hogwash� round 67 results

Wordsmith.org

jam proximus ardet Ucalegon

Ucalegon. sb. [< L Ucalegon < Gk Oukalegon < ouk 'not, un-' + aleg� 'to have a care, mind, heed'] 1. A neighbor whose house is burning. 2. Proper name: a Trojan elder in the Iliad 3.147 who sat at the Sc�an gates.

a question for jheem (or other):
"jam proximus ardet Ucalegon" gets 77 ghits
"iam proximus ardet Ucalegon" gets 115 ghits
is there anything to this other than the usual Latin quaintness? (i.e., is one of these considered to be more correct?)

Ah-ha! So it looks like Ucalegon is an eponym.

As for the j/i, I've noticed these letters were often interchanged, and not only in Latin. I'll leave it to the Nuncle and his Elk to expound, since I don't know why that was the case.

Marianna was the overwhelming winner with four(4) votes for her k), Line of verse that cues the chorus to intervene in ancient Greek tragedy.

A whole bunch of others collected two(2) votes per ea. (Owlbow(a), Faldage(c), wofa(e), TEd(n)

, musick(o)

, Alex(s))

Elizabeth Creith was the onliest one to deflagrate the correct answer.

themilem voted for hizown(e), once again.

thanx to etaoin for the solitary vote for h).

I believe I received only a single vote (Faldage's) other than my own.

I've noticed these letters were often interchanged, and not only in Latin. I'll leave it to the Nuncle and his Elk to expound, since I don't know why that was the case.

...and wasn't just that little twist used in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," even?

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I believe I received only a single vote (Faldage's) other than my own.

right you are; good call, fellow hogmaster.

Well, that genuinely is a completely worthless word!

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Well, that genuinely is a completely worthless word!

Oh, I know!!

-tsuww

Thanks for voting for mine, Connie!

The Romans themselves only used 'I', because 'J' hadn't been invented yet. The Roman 'I' was used to represent two sounds one a vowel, the other a consonant. Thus they wrote IVLIVS rather than JULIUS. In mediaeval times (I can't remember more precisely than that and my book's at home), the letter 'j' was developed to represent the consonant sound. 'J' was used to represent the consonant in Latin texts up to the late 19th/early 20th century, when it was gradually replaced by the 'i' as a conscious return to Roman practice.

Does the OED or whatever source you're using say why Ucalegon means generally 'a neighbour whose house is on fire' rather than it being the name of a neighbour whose house was on fire?

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Well, that genuinely is a completely worthless word!

Wull � There was a time about ten, fifteen years ago I could have used it had I but known it.

> had I but known it

nuh-uh, the other feller'd have to have known it too!

Yay!

I got me some points at this finally! Thanks for dem votes, y'all. I have to say I'm really pleased I could write something likely enough that it got you guys!

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Does the OED or whatever source you're using say why Ucalegon means generally 'a neighbour whose house is on fire' rather than it being the name of a neighbour whose house was on fire?

#667. [Source of danger.] Pitfall
-- N. rocks, reefs, coral reef, sunken rocks, snags; sands, quicksands; syrt|, syrtis|; Goodwin sands, sandy foundation; slippery ground; breakers, shoals, shallows, bank, shelf, flat, lee shore, ironbound coast; rock ahead, breakers ahead. precipice; maelstrom, volcano; ambush &c. 530; pitfall, trapdoor; trap &c. (snare) 545. sword of Damocles; wolf at the door, snake in the grass, death in the pot; latency &c. 526. ugly customer, dangerous person, le chat qui dort; firebrand, hornet's nest.
Phr. latet anquis in herba [Vergil]; proximus ardet Ucalegon [Vergil].
-Roget's Thesaurus

as ASp suggested, it's eponymous, first used specifically by Juvenal and others (see the link in the original post above); and then alluded to a bit more generally. OED has two citations where this is shown:

1849 DE QUINCEY Eng. Mail Coach Wks. 1862 IV. 297 Ucalegon, as it happened, was not in the way-bill and therefore could not have been booked. [under way-bill]

1910 W. G. COLLINGWOOD Dutch Agnes 182 But proximus ardet Ucalegon, which is to say, �Don't care's house is afire, and his neighbour is quaking.� [under neighbo(u)r]

The former doesn't make much sense taken out of context; here's a link to Thomas de Quincey's The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc which lends some droll humo(u)r to the passage.

but, to your point, I'd wager that ucalegon, when used, has always been capitalized. oops. well, that could have given away the game, although we would have probably had a bunch of paedia type entries to choose from.

try Google[Books] -- there are 66 works listed with the phrase proximus ardet Ucalegon, some with no further gloss at all; i.e., it is used as a warning. There are 278 (listed) works that contain "ucalegon".

to wit, from Gargantua and Pantagruel:
Cheer up, cried out Pantagruel; cheer up, my boys; let us be ourselves again. Do you see yonder, close by our ship, two barks, three sloops, five ships, eight pinks, four yawls, and six frigates making towards us, sent by the good people of the neighbouring island to our relief? But who is this Ucalegon below, that cries and makes such a sad moan? Were it not that I hold the mast firmly with both my hands, and keep it straighter than two hundred tacklings�I would�It is, said Friar John, that poor devil Panurge, who is troubled with a calf's ague; he quakes for fear when his belly's full.

-joe (SAWH* : ) bfstplk

*Society of Apologists for Wrong-headed Hogmasters

p.s. - In the glossary for 'The Aeneid', it is indicated that the name Ucalegon means "Not caring". (see Collingwood citation?)

�Glad to help out TEd.
Thanks Jackie and Fiberbabe, and almost thanks to Alex.
Mav, aren�t accolades worth � point? (not that I care)
and many thanks to you, tsuwm.

I don't know whether I should be slighted to receive only partial thanks, or grateful for the half-full cup, since I can't imagine what I did to earn any thanks at all in the first place.

You wrote:

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I'm torn between A and S. "Ucalegon" doesn't strike me as an infinitive verb form, so I'm gonna vote S.

That's what I was talkin' about, 'cause my lie was a.
So I'm offering a wholehearted almost thanks.

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Marianna was the overwhelming winner with four(4) votes for her k), Line of verse that cues the chorus to intervene in ancient Greek tragedy.

A whole bunch of others collected two(2) votes per ea. (Owlbow(a), Faldage(c), wofa(e), TEd(n), musick(o) , Alex(s))

Elizabeth Creith was the onliest one to deflagrate the correct answer.

themilem voted for hizown(e), once again.

thanx to etaoin for the solitary vote for h).

Dear exalted Schweinmeister,

I feel these results are incomplete. I beg thee for a complete rundown of who did what, and to whom.

Danke beaucoup,

Your Minion

Google image search for ucalegon

Alex, heh�

And tsuwm, I can understand if you don't feel like doing the entire run-down. I'm amazed you Schweinmeisters can manage to keep track of things as it is. And I see Alex is going to titillate us again? Thanks, everyone, for keeping Hogwash� going. It's a lot of fun and gets the old creative juices flowing.

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Google image search for ucalegon

Alex, yer image is wort' all dem werdz o' mine.

I think the variation "O'Callaghan" is especially funny.

...musick(o)

Yeah, especially with the typo:

...after boilng away...

oops. I tried to fix your original: The residue remaining after boling away -- how many more votes do you think that would have pulled?!

Thanks Jackie and Fiberbabe

Ucalgon was actually a minor (very minor) character in the Iliad (3.146-160):

[146] The two sages, Ucalegon and Antenor, elders of the people, were seated by the Scaean gates, with Priam, Panthoos, Thymoetes, Lampos, Klytios, and Hiketaon of the race of Ares. These were too old to fight, but they were fluent orators, and sat on the tower like cicadas that chirrup delicately from the boughs of some high tree in a wood. When they saw Helen coming towards the tower,

[156] they said softly to one another, "No wonder the Trojans and Achaeans endure so much and so long, for the sake of a woman so marvelously and divinely lovely. There is no sense of nemesis here. Still, fair though she be, let them take her and go, or she will breed sorrow for us and for our children after us."

(Butler's translation)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Hom.+Il.+3.76

So, Vergil, when describing the burning of Troy just used the name (Aeneid 2.310-312):

Iam Deiphobi dedit ampla ruinam
Volcano superante domus; iam proximus ardet
Ucalegon; Sigea igni freta lata relucent.

The palace of Deiphobus ascends
In smoky flames, and catches on his friends.
Ucalegon burns next: the seas are bright
With splendor not their own, and shine with Trojan light.

(Dryden's translation)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Verg.+A.+2.298

Your citation from De Quincy makes it clear it's a Vergilian reference, not a common noun:

In dignified repose, the coachman and myself sat on,
resting with benign composure upon our knowledge that the fire would
have to burn its way through four inside passengers before it could
reach ourselves. I remarked to the coachman, with a quotation from
Virgil's "AEneid" really too hackneyed--

"Jam proximus ardet
Ucalegon."

But, recollecting that the Virgilian part of the coachman's education
might have been neglected, I interpreted so far as to say that perhaps
at that moment the flames were catching hold of our worthy brother and
inside passenger, Ucalegon.

http://mirrors.xmission.com/gutenberg/etext04/7mjnc10.txt

If someone talks about the patience of Job, or even calls someone Job, it doesn't mean Job is a common noun meaning a patient person. Similarly in Bridget Jones's Diary, the romantic hero is called Darcy as a reference to Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. That doesn't mean Darcy is a common noun for romantic hero.

hah! Masterly, Mr B. My faith in language is restored. :]

So Bingley's a restimulative, huh?