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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Chimera
[After Chimera, a fire-breathing female monster in Greek mythology who had a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. (sounds awfully unpleasant)
From Greek khimaira(she-goat,
ultimately from the Indo-European root ghei- (winter) that is the ancestor of words such as chimera (literally a female animal that is one winter, or one year old), hibernate, and the Himalayas, from Sanskrit him (snow) + alaya (abode).]
It's the she-goat who's done it again. (sigh... ) the scapegoat.
(though that word is defined as 'bad or inferior member of any group', so that word is more casual about the sexes))
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Ahhh, did that comment get your goat?
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old hand
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old hand
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Ahhh, did that comment get your goat? I know where 'scapegoat' comes from - the King James translation of Leviticus chapter 16 - but where does the saying "gets my goat" or "gets on my goat" come from I wonder?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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on? that is a new one to me.
PS Bran, where did you get the def of inferior? A scapegoat is the one blamed for the groups failure or has common usage seft me behind again?
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old hand
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old hand
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on? that is a new one to me. "gets on my goat" - perhaps an Aussie variation then? What is the origin of the expression though, with or without the "on"?
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Carpal Tunnel
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By the beard of Azazel!,I can't remember where I plucked that one from. (I'll add the scource from now on.) This is the more general definition: scapegoat:
1. a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place.
2. Chiefly Biblical.a goat let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on its head. Lev. 16:8,10,26.Most from the OneLook list give this one. I just wanted to point out the distinction between the 'neutral' scapegoat and the 'monstruous' chimera , cause I was wondering why the goat part in the animal mixture is specifically distinguished as "she-goat".  What's wrong with those ancient Greeks anyway ? They must have had a very low opinion of women. Today's Argus with his 100 eyes was created or hired by Zeus to spy on Io , I guess 24 hours a day, cause he had no time to do that himself as he was too busy making eyes at the rest of the godesses. After Hermes killed Argus him his eyes went to the peacock's tail. All those eyes in vain...  "Get your goat" maybe is for you to explain, Zed?
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old hand
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old hand
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What's wrong with those ancient Greeks anyway ? They must have had a very low opinion of women. The opinions of their ancient writers and myths varies, as it did with all the ancients. There is also cultural disagreement over what constitutes a high or low opinion of women, too, and how that should be expressed. Many muslims argue that the hijab for example is an expression of a high view of women. Other muslims and possibly most non-muslims argue the opposite. You need to take cultural values into consideration when evaluating whether a particular myth elevates or lowers the perception of women. Having said that... I suspect you're right - ancient Greek men were probably even more chauvinistic (yes I know that's an anachronistic tag) than today! And they were the ones who wrote the myths. For most of history in most parts of the world it's been politically correct to be that way! (Oh for the good old days!)
Last edited by The Pook; 04/29/08 11:53 PM.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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to "get your goat" means to seriously annoy someone, e.g. by using a split infinitive near a prescriptivist.
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old hand
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old hand
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to "get your goat" means to seriously annoy someone, e.g. by using a split infinitive near a prescriptivist. Yes we know what it means. But where does it come from?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ahhh, did that comment get your goat? Yes, it seems a little pointless to emphasize the she- in a goat from the thousands of years' old Greek scource-word; n.b it's only a part of a goat.(though linguists will know to tell why,I s'pose.) where it may come from: get your goat more goat The Pook, you are right and I was not 100% serious; rarely am about anything.
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