http://www.wist.info/authors.html

Shakespeare leads the pack with 91 listings.

Nice site, thanks bro.

Everyone's quick to blame the alien.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist
The Suppliant Maidens

Can anyone confirm that translation or offer a more accurate alternative? (As a one-time Illegal Alien I obviously suspect it might get rendered as foreigner in almost any land other than the Land of the Free {sic} )

Aeschylus' Suppliant Women, lines 994-5:

My translation: But everyone has a bad word ready for the resident foreigner, to utter good-sounding abuse.

http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aesch.+Supp.+980

The word in question is metoikos, meaning immigrant, foreigner with resident rights. The LSJ does have the word 'alien' in its entry:

http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=#67193

Bingley

Thanks Bingley :)

Metoikos, BTW, is anglicised as metic

Bingley

anglicised as metic

Is 'metic' ever used?

metic

\Met"ic\ (? or ?; 277), n. [Gr. ?, prop., changing one's abode; ?, indicating change + ? house, abode: cf. L. metoecus, F. m['e]t[`e]que.] (Gr. Antiq.) A sojourner; an immigrant; an alien resident in a Grecian city, but not a citizen. --Mitford.

The whole force of Athens, metics as well as citizens, and all the strangers who were then in the city. --Jowett (Thucyd. ).


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


metic

n : an alien who paid a fee to reside in an ancient Greek city


Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

an alien who paid a fee to reside in an ancient Greek city And if he always spoke on the same topic, he was a themetic.

and if he came from Arabia and had this newfangled way of figuring with numbers, he was an arithmetic?

and if he was hawking pigments from all over to make the women look more beautiful, he was a cosmetic?

and if [THE HOOK!-e]

quick, call me a doctor!

quick, call me a doctor!

Okay. You're a doctor.

(Thanks, Groucho).

>And if he always spoke on the same topic, he was a themetic.

But if he were a she with children she would me a mathemetic.

MFR: I did NOT start this.

... I'm just happy to know that *fungiblity is following me.

And if what he said makes you sick, he's an emetic.

Kirk: Metic! Metic!
Bones: I'm a doctor, Jim, not a ____.

choose one:
a) medic
b) vet
c) betamimetic
d) octogenarian

...but if you're very particular and examine every detail before you decide where to settle down, shouldn't we call you "meticulous" ?

(And has anyone checked to see whether any of these attempts at humor might, purely by accident of course, have their roots in "metic = resident alien" after all?)

I doubt it very much. In Greek, metic is metoikos, consisting of the prefix meta (after, with) and oikos (house, household), so relatives would be words in meta (metabolism, metaphysics, etc) and derivatives from oikos such as economics, ecumenical, and ecology.

Bingley