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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Just to take a fairly random example, my dictionary gives something like 22 meanings for "figure".
Bingley
Bingley
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Bingley: it just occurred to me that the first use of the word "scytala" was something like "when the scytala came to Agesilaus..." But a scytala (a rod) did not come to him, just the strip of parchment with the letters on it . The scytala was already in his possession. Is this a metaphor, the small part being given the name of the large part?
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
From the LSJ entry linked to above:
at Sparta, staff or baton, used as a cypher for writing dispatches, a strip of leather being rolled slantwise round it, on which the dispatches were written lengthwise, so that when unrolled they were unintelligible: commanders abroad had a staff of like thickness, round which they rolled these strips, and so were able to read the dispatches:--hence skutalê came to mean a Spartan dispatch, Th.1.131, X.HG3.3.8, Ar.Lys.991, Plu.Lys.19, Gell.17.9.15; and, generally, dispatch, message, as Pi. calls the bearer of his ode skutala Moisan O.6.91 , where the Sch. quotes achnumenê skutalê (dub. sens.) from Archil. (Fr.89.2); hê skutalês peritropê, of labour in vain (cf. huperos), Pl.Tht.209d.
Bingley
Bingley
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