") also means wind, and /ruh. ?lohim/ may mean "a great wind" or "a divine wind".

Ghost is cognate with German Geist. The -h- was introduced by Caxton, who was influenced by Flemish spelling. In later English it might have been preserved by association with ghoul, which comes from Arabic and actually has a GH sound.

The Indo-European root ghost- giving Latin host- 'army' also gives the native English 'guest', I believe; the basic meaning being 'stranger'. This is preserved in the Latin hos-pit- 'guest-feeder', which gives rise to 'host', 'hospitality' etc.

Welcome aBoard, Nicholas.
You are very knowledgeable, sir. I'm sure you'll be able to add a good deal of enlightenment to our sometimes
off-the-wall discussions.
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Add-on edit: I just read your other posts, and have to ask:
how many languages have you studied, please?

Oh lots. You'll just have to wait for little snippets of erudition to pop up in unexpected places.

I'm only replying to this because I've just passed 25 posts and I want to see my new title.

Oh lots. You'll just have to wait for little snippets of erudition to pop up in unexpected places.
Hrmph. Thanks for nuttin', Bub! There are one or two people here who may know how much I hate not having my curiosity satisfied immediately.

I'm only replying to this because I've just passed 25 posts and I want to see my new title.
Move over, shona. Perhaps at this rate, Nickel (ooh, payback! hee hee hee!), you'll be the first to reach 1200, and I'll be glad!

how many languages have you studied, please?


Well, classes I've been in have included Syriac, Old Norse, Swahili, and Ancient Egyptian.

I have books on Somali, Shona, Bidyara (of Queensland), Proto-Afroasiatic, Burmese, and Chechen inter alia.

On another forum I recently cited pronominal paradigms from Cheyenne and Brahui -- sheer boasting, of course.

In short I'm a dilettante, a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.