Siderated adj to be struck with a constellation; star-blasted; planet-struck; blasted.

Now there, in my humble opinion, is a Word of the Day.

But is it a word? It caught my eye when I was looking up "sidereal clock" in my ill-famed Wordsworth Dictionary Of Difficult Words, but I have never seen it employed : It hardly has much utility in ordinary experience.

All the same, I cannot resist submitting it to the board in the hope that someone will be able to offer a more detailed definition.

That's a good one, ullrich. It looks like a job for tsuper-tsuwm!

siderate, v.

Obs.

[f. ppl. stem of L. siderari to be planet-struck, f. sider-, sidus constellation, star.]

trans. To strike with malign (sidereal) influence, to blast. Chiefly in passive: To be blasted, struck with lightning; also fig., to be thunder-struck.

1623 COCKERAM I, Siderate, to blast. 1646 SIR T. BROWNE Pseud. Ep. 335 Parts cauterized, gangrenated, siderated and mortified, become black. 1654 VILVAIN Epit. Ess. V. xxxiii. 102 The 2 Persons that were suddenly siderated or slain and scorched in bed together with Lightning. 1679 V. ALSOP Melius Inq. II. v. 307 This is Demonstration that puts the Controversie beyond all exception, and the poor Non-conformists are siderated with the violence of it!

OED SECOND EDITION 1989



edit: obsolete : to blast or strike down (as with lightning) [W3]

Tsanks, tsuwm. So the "blast" bit would be the connection to the steel industry?

I think the Cockeram def'n (1623) would predate steel, non?

>>predates steel<<

Dear me, no!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel Scroll down the page a bit. There was an article on early hillside blast furnaces in China in the NY Times several years ago. Seville sword makers also used steel in the weapons that helped Cortez defeat the Aztecs.

:}

I maybe should have said "would predate the steel industry".
-joe (Bessemer) bfstplk

Ex-cuuuuse me! I'm asking about the make-up of the words siderurgy and siderated as per ullrich's original post. I'm astsuming the root is the tsame. [/geez, some people..®?!®]

>I'm asking about the make-up of the words siderurgy and siderated..

well excuse me thrice - yours just then is the first mention of siderurgy I think, and you did reply to me, using my nym did you not?!

(you don't have to try *that hard, ASp :)

I axed about the steel industry earlier. And while we're at it, how does the above word tie in? [/no mo props for tsuwm]

I'm not going to pick sides in this one...

according to Festus, derived from s{imac}dus, s{imac}der- star, constellation. The vb. might thus be originally a term of astrology or augury, but such a use is not known in the Lat. writers.



note to Faldo: ī <> {imac}

note to Faldo:  <> {imac}

Hey! I'm reading this on an iMac. You think I can't see imac?

An I still wanna know what fsigma is.

The overall rule on final versus non-final sigma is simply that, where the sigma terminates what may be understood to be a distinct word of Greek, it is final, otherwise, it is non-final.

hth.

So when used to mean "struck with lightning" it is synonymous with "unlucky" in the sense of being "star-crossed" or merely "blasted" as if by a constellation? Perhaps in the same sense that the root of "disaster" in "astrum" records a former belief in astrology.

I'm astsuming the root is the tsame. It's that assumption which is at the root of the trouble:
The latin sidus (-eris), star, is apparently not directly related to greek sideros, iron.

And yet as a combining form, "sidero-" means both (iron and star). An orthographical coincidence of Greek and Latin etymologies?

[Rhetorical aside to self: Why are extraneous t's being inserted into certain words on this board? An in-joke originating with tswum?]

>Why are extraneous t's being inserted into certain words on this board? An in-joke originating with tswum?]

You tsure tsummed that up tsuperbly.

And a belated welcome to our board. Sorry for the little glitches that happened previously, but we've hopefully done what needs to be done to minimize further damage.

This siderated word is all a proofreader's error. He was setting the following sentence: The proctors at the school decided that my side rated another star.

Unfortunately, an en-space disappeared between side and rated, and google picked up siderated and the next thing you know there were fifty thousand googlits. A star (word) is born.

[Rhetorical aside to self: Why are extraneous t's being inserted into certain words on this board? An in-joke originating with tswum?]

I guess some of us like to play with language as much as discuss it. No in-joke. Just a rhetorical device.

>extraneous tease<

Dang, never even noticed it!

"sidero-" means both (iron and star)
Tempting .. in the meantime I found this:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Humanities/TechnologyGrecoRoman.html
but I find this explanation improbable, bordering on spurious..

>>I find this<<

Interesting article. "Unimportant" though? To whom? Specific iron meteorites were *very* important to certain tribes that used them to forge tools, esp. weapons, from.

but I find this explanation improbable, bordering on spurious

As the author points out, finding Greek σιδηρος (sideros) 'iron' and Latin sidus, -eris, 'star, constellation' cognates goes against how Greek and Latin developed phonologically. Latin sidus has been compared to the Germanic words for silver and slag, but those comparisons are not without problems, too. In the end the usually PIE root suggested (by Buck, Walde, Pokorny, et al.) is *sueid- 'to glow'. (Also, the -r- in the Latin word is probably a result of rhotacization (-VsV- => -VrV-).) The Greek word has no appealing etymology, and is thought to be a loan from some unknown language. A terminus post quem for the borrowing would be the (hypothesized) time of sV- => hV- in Greek historical phonology.

> I'm asking about the make-up of the words siderurgy and siderated as per ullrich's original post. I'm astsuming the root is the tsame.

in other words, coming full circle, that was a bad astsumptsion.
<g>

>that used them to forge tools, esp. weapons, from.


If they had the iron, why not make real tools from it?

Re: siderated: "Ill-fated" or "blasted" ?

...So when used to mean "struck with lightning" it is synonymous with "unlucky" in the sense of being "star-crossed" or merely "blasted"

Then where do all the positive the words like "considerate" come from? Are we to conclude that "con-" here means not "with" but rather "against", the opposite of "pro" = for? Or is there a considerably different root here altogether?

All of those don't seem to have much relationship to "sider-" = iron or star, either.

Sidérer is a very common French term that means "struck down with awe" in a negative manner. A person will be sidéré if he loses his job suddenly.

>>considerate<<

Terrible guess deleted. But see "consider": intensive pref. "com" + sider (star). [prob. connected to astronomy?]

"Then where do all the positive the words like "considerate" come from?"

According to my dictionary, "consider", etymologically, means: 'examine the stars' from the Latin 'considerare' and "sidus".

Perhaps in its original use, to consider something meant to consult the stars for an answer.

>>consider the stars<<

From dic.com:

[Middle English consideren, from Old French, from Latin cnsderre : com-, intensive pref.; see com- + sdus, sder-, star.]

I prefer to think this refers to science than to superstition.

And while we are on the subject of the unexpectedly arcane etymologies to everyday words [?], can anyone explain why the word "read" has its root in "rædan", "raden" and "raten" (respectively, Germanic, Dutch and German) which makes a reader, roughly "an interpreter of dreams" ?

Is this some throwback to a mantic use of the written word?

why the word "read" has its root in "rædan", "raden" and "raten" (respectively, Germanic, Dutch and German) which makes a reader, roughly "an interpreter of dreams."

I'm not sure about oneiromantic etymologies, but according to Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Rat 'council, advice' and raten 'to advise, give council' occur in most of the Germanic languages. There's even a Gothic verb, garedan 'Vorsorge treffen / to look ahead, provide for risk'. He ties in raten and lesen with unravelling (lit. unriddling) the runes / "die Runen enträtseln". German lesen, like Latin lego and Gk λεγω lego (and λογος logos 'word; reason', but translated by the Romans as ratio 'reckoning') have primary meanings of gathering together. Sounds partially like augury, or later on, hermeneutics, to me. There's also some connection between counting, recounting, telling a tale, and gathering knowledge or portents about the future: cf. English tell, tale, and German zahlen 'to pay', zählen 'to count', and erzählen 'to tell'. Also, the German word for letters of the alphabet Buchstabe where the morpheme Stab means a kind of wand or staff. Kluge mentions that Tacitus, in the 10th chapter of Germania describes how Germans made marks on twigs and threw them (like the I Ching?), interpreting the results, and connects this with runes.

>> oneiromantic<<

Sorry to keep asking what's that; but what's that? Can't find nothing helpful.

from OneLook:

Quick definitions (oneiromancy)
noun: divination through the interpretation of dreams

Oneiromancy is the practice of predicting the future through dream analysis.

What he said. Gk ονειρος (oneiros) 'dream' + μαντεια (manteia) 'divination' (fr. μαντευομαι (manteuomai) 'to divine, prophesy'. English praying mantis is a praying 'prophet, seer, foreboder, presager'.

You bros are the boss, I say the boss, the Boss Bros., bros.

and, just in case you're wondering, no relation to

manticore
c.1300, from L. manticora, from Gk. mantikhoras, corruption of martikhoras, said to be from an O.Pers. word for "man eater," cf. martiya- "man" + root of khvar- "to eat." Fabulous monster with the body of a lion, head of a man, porcupine quills, and tail or sting of a scorpion.

from etymonline.com

Sexual politics is written all over the text. And there is also, and relatedly, a sense that the text is reaching for something which cannot be said, yet which we cannot bring ourselves to pass over in silence - a little like the fourth guest who never appears. The literary figures of speech, the tropes in the text, are especially disconcerting in the passages, halfway through the dialogue, concerning something called khora (spelled: chi, omega, rho, alpha), which means - roughly - space or place. The Greek word has femine gender, and this is played up to the hilt - very off-puttingly, it must be said, for those of us who are tired of sexist stereotypes of Woman. Khora is the womb within which the ideal forms or essences are to be imprinted, when the visible world is created under the guidance of an intelligible plan. Being the receptacle for all essences, khora can have no essence of her own; but for Plato that means that the word "khora" can be given no definition - so no wonder Timaeus finds it difficult to talk about her! As Derrida says of the khora, "the question of essence no longer has any meaning with regard to it. Not having an essence, how could the khora be [se tiendrait-elle] beyond its name?" (Derrida, 1995, p.94) Khora is, as it were, concealed behind a veil of femine mystique. And yet, although she lacks any essence or form, khora is incapable of embodying the ideal forms without distortion - and indeed she is not always completely passive as she receives the forms. Shortcomings in the world which comes into being are to be traced not to flaws in the (masculine) plan, but to deficiencies in the (feminine) khora within which this plan must be executed.

http://snipurl.com/hkv7

Related to same "to eat?"

martiya

Related to latin mortalis. Persian khvara 'eat' is related to our English swill by Pokorny: *swel- 'to eat, drink'. A strange change phonologically, but there are stranger. Eat is related to Latin edo fr. *ed- 'to bite; eat'.

well Kali (or Shelia na Gah) are godesses of both life (birth/sex) and death/destructions..
(shelia both invited (with her spread legs) and destroyed-(with her nashing teeth!) Kali too, was the seducer/and destroyer..

this duality is not uncommon in many early myths (of gods/goddess)

(with her nashing teeth!)

Vagina dentata, or just plain old pearly whites in her mouth? But seriously, Sheila na Gig, or Síla na Géige 'Sheila hunkered down'. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_na_gig

http://tinyurl.com/bo7m6

I have come across this expression before in a psychology text where it was used to draw the connection between dreams of sharks and castration anxiety.

"Symbols of oral aggression may be placed along a continuum of distance from the quality of humanness. In a dream, sharks represent the vagina dentate, or even a dentate phallus: fear of being engulfed by the preoedipal parent."

—Lane, Robert, and Saralea E. Chazan, Psychoanalytic Psychology.

You can't help but wonder at its origins. Freud? Bosch? Rabelais? Medieval bestiaries? Because God forbid it comes from an actual teratological case.

from teratology
the branch of biology concerned with the development of malformations or serious deviations from the normal type of organism
to Ancient Taplow
http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/Taplow.htm
what a pleasant morning's diversion!
thanks for the links and ideas!

godesses of both life (birth/sex) and death/destructions..

Sounds like Arga-Warga from Riddley Walker.

Sounds like Isaac Singer.

You can't help but wonder at its origins.

It's a common motif in folklore stories and jokes. The first time I ran across it was in an article about jokes from US GIs in Saigon about prostitutes and broken Coke bottles. The next time was in an folklore class where the professor pointed me at Stith Thompson Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, F547.1.1. There are quite a few Native American and First Nation tales from Washington and British Columbia that use the motif.

> maneater

ain't that Hall and Oates?

RE: "jokes from US GIs in Saigon about prostitutes and broken Coke bottles."

To wit?

None.

In Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (which was the last novel in America to be the subject of an obscenity trial before being published in 1962) we meet a "bull dyke" who can "cave in a lead pipe" with her vaginal grip. Presumably she had done her kegel's exercises.

Certainly makes Mr Bloom "asquat on the cuckstool" seem rather tame.

I rest my case.

You have not made a case.

No, you have not noticed it.

"You have not noticed it."

I think we have a very different idea of what qualifies as a case. But you may put it down to my dim-wittedness if you prefer.

No. We disagree only on how much need be said, sometimes.

And sometimes there is a fine line between being elliptical and obfuscatory.

Ullrich, were you asking me for a citation of the article I had read. Because, if so, it's long gone. Sorry, I just remember it being in a minor sort of folklore journal.

besides, i don't think i want to read such a vulgar joke here. there are plenty of x rated sites that specialize in vulgar material.(my son ran an X-rated web page, and his, and others are not unknown to me)

i have no problem with adult subjects. i don't think we need to refrain from all mention of breasts or penises or other body parts (and there really has never been any effort to censor -except self regulation--but i don't think retelling a vulgar joke (publicly) will add anything to topic. Do you?

Occationally (and i too have been guilty of it occationally) we have gotten out of hand, and the subject matter has become, well BLUE. but as a general rule, we refain. we certainly don't INVITE people to post vulgar jokes.

a quick quip--that makes you laugh befor you blush.. that's one thing, but HEY, tell the joke here... well its generally not done.
If anyone thinks this general policy is wrong, they are welcome to correct my assumptions and make some of their own!

i don't think i want to read such a vulgar joke here

I had no intention of telling any jokes, vulgar or otherwise. I referred to an academic study and, I believe it was you who brought up Sheila na Gig, not to imply that this goddess or her representation is vulgar, though some could no doubt interpret it that way.

Having said that, I do notice that less is posted here that has to do with the proposed subject matter of the board, i.e., words, than with tangents of wit, common and elevated. That is when newbies aren't being chastized.

I am sorry "of troy" that you have taken exception to the turn this thread has taken. But, after all, the phrase in question IS "vagina dentate". How can a discussion of its possible origins and use be otherwise than vulgar?

And as far as the joke about Saigon prostitutes and broken Coke bottles is concerned, the poster did not mention teeth per se, so my asking for the joke itself was relevant to the history of the vagina dentate motif.

It might be worth mentioning that a vulgar joke sung by Australian troops during the Gallipoli campaign of World War I found its way from the barracks and into T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' :

O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on the daughter
of Mrs. Porter.
They wash their feet* in soda water.
And so they oughter
To keep them clean.

[* In the soldier’s ballad, it was not their feet which were washed in soda water. “Eliot gives the polite wording”].

Textual exegeses on 'The Waste Land' (or any of a slew of modernist texts for that matter) do not have the luxury of shirking vulgarity. Surely the same should apply to the discussion of words?

do not have the luxury of shirking vulgarity. Surely the same should apply to the discussion of words? Well-- I guess I'll reiterate something I said long ago: that in any situation, virtually everyone adjusts their speech according to what audience they have at the time. For ex., one would not ask a class of 6-yr.-olds to spell, say, antithesis; nor give a university math class 2 + 2 as a problem; hopefully, one would not bring up intimate personal problems in the office lunchroom, nor disrupt a worship service by arguing loudly with what the leader says.

There are times when it is appropriate to give hard spelling words and simple math problems, discuss one's personal life, and to voice arguments. But not all the time. It is good manners to refrain from saying and doing things that are inappropriate and/or offensive, and some people here find vulgarity offensive. I do, at times, and here is one of those times; for all I know, some of the new people are youngsters--we've had posting members who were young teens at the time, and I believe one was ten years old. And I have no way of knowing how many may be just reading. I would ask that we not give them a spate of vulgarity, nor do I especially want to come here and read it. I can go to lots of other web sites and find all the vulgarity I want. Let's please try to save the trash-talk for those whom we know won't be offended.

Just because we are capable of going out on a crowded street and braying like a donkey doesn't mean that we should; no more than just because word discussion can include vulgarity, doesn't necessarily mean it should, here. And I would like to ask that it not. Please.

This Victorian attitude does not conduce to a free discussion of words. Anyway, you need to read the posts. Castration anxiety, modernist literature, and Celtic mythology are not trash talk.

This Victorian attitude does not conduce to a free discussion of words. Anyway, you need to read the posts. Castration anxiety, modernist literature, and Celtic mythology are not trash talk.

(emphisis added by me)
re the bolded text: no--they are not, and they were discussed freely. but retelling GI jokes about prostitutes (and broken coke bottles) are very likely to be trash talk.

i suppose there are some joke told by men (and women) in time of war that are suitable for reprinted in Readers Digest--but somehow, i suspect any joke involving a prostitute is not one.

this is not a victorian attitute. this is a civil attitude.
as i said, there is porn and vulgarity to be found all over the internet. if that is what interests you, no issue. I am 100% in support of a free and open internet --i think the US laws about a free press apply (at least in US, if other countries want to ban X rated sited, that is their business. but this is not a porn site, nor is it an appropriate site to retell vulgar jokes.

Let me be clear. I did not tell a joke, vulgar or genteel. Was all these hubbub a preemptive strike on my telling a joke? Let me just say personally I don't care for the tone of your chastisement.

Whoa, whoa--there has clearly been some misunderstandings/miscommunications here, if only by me.
Would you all mind communicating with each other by PM, to see if there can be hopefully either an understanding or an agree-to-disagree end reached? There appears to be a level of upset that is beyond my comprehending, and I intend to set about following my own advice, now.

EDIT:
The primary point of good manners is acting in such a way that people around one are as comfortable as possible. I sincerely hope that everyone who posts here will use good manners. Please note: this is NOT saying, "Don't dare voice a dissenting opinion"; it is saying that if you do, please be nice about it. Thank you very much.

1-- i clearly replied to ullrich--(note i copied his text into my answer, and in threaded (as apposed to flat mode, this is also clear.)

2--ullrich asked about the joke (which i think you made reference to)

i certainly wasn't chastising you! and i am sorry if it seemed that way.

At the moderator's request I have taken my grievance offline into PMs.

"There are some people whom it is one's duty to offend!"
-- Lord Reith.

You, "of troy", repeat yourself without taking into account what meanwhile has been added to the debate. This is infuriating. But I will not repeat MYself. Instead, I will put this imperviousness -- as well as the shambolic quality of your writing and reasoning -- down to your being in some way mentally defective, and accordingly try to show you the compassion and patience you are entitled to.

But for your own benefit “of troy” revisit my post. There, you will see (or, failing this, some sympathetic friend may help you to see) why asking for the joke to be cited was pertinent to the phrase in question, and why your recommendation that I satisfy my penchant for vulgarity elsewhere on the Internet "if that is what interests you" was not only insolent, but obtuse.

The only thing I cannot understand is whether you are really a prig, or whether you simply find the opportunity for pompous moralising irresistible. In my view, it is probably the latter, given that your son is a porn-monger (which, by the way, is as distasteful a confidence to force upon a public message forum as anything a Saigon whore can do to a coke bottle).

It is my opinion that this board is being overzealously administrated. The result is a vitiating atmosphere of overcorrection, politicking, and futile bibble-babble on the question of the legitimacy of posts, rather than the theme’s they present.

Lastly, if a vulgar joke had appeared unsolicited on this board, I would understand the reaction of "of troy" and others; however, in the context of this thread, the reaction is preposterously narrow-minded and childish. As is often the case in such matters, this prudishness is probably an ironic expression of libidinal frustration. The best remedy for this should be obvious, by either natural means, or with a Coke bottle, whichever being the most geographically convenient.

It is my opinion that this board is being overzealously administrated. The result is a vitiating atmosphere of overcorrection, politicking, and futile bibble-babble on the question of the legitimacy of posts, rather than the theme’s they present.

Then it is my opinion that you are misinformed: This board is not administered at all except to deal with trolls. IMHO that is both its charm and its downfall.

On reading this whole thread it appears to me that you positively enjoy argumentation. Do not misinterpret an argument with one of the members as representing the general opinion of the readership.