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#14147 01/04/02 03:19 AM
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I'm really interested in finding out what the Greek or Roman words would have been for a ball of twine. They must have had words. Why do we have only a much later, apparently Germanic word?


#14148 01/04/02 08:14 AM
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#14149 01/04/02 12:48 PM
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http://www.daedalus.gr/DAEI/THEME/Knossos.htm

Minoan civilization was about 1000 years before the founding of the city of Rome. Latin ain' gone do you much good when you phase the linear time sequence to put yourself back there to talk to Ariadne to tell her don't do it. You might as well speak Vogon to her.


#14150 01/05/02 10:33 PM
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a single word for "a ball of twine."

Uh...baseball?what, Max? no retort for that magnificient cricket quote I found for ya?


#14151 01/06/02 12:45 AM
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#14152 01/06/02 12:50 AM
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I have news for you (expletive omitted). For thousands of years women had been spinning, if only with a whorl spindle, and they had to carefully wind the yarn into a ball, to keep it from getting tangled. The Theseus-Ariadne myth is very old. I have no idea when it first saw print, nor any idea when it was first translated into English. NicholasW gave a couple words that were in the ballpark, but did not mean balls of thread. But the first translation had to be from a Greek or Roman word that was for no reason I can think of changed to a Germanic root. Incidentally twine means two threads twisted together for increased strength.


#14153 01/06/02 01:02 AM
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#14154 01/06/02 05:22 AM
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And, don't forget Dr. Bill, the Celts were mainly shepherds who spun wool for thousands of years. So perhaps this missing linguistic link was coined in Gaelic, or an earlier Celtic language.


#14155 01/06/02 05:53 AM
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#14156 01/06/02 03:01 PM
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I don't have any proof the Greeks spoke Greek, nor any that the Latins spoke Latin. They probably wrote in English. Or maybe Gaelic.


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