#24597
04/09/2001 6:55 PM
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incense
Well, no, Bill, not exactly. It is believed that the early Christians, in Rome at least, used incense because the Catacombs were actually the municipal cemetery, so they needed some "air conditioning". More to the point, however, was that they inherited the use of incense from the Jews (most of the early Christians were Jews), who used incense in the sacrifices carried out at the Temple in Jerusalem. If you read the regulations for these sacrifices in the book of Leviticus, you will get some idea of why they needed clouds of incense -- the smell must have been horrendous, and not like a barbecue, either. To say nothing of the flies. Speaking of that, there used to be a part of the Catholic liturgical garments called the "maniple", which was a narrow band of cloth, in the same color and material as the chasuble and stole, which was attached to the priest's left wrist. It's original use was to shoo the flies away during the celebration of Mass so they would not contaminate the communion bread and wine.
You mentioned the smells of people in crowds. It used to be the custom, and may be still, in English courtrooms to have a bouquet or nosegay, which the judge carried in and placed on his desk in front of him, also in some municipal processions, some officials carried a nosegay. The original reason was, as you note, the smell of the crowds (or, in the case of the courtroom, the smell of a prisoner brought up from the gaol or dungeon). These nosegays originally contained as much fragrant herbs as flowers, as it was believed that the aroma of the herbs could help overcome the dangerous humours.
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#24598
04/09/2001 8:00 PM
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why they needed clouds of incense -- the smell must have been horrendous
Amazing how things change with the times! I am sure you are correct BobY! But then in days of deodorants and frequent bathing we were told incense was used as it rises and takes our prayers to heaven with a sweet odor of supplication.
I think you are on the mark and we were fobbed off as the adults are sometimes wont to do with children.
Now as to : custom in courtrooms to have a bouquet or nosegay
The Shorter OED has no entry for nosegay, but Atomica does!
There is also a floral piece called a tussymussy which has to be looked up as two separate words -- it's a small bouquet of casually arranged flowers.
I like that word : tussymussy !
wow
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#24599
04/09/2001 9:25 PM
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Dear Bob: your mention of the many sacrifices in the Temple reminded me of an article I read that on two occasions when attempts were made to excavate in vicinity of the Temple gas coming out of the excavation ignited severely injuring workmen. Since there is apparently neither oil or natural gas worth mentioning in Israel, I suspect that the many years of soil pollution by sacrifices can have produced methane in this one spot. Sound reasonable?
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#24600
04/10/2001 12:31 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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More to the point, however, was that they inherited the use of incense from the Jews (most of the early Christians were Jews), who used incense in the sacrifices carried out at the Temple in Jerusalem. If you read the regulations for these sacrifices in the book of Leviticus, you will get some idea of why they needed clouds of incense -- the smell must have been horrendous, and not like a barbecue, either.
This explanation may have some merit, but, as I remember it from the Talmud, the incense was a separate offering, brought at a separate altar and at a particular time of day. To my understanding, the animals weren't stacked in dead heaps, but slaughtered and offered. Legally, it was impermissible to derive any pleasure from the fragrance of the incense (which, if you like frankincense, was fragrant, indeed). In any event, they would never have been permitted to rot, as this would have made an unfitting offering. Moreover, the sacrifices were either completely burned (the "holocaust") or eaten, either by the person offering it, or by a priest, depending upon the kind of sacrifice being brought. The blood-and there was a lot of it-was drained off through a pipe that led to the Hinim Valley, below the eastern slope of the Temple Mount. (This is the site of the gates of Hell I mentioned in another post-hell is called "gehinim" in Hebrew. The valley is still called the Hinim Valley, and there is a road sign pointing there on a major thoroughfare below the south-eastern corner of the Old City.) At the end of the pipe, the blood was gathered and sold as fertilizer.
Since there is apparently neither oil or natural gas worth mentioning in Israel, I suspect that the many years of soil pollution by sacrifices can have produced methane in this one spot. Sound reasonable?
Not likely, after over 2000 years. However, the valley between Mt. Zion and the Temple Mount was filled over the centuries-by rubble, when the town was sacked, and by garbage. The latter was intentional: the way the place of the Western Wall (*not* a part of the Temple) was discovered was that people specifically brought their garbage to dump there as a gesture of their dislike of Jews. I would think the methane would more likely have resulted from this long history of refuse disposal (and sewerage which, and I am guessing, would likely have been piped there) than from old sacrifices that were never left to rot in the first place.
***
On another matter entirely, but for the sake of not depleting our dwindling reservoir of posts, does UK "arse" actually come from the Romanish "karsi," after all, and not the plowshare's stubborn friend? (see most recent rhyming slang entry)
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#24601
04/10/2001 12:55 PM
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The islander wonders: On another matter entirely ... does UK "arse" actually come from the Romanish "karsi," after all, and not the plowshare's stubborn friend?
Considering that the German is Arsch I would doubt it. The US'n pronunciation, without the <r> would be a normal transformation.
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#24602
04/10/2001 2:23 PM
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old hand
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old hand
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BobY asserted: It used to be the custom, and may be still, in English courtrooms to have a bouquet or nosegay, which the judge carried in and placed on his desk in front of him, also in some municipal processions, some officials carried a nosegay. The original reason was, as you note, the smell of the crowds (or, in the case of the courtroom, the smell of a prisoner brought up from the gaol or dungeon). These nosegays originally contained as much fragrant herbs as flowers, as it was believed that the aroma of the herbs could help overcome the dangerous humours.
The alternate explanation I've heard for nosegays was less specific than courtroom vapors ~ since it was custom to empty chamber pots out the window, the gentility carried nosegays to avoid succumbing right there on the street in front of the philistines for whom they were attempting to set an example! Sometimes when I'm frustrated by the ill effects of certain technologies on society, I pause and remember how grateful I am for modern plumbing.
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#24603
04/10/2001 3:09 PM
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explanations of incense
Your reaction to an explanation of incense which is different from what the good nuns gave out is not what mine would be. Symbolism is not a zero-sum game; they operate on various levels and all may be equally valid at the same time. What happens in very many cases is that a custom arises from a humdrum and everyday usage or practice. As times change and there is no longer a practical reason for keeping it up, there is the usual human reaction to go on doing the same thing, so people tend, consciously or unconsciously, to find a justification to keep on doing the same thing the same way. And if you have a really inventive fellow around, (like St. Thomas Aquinas, among others) you can assign a symbolic meaning. Hence, when there was no longer need for incense as air freshener, its symbolic meaning equating it with prayers (which had been present all along -- it's mentioned in the Psalms in this context, among other places) became the sole meaning and the former use was relegated to history.
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#24604
04/10/2001 3:11 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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It was for more than just the offensiveness of the smell that the nosegays were carried. Right up until mid C19, the majority opinion among the medical profession was that whatever it was that carried disease was actually in the smell itself. This is known as "the miasmic theory of disease." So the herbs, etc in the nosegay were actually being used as a form of disinfectant, rather than as an aid to olfactory aesthetics.
From the 1850s, the belief that disease was carried by minute organisms began to overtake the miasmic theory, and was conclusively proven by Robert Koch in 1896 (or '98 - can't remember!) But there were still some reactionary doctors who held to the miasmic theory well into the C20.
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#24605
04/10/2001 3:26 PM
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gentility carrying nosegays
Can't go for this explanation. They had enough to do when going down the street. They wore swords, gloves, and hats (which had to be doffed when encountering an acquaintance) and often carried their handkerchief (lace-trimmed) in their hand. Given the fact that ordinary people (i.e., other than the wealthy) didn't bath very often and no one, not even kings, had their silk and velvet clothes cleaned very often or very thoroughly, body odor was taken for granted which we, in these supposedly politer times of ours, would find insupportable. Then there was bad breath -- people had bad teeth much more than we do and I don't believe they brushed, except for maybe a few effete aristocrats. And given the absence or sewerage systems, or only a primitive form of it, the use of the jakes or the chamber pot by everyone, people were accustomed to the omnipresent stench, to some degree or other, of feces, offals and garbage. I imagine they were so used to the all-encompassing cloud of foul smells from various sources that they didn't notice smells which we would find intolerable if we were carried back in time. It would have been an unusually powerful stench which would get them upset enough to take measures to counter them, and which, to us, would be enough to knock us down.
I too am grateful for modern sewerage systems, as well as washing machines and personal deodorants, but I wonder if we have taken this too far. The other day I found myself curling up my nose as I passed a flowerbed which had been treated to a fresh covering of mulch, which was very fragrant, and I had to remind myself not to be such an urban mollycoddle.
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#24606
04/10/2001 3:32 PM
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miasmas
Right on. This was also connected to the theory of medicine regarding humours. Bocaccio adverts to this in his general preface in the Decameron where he is describing the Black Death [bubonic plague] in Florence.
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#24607
04/10/2001 3:42 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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"What happens in very many cases is that a custom arises from a humdrum and everyday usage or practice. As times change and there is no longer a practical reason for keeping it up, there is the usual human reaction to go on doing the same thing, so people tend, consciously or unconsciously, to find a justification to keep on doing the same thing the same way."
Which reminds me of the story ...
Of the new bride who was excited to host Easter dinner for her new family, and planned to cook a ham according to the tradition of her own family. Using her mother's recipe, the woman cut the ham in two and simultaneously baked them in separate pans. However, when her husband asked her why the ham was in two pieces, the bride said, "I don't know. It's the way my mom always did it." So, the bride called her mother, who said, "I don't know. That's the way my mother always did it." So then the mother called her mother and asked why she baked the ham in two pieces. And grandmother said, "Because I didn't have a single pan big enough."
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#24608
04/10/2001 3:45 PM
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Right up until mid C19, the majority opinion among the medical profession was that whatever it was that carried disease was actually in the smell itself. This is known as 'the miasmic theory of disease.'"
Hence, the name, "malaria."
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#24609
04/29/2001 3:55 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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" aloof! An old expression meaning 'Keep your luff', or sail as close to the wind as possible. Sometimes, in old books of voyages, written as 'ALUFFE'. The expression was most often used when a ship was sailing along a lee shore, the order to 'keep aloof' meaning to keep the ship's head nearer to the wind to prevent her being driven closer to the shore. "
Any etymology experts among us able to tell how this nautical term changed to mean
"distant in sympathy, interest, etc.; reserved and cool !her manner was aloof"
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#24610
04/29/2001 4:41 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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adv. 1. [naut] sail nearer the wind 2. [naut] away to the windward 3. hence generally, of position: away at some distance 4. of action: from a distance, not at close quarters 5. fig. without community of action or feeling 6. as compl. or pred.: at a distance; distant; hence, detached, unsympathetic hence attrib. as adj. distant (obs. rare), also, detached, unsympathetic QED 
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#24611
04/29/2001 6:50 PM
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The small room or closet adjoining the kitchen that is ordinarily called the pantry, was called by my father "the buttry". I just found origin of this word in Melanie and Mike:
Butt "barrel" comes from a different source than all of the above: Latin buttis "cask". Bottle is related. A storeroom of casks of wine was called a buterie, and that is where the U.K. English term buttery "food shop in a college" comes from. So if you get thee to a buttery, it does not have to be a fattening experience.
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#24612
04/29/2001 11:22 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Latin buttis "cask". Bottle is related. A storeroom of casks of wine was called a buterie, and that is where the U.K. English term buttery "food shop in a college" comes from
Cool, Bill! Yup, the French word for bottle is
bouteille: all this is now clearly related. Thanks.
And, re: aloof--I reckon aluffe meant that the ship is
standing off (from the shore), and so aloof for people means
they're stand-offish.
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#24613
04/29/2001 11:31 PM
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Cool, Bill! Yup, the French word for bottle is
bouteille: all this is now clearly related. Thanks.
All this talk of bottles reminds me of the fiasco that brought me here in the first place - what goes around comes around, plus ça change, etc.
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#24614
04/29/2001 11:40 PM
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All this talk of bottles reminds me of the fiasco that brought me here in the first place - what goes around comes around, plus ça change, etc. You mean you played Spin the Bottle?!? 
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#24615
04/29/2001 11:43 PM
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You mean you played Spin the Bottle?!?Search for fiasco and all will be revealed (which may well happen in Spin The Bottle as well) 
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#24616
04/30/2001 12:17 AM
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Wasn't Amontillado el Fiasco a character in Asterix in Spain?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#24617
04/30/2001 1:16 AM
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Wasn't Amontillado el Fiasco a character in Asterix in Spain?
I can't remember, but I do know that I have lnog felt that the translators of the Asterix series are literary heroes grossly underappreciated. After struggling through Astérix et Cleopatre in High School, the genius of the translators in retaining the sense, and sense of humour, in a series dependent on punning, shone through. I don't even know their names, but they were gifted, that's for sure.
Be Like the Twenty-Second Elephant with Heated Value in Space - Bark!
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#24618
04/30/2001 1:35 AM
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Search for fiascoThat's right! Oh, sweet Max, have we really known each other only since Aug. 12th? Time sure flies when you're having such delightful fun!
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#24619
04/30/2001 6:28 AM
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but I do know that I have lnog felt that the translators of the Asterix series are literary heroes grossly underappreciated.
They were/are Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge. Guess which book from the series I can't lay my hands on? And yes, they were very clever, especially since in several instances they virtually had to recast the story to make the English fit the French-inspired cartoons.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#24620
04/30/2001 9:52 AM
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addict
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Latin buttis "cask". Bottle is related. A storeroom of casks of wine was called a buterie, and that is where the U.K. English term buttery "food shop in a college" comes fromand butter is made in a churn or cask. But wait for it.. the entymology is the other way round!!. Ignore the "in reply to" In reply to:
: butter. Middle English, from Old English butere, from Latin butyrum, from Greek boutyron, from bous cow + tyros cheese; akin to Avestan tuiri- curds -- more at COW
from Miriam-Webster via yourdic (I knew him Horatio)
Rod
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#24621
04/30/2001 3:02 PM
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There was one, I don't remember the title, in which the pirates were clinging to the shattered remains of their ship in a parody of Gericault's Raft of the Medusa. The old pirate, who is usually saying something pithy in Latin, remarks, "We've been framed, by Jericho!" This doesn't quite work for US'ns for whom framed in this context would mean wrongly accused/indicted for some crime. Does framed mean something else for Brits?
Also, I had had the idea that the puns in Asterix were all preprogrammed in; I have copies of Asterix the Gladiator and Asterix Gladiador and some of the puns in English seem to have been translated literally into Spanish, in which language they are not puns. Since the Spanish version, I am certain, was translated from the French I could only assume that the puns had been lying in wait in the original ready to spring out in whatever language they got translated into.
Does anyone know what the "We've been framed..." line was in the French?
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#24622
04/30/2001 3:27 PM
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We've been framed, by Jericho!
It means the same in British, so without seeing the picture I'm not sure what the reference is. I will have a look through my (partial) collection, some in French (and German) tonight.
I do know that many (if not most) of the puns were language specific and different in each country (don't know how much the UK/US differ). Many of the names change: Dogmatix is Ideefix in French, Christmas Bonus the centurion is something completely different.
They used to publish the French books in UK with a pamphlet inside explaining the puns to an English audience, and if you could explain one they had missed you got a free Asterix book of your choice.
Which leads me to a phrase which my wife wishes I wouldn't use so often (on a crossed thread again). When I see someone doing things in a convoluted way I tend to mutter ".. fresh in from Paris everyday" refering to Unhygenix the Fishmonger's custom of supplying his seaside fish shop from Paris.
Rod
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#24623
05/10/2001 7:27 AM
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"We've been framed..." spoken by the pirate captain in Asterix
Sorry, couldn't find it in my (smallish) collection. (Damn kids. Buy 'em a book and they think it's theirs!) Only thought I had was that maybe the pirate had a hatch opening round his head, so "framing" him, but I presume you would have seen that.
However the search sent me rooting through the pun notes for a French copy of "Asterix and the Gladiators" (by the way a nephew was an extra - a German tribesman - in Gladiators. The battle scene was filmed in the woods next to my in-law's house) In this it mentions that one of the songs is a parody of a kid's song "Il etait un petit navire". It also mentions that "there is a noted rude version". I have been unable to track this down. Any help please?
And while we're on the subject. Such rude songs are generally known as "Rugby Songs" in UK. Is there such a phrase in US and elsewhere, or are they just known as "dirty songs"?
Rod
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#24624
05/10/2001 7:53 AM
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Whenever I see a free giveaway when you purchase something (ginzu knives come to mind), I mutter to myself "... and a free fish with every antique ..." From "Mansions of the Gods", of course. Or it could be a free antique with every fish purchased.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#24625
05/10/2001 8:16 AM
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and a free fish with every antique ..." Or it could be a free antique with every fish purchased.of course with Unhygienix the fish WAS the antique  Is there a french pun hidden in the "free fish with every antique"(or vice versa) or is it just commenting on the practice of freebies? Rod
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#24626
05/10/2001 12:42 PM
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Rod asks: Is there a french pun hidden in the "free fish...
I just thought the poison/poisson connexion was funny enough, but I don't know enough French (or have enough Aterices in French) to know if they exploited it.
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#24627
05/10/2001 5:28 PM
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Totally off the subject almost : I cannot abide the perfume Poison. It's toooo heavy a scent. Gives me a headache.
The name is also off-putting as I cannot help but read it as the French name for fish (poisson sp?) which brings to mind a very fishy smell.
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