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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes Bingley...at the time I found two references to Chinese mythology (on net) and recently one reference to Babylonian mythology (encyclopedia of Myths & Legends). I must admit I didn't check into it further since I've been using belMarduk for quite a while.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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oops, forgot to add my <knock> info to previous note. I've been asking around. A few people mentioned the expression "knock yourself out" (always pronounced knock yerself out)usually said to somebody who wants to have a go at something you have not been able to do and usually preceded by "oh ya," a bit of a snicker and a "well of course he opened it up I loosened it first" after the fact.
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Carpal Tunnel
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From an encyclopaedia I have at home: "BEL [from Akkadian, meaning "Owner; Master"]. A Babylonian deity. The title Bel was first applied to the god Enlil. Bel was part of the original Sumerian triad of deities, along with Anu and Enki (Ea). When Marduk (Merodach) became the chief god of Babylon, he was also given the name Bel.-" See alsohttp://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,15358+1+15167,00.htmlThe Hebrew prophet Daniel was given the name "Belteshazzar" by his Babylonian captors, if I remember my childhood Bible lessons correctly.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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easily disassembled into its component parts
Checking back through this thread, I realise I failed to rise to this usage earlier, TEd. It has been the subject of intense debate in my family - my dad hates it with a passion, saying what's wrong with dismantle?! I defend it on the grounds as having a more subtle meaning than dismantle - it suggests to me this very sense of reduction to component form which implies the object's 're-mantling' at some stage. And since mantle as a positive verbal construct seems to have fallen off the table, I like the extra distinction this usage allows. However, it still leaves me with the nagging doubt of the pedant - am I sticking with a word out of misguided finesse, which most others are using with blunt imprecision. So I am reassured to find it in use here - not misguidedly I hope?
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old hand
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old hand
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"to disassemble into its component parts" strikes me as a pleonasm. I think "disassemble" in itself is more than sufficiently pedantic. Things like scrambled eggs are impossible to disassemble anyway, and cars etc. can also be separated into their component parts.
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impossible to disassemble I agree that some things like scrambled egg are impossible to disassemble (does this hold true of neoplasm?  ) But surely this adds to the suggestion that "to disassemble" carries the extra meaning that the parts may end up reconstituted...? By the way, I think my dad's straining at the word comes from the difference of UK and USA English which definitely have their own aesthetic sensibilities (I know, tsuwm, YART!)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Perhaps we didn't use disassemble to avoid the confusion with dissemble. Thinking about it, avoiding confusion with other words never really seems to have stopped us using them has it?
Disassemble is one of those IKEA words, used generally late at night when discovering that a vital screwhole is in the wrong place because the whole side had been put on upside down!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mav:
To me dismantle has the connotation of taking something apart permanently. At the end of WW II the United States dismantled the largest army it had ever fielded.
Disassemble to me carries the connotation that the new state of the object is temporary: I disassembled the computer desk because it wouldn't fit into the trunk (or boot for many of you).
Also, when I disassemble something, there's an implication that I am following instructions in reverse order. And, after all, one does not mantle a piece of furniture, one assembles it :)
TEd
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the new state of the object is temporaryYep, I'm with you on this interpretation TEd. And with you Jo, when you imply a little confusion never hurt a language's chances. Or in the case of IKEA, a little contusion 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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: I disassembled the computer desk because it wouldn't fit into the trunk (or boot for many of you).
Surely, TEd, you could, in the first case, have got the elephant to carry it on it's back, or, in the second, have shoehorned it in?
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