Mahakumbha Mela-Great unique lessons to learn

 

                                        Mahakumbha Mela

Still, see the overall MSM bias in not highlighting the positives and, as the above message factually conveys, the negativities (listed in the message), which are the cause of social, political, and humanitarian issues and problems all in the garb of religion. 

 

I think the points in the message must be made to go viral through social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram (pictures, videos), TikTok, etc. 

 

I also feel that every minute of every square meter of the activities must be documented for various studies of huge gatherings, which got mostly self-regulated with voluntarism, collective cooperative efforts, and most importantly, everyone moving around without any inhibition. 

 

Really the biggest great event. Obviously, there would be or could be or may be certain shortcomings. 

 

However, overall, what a great gathering of millions of individuals, millions of small groups each performing their own rituals and prayers as part of their own faith, blind beliefs, and their journey of spiritual seeking (whatever labels one may want to assign), but most importantly, no individual cult leader, specific religious leader, or particular scripturally prescribed rite or practice enforced by any single priest or saint or sadhu. 

 

There was a grand display of REAL FREEDOM of spiritual seeking and religious worship without even an iota of INSTITUTIONALLY ENFORCED or any specific or SERMON-DRIVEN HOMOGENIZED WAYS of performing anything.  

 

Bombastic

 

Guess what that sentence means?

 

The following passage is plagiarized [part within quotation marks—with slight changes; the whole book is interesting] from one of the books I used to fancy reading.

 

FM's economic understanding: People feel like saying, "Our untimely labefaction has left us feeling somewhat lactiferous, and although we do not intend to indulge in any longanimity, we do admit to a vague sense of lypophrenia. . . . And furthermore, we are not diversivolent, but we feel there was absolutely no nonfeasance or murcidity on our part, and we think the whole thing is a real proctalgia.”

 

In his first formal interview since being dumped as treasurer, the erudite Mr. Ralph Willis seemingly could find no more eloquent way of expressing his emotion than “I’m very pissed off.” [He should have said:]

“Well, actually my untimely labefaction has left me feeling somewhat
lactiferous, and although I do not intend to indulge in any longanimity, I do
admit to a vague sense of lypophrenia. . . . And furthermore, I’m not
diversion, but I feel there was absolutely no nonfeasance or morbidity
on my part, and I think the whole thing is a real proctalgia.” (Megan Turner,
“Five-Star Words,” Courier-Mail [Brisbane, Australia], 3/14/1992.)

 

Clue: only a four-letter sentence. 

 

How does one define technologically advanced?

 How does one define technologically advanced?

1) Is it by the R& D spending and number of successful R&,D outcomes with globally accepted patents  ( Then, USA- but INDIA a big ZERO), 

2) Is it about delivering 'indigenous fully/ completely ( meaning all parts) manufactured or produced usable technological hardware/ software/ tools ( Then we have USA, CHINA, SOUTH KOREA, JAPAN, RUSSIA are there but INDIA not at all visible - let us not feel ashamed, but that is the reality , note down each and every word in  the statement),

 3) Is it about manufacturing big machineries to manufacture those hardware and tools ( Then, we have USA, GERMANY, CHINA, DENMARK, NORWAY-again India nowhere), 

4) Is it about Innovation and invention of most modern technologies ( Then we have Israel, USA, CHINA, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA, SWEDEN- India insignificant numbers that too mostly improvements or modification of existing technology), 

5) Maximum number of people using or at least know how to use, repair, reproduce, assemble, duplicate etc. ( Then India is number one). 

So, when one says 'technologically advanced' one needs to know what one means by it. 

Jargon Monoxide Phobia is unwarranted

 

                                 Jargon Monoxide Phobia is unwarranted

It is not jargon monoxide but unreasonable interest rates, irrelevant regulations, and excessive government interference rather than providing a business-friendly ecosystem that is killing most businesses.

I don’t think in the corporate world anyone, especially the bosses or managers, would go out of the way to put in efforts to learn merely to boast their bombastic skill sets or their pedagogy. For businesses, profits and targets are a greater priority than prolixity involving pleonastic cant or galimatias.

I can take each sentence cited in this write-up and prove why every word used has its own relevance in present-day commerce.

 

If at all there are a few instances of excessive verbiage, as in most trends in many domains they have percolated from political leaders and religious preachers.*1

 

Excessive LEFT WING theoretical ideology and the malign cancerous WOKEISM-driven self-appointed neo socio-moral police in the media ec Chambers and fanatic religious doctrine promoters and RIGHT WING cultural policies have created an atmosphere of hypersensitivity that cherry-picks any communication or statement or rips it off from the relevant context, overreacts, and activates outrage manufacturing factories, all of which have led to loss of sense of humor, lack of scientific authenticity, and lack of sensitivity to time-tested value-based traditions and cultures as well.

 

All the above have forced any medium of communication to be hypercautious to be controversy-free, comprehensive, and comprehensible; calibrated (gender-neutral, non-racist, apolitical, secular—I have forgotten the meaning of this though); diplomatically and politically correct; universally usable; relevant to the context; bla bla. This has made any medium of communication become too elaborate, but ensure to avoid controversies, ambiguities, scope for excessive scrutiny, etc.

 

Besides, communication must ensure there is no scope to perceive any hidden agenda based on irrelevant extrapolations and must not carry any load of undercurrents, overtones, or ulterior motives.

 

In these situations, more nuanced expressions along with the necessity to drive home that the listeners do understand the nuances become a priority, and brevity an unaffordable privilege. It is like an elaborate Raga alapana, and the performer too likes to enjoy the art of packing as many nuanced expressions and using a range of possible aspects or features rather than a dry command of this or that. For example: - “We need more cash.” [When the financial space has been declared as a ‘cashless economy’—passed off well as a slogan and blindly parroted by many when what it meant was 'physical currency [notes/coins] free.' A similar goof-up, like ‘social distancing’ [it has already been growing in modern societies] when it ought to have been 'physical distancing.'

In the corporate world things are too competitive, and with the enormous amount of emerging and new technological developments happening almost every day, brevity may be a vulnerability as fear of possible scrutiny of failure in retrospect even remotely leads to omissions in communication. 

 

Communication in every situation cannot be shrunk to a time slot or space-restrained advertisement lingo. 

 

Most of the legal language (may sound too prosaic and lengthy as law cannot indulge in romantic lingo) and corporate communication is not mere hoarding lingo and cannot be construed as senseless verbification and verbal justifications to alter the nature of the thing/attribute/concept being verbalized but more to ensure avoiding omissions.

 

When certain concepts or attributes evolve ( like everything else) the expressions too make the necessary adjustments and create a whole carapace of connotation to convey the evolved state or add on multiple concomitant categories in expression.

 

At the same time, if we delve too deep into the etymology of words used and decide to merely stick to the denotation, we may be surprised to know these facts.

 

Once upon a time the following was true. Lengthy explanations are often a smoke screen that people hide behind. This observation from Ray, a seventeenth-century English naturalist with a great fondness for proverbs, may have inspired one of George Orwell’s best-known lines: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”

 

However, if we run through a bunch of languages, we will notice that English has not only spread its tentacles everywhere, but it has also survived very healthily for various reasons ranging from hyper-brief hoarding language to very elaborate explanatory notes.

 

Metaphorically Modern English is defined as the Wal-Mart of languages. Canadian writer Mark Abley’s delightful 2003 book, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages:

Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages: convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly, and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand.

William Safire’s terrific remark that “English is a stretch language; one size fits all.” As good as the others are, though, they can’t match Abley’s inspired observation. What it lacks in brevity it makes up in wit and originality. And, because it attempts to illuminate one thing—English—by relating it to something that, at first glance, couldn’t seem more dissimilar—Wal-Mart—it is a perfect metaphor.

In fact, I was surprised this ‘Jargon Monoxide Phobic’ person has omitted to mention marketing strategy that has to keep in mind the sensitivities of cross-cultural, multi-regional, multi-lingual variations [cannot use the term 'differences,' which will be misconstrued as discriminatory].

If we walk through even many of the European languages [leave alone the oriental languages], we would notice too many pitfalls, traps, and tormenting ways to express even ordinary things. Among the oriental ones, Japanese have certain peculiarities.* 2.

*1] Recently, at an AI conference, some leaders gave their wisdom on AI [a new technology that, like any other technology, has its own immense utilities and a few disadvantages due to its important impact—disruptive, in short] like the following: it must be easily accessible, affordable, open source, people-centric, environment-friendly, and labor-friendly [i.e., without causing employment displacements], benefiting the economy and society as a whole. Every intention expressed is noble and to be taken seriously, but how the f... are we going to ask the technology to ensure all that? 

 

Haven’t Android phones displaced, if not fully, at least to a very great extent, clocks, calendars, cameras, telephones, postcards, calculators, and typewriting machines [these are called "legacy" in commercial parlance]?

 

*2] Few samples culled from some books

German:- In areas such as philosophy and psychology, German culture has often led the way, giving us ideas from Gestalt to Weltanschauung. German philosophical literature is full of powerful and pithy sentences, such as German dramatist Gotthold Lessing's famous dictum, "Niemand muss müssen," literally "No one must 'must.'" " German poetry, too, is among the most intense and untranslatable in the world. In short, it seems that German thought and language is an amazing mixture of technical precision and soulful ineffability, which sparks off a rich creativity in concepts.

But there is at least one basic and practical reason for German's neologistic tendencies—its limitless capacity for creating new terms by joining a whole lot of old words together. Words of this compound type can be richly expressive, and here are some other untranslatable products of the imaginative German mind.

Polish: You can say "cat" in Polish in at least five ways: "kot," "kotek," "koteczek," "kotulek," and "kotuleczek." Each word means something quite different, and the meanings vary from a reference to your relationship with the cat in question to describing its size.

Russian :- where Priya refers to too distant a relationship.

 

Russian society, perhaps because of its long experience with authoritarian politics and grace-and-favour rule, we find some deeply entrenched characteristics. For instance, levels and qualities of human relationships are richly developed, even in comparison with other Slavic tongues. This wealth of words for different kinds of relationships (in addition to kin) provides evidence of Russian culture's interest in the area of human dealings with one another.

 

Roughly speaking, relations are categorized by their "closeness" or "strength," perhaps also hinting at their trustworthiness. "Drug" is someone extremely close to us, much more so than the English word "friend." "Podruga," meaning "female friend," refers to a bond less powerful than "drug" but still stronger than "friend," closer to "girlfriend" or "lover." "Priyatel" or "priyatelnitsa" is rather more distant, and "znakomy" is still more distant, although closer than the supposed English equivalent word, "acquaintance."

Swedish:- In spoken form, Swedish is by far the easiest of the Nordic languages to follow. Several words in Swedish sound the same as in English but have different meanings. For example, "kokt" in Swedish is pronounced "cooked" but specifically means "boiled." When your Swedish waiter asks if you would like your breakfast egg "cooked," he will be confused if you answer, "Yes please, fried." Even more problematic is the Swedish word. It is pronounced "go," but it does not mean "go." Literally translated, it means "walk."

Finnish: Rautatieasemakirjakauppa is a fine example of the Finnish habit of joining words without articles or prepositions. It becomes much easier to understand if split up:

 

Now we can see the literal translation. Is it any clearer? It means, of course, the "railway station bookshop." The fact that Finnish works so comfortably without subjects gives the language a Taoist character. It is more concerned with being than doing and more interested in the action than the actor.

 

Globalization is inevitable but....

 

 

1.     Globalization is inevitable

 

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2010/11/west-needs-to-change-its-obsession-to.html

 

 

With greater awareness and experience over time, there is an overwhelming realization that, yes, globalization is inevitable, but we must ensure synergy with a real global awareness and acceptance of human conditions, along with the correct attitude to become citizens with a concern for all human beings and nature as stakeholders with shared responsibility to ensure sustained development on this planet.

 

 

2. Need to create Global Citizens

 

This means everyone needs to be encouraged to become global citizens

 

 

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/global-citizen-and-worldology-what-are.html

 

 

3. Getting rid of xenophobia

 

Also avoid all forms of social, cultural, and political ideologies based on xenophobia.

 

 

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/what-is-foreign-in-globalized-world.html

 

Do not miss listening to this brief talk for just 3 minutes

 

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/watch-joseph-stiglitz-explain-globalization-in-three-minutes/?utm_content=bufferab738&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

Globalization, promoted as a regulatory camouflage to benefit a few powerful economies ​and deny a level playing field for others, was almost an obvious neo-economic religious cult trying to frame policies to homogenize trade ​and economy to their advantage.

 

She makes many very important, vital observations that need to be explained in detail to the West's homogenization hype and monotheistic mania while dissecting life into slices and hyping secularism, tolerance, cross-cultural experience, etc. It requires enough and constant reminding of the fixed verbal labels lapping the Western mindset to understand the inherent plurality and variety in any other cultures.

 

Spirituality and Science, synergy

 

Behindwoods' this entire series of episodes are interesting in various aspects as each speaker/ scholar brings out the various dimensions from his/ her field of expertise or life experiences or their own knowledge driven frames of references.

 

In this whole series, I find this gentleman’s speech very lucidly explaining the essence of spirit and essentiality of its multiple covers, tools, establishes how there is ​a vestibule of connectivity ​and solid synergy. ​He nicely explains, not to justify but to make everyone understand how many things and activities thought of as  adscititious or extraneous are in fact interconnected, integral, intrinsic, inherent, implicit, pertinent aspects of Manitou in many ways.

 

However, everyone shared ultimately what learnings and wisdom that have gained, how their life got impacted and what lessons their learnings and experiences have imparted to them. 

 

One may believe in some or not. One may accept one approach or reject it; it is a choice.

 

However, over all the experiences and expressions of them are wide ranging that I felt, after a longtime we have had a very useful and serious talks on a highly sensible and scholarly debate generating topic.

 

All speakers and the topics given to them were of a wide range from the simple to the  superficial to subject specific ( like political, astrological, ritualistic etc) to sublime aspects of all pervasive spirituality.

 

Though one could observe that in most cases there were either obvious or subtle links between Spirituality and Science.

 

Hence, I felt, the topic could have been:- ‘Spirituality and Science' or the 'synergy between the two' which are usually perceived as distinctly different because often the practitioners of either or both are not aware of or bother to look at the other one or do not feel the necessity to vindicate their perception or experience or discovery and use the other stream of knowledge as a crutch 

(This is how human brain is designed to perceive). 

 

However, if in either track one chooses, however strong the track may be unless the train of human body is trained or able to touch both tracks it cannot move. 

 

This need not be practised or nurtured, as even inherently the human body can automatically function only because of both science and spirituality, whether we believe or ambivalent or unable to decipher and classify distinctly as spirituality or science. 

 

There are so many aspects of life that remain mysterious and undeciphered.  

 

It is better they are that way, otherwise the human mind may give a label, name and classify, then dissect the wholeness of  life into slices or parts to easily classify them into predefined labels to 'ANALYSE' their attributes and significances and so on, rather than 'EXPERIENCE' the mysteries. 

 

I think someone can take each one of  these episodes in full or make meaningful slices of each episode with multilingual subtitles and deliver pleasant short 3 to 8 minutes documentaries with excellent visuals to reach the present generation.

 

Short documentaries of the type made by nasdaily.com or slightly long documentaries like the one on a very abstract spiritual concept.

 

Watch the full 40 minutes without any prejudice. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-c93ql8Tag&feature=share

 

 

OSHO-Enlightened soul and a great intellectual all rounder

OSHO- A great enlightened soul spoke on social and historical facts frankly, physiological needs nonchalantly, religious recklessness repeatedly, political manipulations magnificently, intrinsic spiritual values with crystal clear communication, esoteric  truths eloquently and everything with extraordinary erudition, enlightened explanations with a high sense of humour and honesty.

 

That's why, perhaps, unfortunately, the hoards of hypocritical orthodox and perverted public cherry picked slices of  his talks and portrayed him in as many possible ways to portray him as a villain mainly because the biggest business of religion was getting exposed because he was making people see through too many contradictions, irrationalities and leading them to understand and appreciate human needs, live with humane values and spiritually nourish the soul without the necessity to follow too many steps ( everyone cannot and in reality do not fit into those frequencies of enlightened spiritual awareness that a few blessed souls could easily grasp and this has caused uneasiness- this creates often, an uneasy lack of acceptance though everyone feels that these unique souls have a certain level of enlightenment that is far superior and  looks mysterious).

 

These consternate the common folks, stun the simple souls and intimidate the stakeholders of morality marketers and religious revenue generators.   

 

Almost all such enlightened souls have never been understood by the society at large. However, in certain cases, a few such enlightened souls also understood the necessity to package the spiritual path with tinge of what everyone is comfortable with or used to believe in or follow [ various expressions of euphemism for confirmation bias], then, the people at least tend to believe in, follow, venerate, worship and try to gradually grasp the immense mystic power beyond the access of normal human intelligence and reasoning.

Giving below a few examples, not adhering to any superiority or chronology because these spiritual vibrations of these souls are beyond all those mundane classifications and well suited to my lack of memory.

This is how people try to understand the immense spiritual significance of Bhagwan Shri Ramana Maharishi, Adi Sankaracharya, Ramanujar, Narayana guru, Swami Vivekannada, Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathiyar, Bhagwan Shri Aurobindo, Bhagwan Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Tirumular, many Siddhars etc.

Jiddu Krishnamurthy one of the greatest enlightened souls like all the above who articulated philosophically in such a way that many of the Western scholars and a few Indians could appreciate.

Unfortunately, Osho, in the process of his explanations punctured all well nurtured hypocrisies which directly affected the businesses of many stake holders.

Unfortunately, people do not read his talks on ‘Bhagwan Krishna -The Greatest Avatar’, ‘Vedantha- the Ultimate Science’. The best understanding and interpretation in my opinion. 

 

Mindset and natural instinct

 She explains attitude, mindset and how natural instinct ( that aspect of one's nature which is scrupulously nurtured and groomed) functions through her art and from her artistic perspective.

 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1330846044669179/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Intelligent individuals don’t require to flaunt false Fedoras

          Intelligent individuals don’t require to flaunt false Fedoras

 

Real temple of learning exists between and behind the two temples in everyone’s head

 

I vaguely remembered the many statements in The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith and managed to refer the internet to get the two very meaningful sentences from that excellent book:-

“ We lived several years in a state of much happiness, not but that we sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favours” and “ Providence has thought fit to elude our curiosity, satisfied with granting us motives to consolation”.

Providence makes certain individuals to go through long durations of hardships by depriving or at least delaying access to comforts, happiness, peace etc.

However, certain individuals use those rubbings of harsh providence as sandpaper to polish their character and as whetstone to sharpen their senses and sensitivities and calmly allowing comparisons with the well fated individuals as inspirations rather than intimidations.

One could see and feel beneath some people’s  worldly achievements, there lurk a spark of intelligence and street smartness, not the one gained through academic knowledge acquisition, or something bestowed by virtue of inheritance from a well-known ancestry but something too genuine, heartfelt, unhypocritical, practical, sincere lived experience driven or gained through some highly impactful events or intense emotional jolts of providence.

 

These lived experience driven impacts impart vital life lessons with total intensity and intense totality more than a few hundred texts or books can ever do.

 

We may understand these, if we shed our usual conditionings, unlearn our intellect driven process of learning only through prescriptive dogmas or relying only on empirical science proven authentic reason and logic.

 

By no means the above statement must be misconstrued as underestimating the cardinal values or utilities of those processes with certain caveats not to evaluate or try to perceive everything only through those prisms. Then, they may become prisons of perceptions.

 

Also, there is no denying the fact that these processes are the most preferred and best authentic methods, among the heap of too many pseudo- or sentimental or ethnocentric or religious belief systems-based tools of deciphering truth.

 

However, they are neither the only options nor omniscient or omnipotent nor the be all and end all of human beings’ perception tools or try to fit perceiving everything and everyone to existing templates of normal acceptance based merely on these processes.

 

Instead, if we move beyond or more precisely, stay still in innocent childlike curiosity, wonder and awe through mere observation the manifestation of certain phenomena around us and appreciate them as they are without letting them pass through any of the existing filters, then, only then, we may relish certain nuances and niceties of such unique individuals who are shining examples of human race's real tryst with destiny as also the great warriors who have fought with courage and conviction to overcome adverse circumstances and who are great examples of undaunted human spirit to survive and to set great examples for posterity be it the Florence Nightingales, Madame Curies and millions of unsung heroines in every nook and corner of the world.

 

What made me write this is a recent short video clip of a successful person narrating a particular incidence in her life which was shared in social media [1]

 

These types of harsh providences force the weak and the meek to sulk into self-imposed loneliness and desperation, but they impart to the bold a sort of smartness akin to highly creative instincts or natural talents of gifted souls in all domains of the Atlas of  human activities ranging from tiresome dirty hard work to routines to highly skilful sports or arts or scientific discoveries and so on. In short, they have the knack of grasping the pulse of any problem and get into the essence of the matter.

 

This is because these great individuals do not feel the necessity to smother harsh realities or truths either with too much of diplomatic jargons or contrived explanations or let realities to lurk with uneasiness to sustain or to present a socially acceptable or appreciated ideological Fedoras.

 

There are a host of sickening stereotyped collective social and psychological conditioning based biases which make people think that certain positions deemed to be of intellectual importance is meant to be occupied only by people with some alphabets sprinkled as suffixes indicating various academic credentials or prefixes of some academic titles like Dr, Professor etc even though there are many from this ilk who have been crass idiots when it comes to tackling real life issues or taking holistic decisions [2].

 

Similarly, the world fancies some institutions as great labels ( though there may be some truth in it) and they term them as temples of learning whereas, all over the world, for everyone, there is only one temple of learning and that exists between and behind the two temples in everyone’s head.

 

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UEIyvrVvvA&t=141s

 

[2] This made many raising their ignorant but haughty eyebrows as to how come some popular star from the glamour or tinsel world be given a portfolio of Ministry of HRD which they felt must land up only with those who have fancy academic tags. I have always had an admiration for this woman from the time I knew her as a budding politician, not as an actress [I hardly know anything about her contribution in that domain]. 

 

 

Politics i.e. governance of society may evolve into fully corporatized administration blocks with professional tasks.

 

Politics i.e. governance of society may evolve into fully corporatized administration blocks with professional tasks.

 

To steer clear of controversies and yet drive the relevant points in a very diplomatic way is tough. 

 

Hypothetically speaking there are at least three basic aspects of life which cannot be, need not and preferably must not be homogenised beyond a certain extent where certain standardization and uniformity may be or are both possible and warranted. 

 

 

The three pertains to two  fundamental factors of human beings:​- physical health and mental health. 

 

Physical health is  addressed by the HEALTH CARE and FOOD INDUSTRY   where treatment methods and feeding must be done based on various metrics and the effectiveness is judged by the outcomes.

 

Mental health EDUCATION Industry ( also called as institutions). 

 

For the health of these two, especially, primary level is more vital because one cannot catch up with or repair the past. As mother's milk and nutritious food is necessary at an early stage , similarly , primary education is of vital importance.

 

In all three the persons providing the service must have passion, patience, interest, involvement and of course, incentives, otherwise, whatever qualifications they may have will at best be like a lamppost useful for dogs. 

 

Of course, for diseases of both the mind and physic​que we have a lot of interesting and tasty options with unlimited choice. 

 

Like everything constantly evolves, the governance of society also after having undergone various social models starting from local tribal leaders to ​religious leaders [ euphemism for Divinity marketeers and in some cases Cult promoters] to emperors to kings to doctors to electoral politics of all hues and colours may evolve into fully corporatized administration blocks with professional tasks rather than peddling populist ​or ideological agendas, vending promises​ and freebies. The jamboree of elect​ions where most candidates are hardly aware of , leave alone prioritize,  the duties and responsibilities ​as candidates contesting to govern a geographical territory with all its concomitant activities, issues and problems. Most are not bothered about answerability but empowered too disproportionately.

 

Language issues and Women’s Day celebration round the corner.

 

 

Just a time pass in lighter vein social media inundated with debates Language issues and Women’s Day celebration round the corner.

With International Women’s Day around if one had to Google [1] to find out why on Earth [2] every event becomes History [3] and not herstory.

Whereas language has assigned terms like Gossips [4] to women as if men do not.

If one were to look out for Clues [5] to this Jigsaw puzzle [6] or Loopholes [7] to overcome these Nightmarish[8]  Human [9] created terminological partiality, though it would not be wise as Homo Sapiens to undo centuries of literature, terminologies but rather we may do a course correction by adopting a better  attitude and treating them with due recognition and respect.

After all Mount Everest [10] has not lost it tall stature or importance because of a hastily assigned terminology. What else is required to prove the weakness of Homo Sapiens who could embed stars in Disaster [11] but not while naming months of the Calendar where sycophancy made names of emperors to get precedence. Any way this is not meant to provide content to the Memes [12] industry.    

 

Credits:- References 1 to 12 are from Patrick Foote’s interesting book , ‘The ORIGIN of NAMES, WORDS and EVERYTHING in BETWEEN’ published by Mango Publishing Coral Gables, FL

 

1]                                     GOOGLE

Can’t you just find this one out for yourself? Like isn’t there a

website you can use to search for things like this or

something? No? Fine, very well.

While the name Google might sound like gibberish a baby

would spit out while trying to say granny the word Google

has its origins in the world of mathematics. In maths

however the word is spelt “googol” and it’s the name of the

number that starts with a one, followed by one hundred

zeros. Which is seen as this:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0

00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0

00,000,000,000,000,000.

Safe to say that that is a pretty big number. It’s a number

that the creators of the search engine, Larry Page and

Sergey Brin, liked so much that they named their company

after the number. As they felt the unfathomably huge

number reflected the unfathomably huge amount of

search results that the site could give people. As I’m sure

you saw earlier there is actually a spelling difference

between the company “Google” and the number “googol.”

The company was spelt with an le instead of an ol simply

because Larry Page just presumed it was spelt that way

when seeing on google.com was available. I guess he

couldn’t Google to see how it was actually spelt.

2]                                    EARTH

Earth, home, the little blue and green dot that defies

everything. Earth was in the perfect location and had the

perfect conditions for us to thrive, and thrive we have. Earth

may be the only planet we know of to have life, but that

isn’t Earth’s only distinction. Earth is the only planet not

named after a god of any kind.

 

Earth wasn’t named after a god because only planets got

to be named after gods, and early astronomers didn’t really

see Earth as a planet. To them Earth was just home, the

planets where the far off specks in the night sky. By the

time we realised earth was just another planet the name

“Earth” has been cemented, coming from the German

words for ground erda or erde.

 

Earth is also known as is Terra Firma. This name comes

from Latin meaning Firm Land, and in the Roman

mythology Terra/Tellus was the goddess of the Earth.

Seriously!? why isn’t this the official name of our planet to

keep in line with everything else!? Plus it would have given

us another planet named after a goddess in the god

dominated night sky.

 

3]                                        HISTORY

 

History may very well be the one true constant in the

universe. History is in the past, history is being made right

now and history will be made in the future. Pretty much

everything that has, is, or will happen can be considered

history, whether that be naturally made history or human

made history, but why do we call all this stuff, history?

The word history is thought to have its roots in a verb rather

than a noun, the Greek historia which means “to inquire.”

It’s from this verb of seeking knowledge and answers that

we can see where the word story might come from as well.

Story and history seem to be only linked in this way.

As story is now a word more associated with tales of fiction

while history tend to be tales of truth, well what we know

to be truth. History even has the word story within it, so

where does the hi part of the name come from?

The “hi” part of the name is thought to come from the Greek

history meaning a “wise man” and some believe that this is

where the word history as a whole comes from.

It’s this part where the word history has come under attack.

History is a very male dominated thing. As unfortunately in the

past (where most of history takes place) women weren’t

treated as well as they are now, being more sidelined

letting men hog the spotlight more. This can be seen with

history coming from “wise man” and the word history itself

looking like a combination of the words his and story. This

in the ’70s led to the “herstory” movement, here history was

rewritten from a female point of view, and emphasized the

role that women have played in history.

 

While we have made some amazing head way since the

dark ages in giving women a voice, perhaps one day the word will

evolve to reflect that too. Whether that be just herstory or perhaps our story, celebrating the role we have all played.

4]                          GOSSIP

Gossip isn’t one of the nicest things either, but let’s face the

facts. We have all partaken in gossip once in our life. It’s

seems to be a common trait in humans to revel in the

darker side of people behind their back. Kudos if you avoid

gossip, you are a far better human than me.

The noun (which can also be a verb) has roots in baptism of

all places. The word was originally the Old English godsibb

meaning a “godparent” coming from the words “god” and

“sibb” with sibb meaning relative, it’s where we get the

term sibling from. Over time this term of godsibb related to

not just godparents but any close friend or family member.

Especially linked to women and their fellow female friends.

Gossip has always been more associated with women, but

please know that as a male (with male friends) that men

are just as awful with talking about people behind their

backs. By the 1500s this godsibb turned to gossip and

meant idle chat with people you are close with. Evolving

into the idea of talk revolving around rumours.

5]                                        CLUE

Like a disaster a clue can take a physical form, like a note,

or a tape recording, or a blue dog paw print, but the

concept of a clue is very much an abstract noun. Clues are

all about helping us find an answer, and its etymology

reflects this.

 

The word clue hasn’t actually changed that much from its

origins from the 1500s. The word was originally clew and

the key difference between a clue and a clew is that the

former is an abstract noun, while the latter is very much a

physical thing. A clew is a Germanic name for a ball of

string. But what exactly has a ball of string got to do with

helping solve a mystery? Well this links all the way back to

a story from Greek mythology.

 

The story goes that a character called Theseus entered the

infamous labyrinth where the ferocious half-man half-bull

minotaur resided to slay the beast once and for all. To make

sure that he wouldn’t get lost in the labyrinth while in there

he unwound his ball of string (clew) along the floor so the

string would trace his path around the labyrinth. This was

to make sure he could find his way back out once the beast

had been defeated. His clew was very much his clue into

getting back out of the labyrinth. And from this story we

got the concept of a clue as we know it today.

 

6]                     JIGSAW PUZZLE

Is a puzzle even a type of game? Puzzles very much take

up a whole category of their own in the realm of things we

play with. Without doubt the most popular of types of

puzzles are the kind that are made up of many little pieces

that join together to form a picture—jigsaw puzzles!

Solving the puzzle of the etymology of the word puzzle is

Unfortunately, a puzzle we aren’t able to solve, as no one is

too sure where the word came from, very puzzling indeed!

Regardless of the word puzzle why are these ones called

“jigsaw” puzzles? Well when these puzzles were originally

created, they were painted onto flat pieces of wood and

then broken up into interlocking pieces. But how would the

wood be split up? What kind of tool would be used to

separate the pieces? Well it would be done with none other

than the power tool, a jigsaw.

But why is a jigsaw called a jigsaw?! Well when using a

jigsaw the saw goes up and down, a movement that could

be considered a jig. The jigsaw is a saw that jigs.

 

7]                                   LOOPHOLE

 

While a loophole now may be an abstract noun, the name

for a way out of a situation you weren’t intended to get out

of, usually involving run ins with the law, in another time

loopholes were very much a real thing.

 

So, what were these real loopholes?

Well, they had nothing to do with getting out of legal trouble,

they were more about escaping real trouble, that real trouble

most of the time being certain death!

 

A loophole was the small slit in the side of a castle, used to let

light and air through and perhaps more importantly,

shoot arrows through at people attacking your castle!

However, this could work the other way around, a skilled

enough archer could fire an arrow through the loophole

and into the castle. These tiny slits could sometimes be

the only way to take down an impenetrable castle.

Over time the skilled archers became lawyers,

the castles became conviction charges, but the

loopholes remained loopholes, well, in name only.

 

8]                                NIGHTMARE

Nightmares are weird old things aren’t they? When you’re

a kid the worst kinds of dreams you have are of scary

monsters trying to attack you, but as you get older

nightmares become less fanciful, grounded in reality, and

somehow more terrifying. Bad dreams of monsters coming

to get me have been replaced with bad dreams of close

friends and family members passing away, have fun

sleeping tonight folks!

 

While we still aren’t too sure exactly what dreams mean

and how they come to us, we definitely know a lot more

than what they understood of dreams in the thirteenth

century. In the thirteenth century a “nightmare” was the

female evil spirit that invaded you during your sleep and

attempted to suffocate you! A mare has always been a

term associated with females, like how a mare is the name

for a female horse, so it’s no surprise to us that a nightmare

was a female spirit. Over time the term nightmare stop

referring to the spirits but just referred to the bad dreams it

was once thought that they caused

9]                                  HUMAN

Of course while we think we may rule this planet, we are

just another member of the animal kingdom. There are a lot

of things that separate us from the rest of the animal

kingdom, such as our much more complex brains, our

settlements and civilisation, our inventions! Did you know

humans are the only animals that are aware of their

inevitable death and become full of dread and anxiety

when they realise this and on the same token, realise they

haven’t done enough in their life and valued work and

money over family and friends? That fact sounded a lot

more fun in my head, I apologise.

Human is one of those words that just evolved over time,

much like us humans actually did! It’s earlier roots are

thought to come from the Proto-Italic ɣomos and the Proto-

Indo-European degom which both mean things along the

lines of “earth/soil/ground.” These two words evolved into

the Latin humus, which turned into humanus, which then

turned into humaine in Old French. Finally from there

becoming human in English like we know it today. It’s

interesting that the name human has its roots in ancient

word for ground. So much mythology involves us humans

coming from the ground, the womb of mother earth as it

has been put in the mythology of the Arikara Native

Americans. This can even be somewhat seen in the creation

of humans in Greek mythology, where Prometheus formed

humans from clay and mud from the earth.

Our Latin name is of course Homo Sapien with “Homo”

meaning “man” in Latin. While we are now, we aren’t the

only “homo” to have dwelled on this planet. There was of

course Homo Erectus, meaning “upright man.” as these

guys are thought to be the first humans to stand upright

like us. Homo Habilis meaning “handy man” as these

humans were skilled with tools. Yet we too are handy and

stand upright, so what does sapien mean?

Homo Sapien is a name that was introduced to us by the

same man who named the lemur, Mr. Carl Linnaeus—this

makes humans the only animal to name themselves!

Sapien comes from the word sapient which means “be

wise” as the key feature that separates us from the humans

before us is our much more sophisticated and complex

brains!

10]                  MOUNT EVEREST

The Burj Khalifa is pretty big, at 2,722 feet it’s the tallest

building on Earth. So yes while that is pretty tall, Mount

Everest is 29,029 feet tall, making it the highest point on

Earth!

Before being donned Mount Everest, the mountain went by

a couple of different names, and still does to this day. In

Nepali it is called Sagarmāthā and in Tibetan it is called

Chomolungma. In my opinion these names are much

prettier than the one we in the English speaking world

associate with it. The Nepali name of Sagarmāthā means

“Forehead in the Sky” and it’s Tibetan name Chomolungma

means “Mother of the World” which I think we can all

agree are better names than Mount Everest.

So why is this the name we have been parred off with in

English then? This name was given to the mountain when it

was “discovered” in 1852 by the British sponsored Great

Trigonometrical Survey. Upon realising that what they had

discovered was not just a big mountain, but the biggest

mountain on Earth, they needed to name it. It was the

leader of the Survey, Andrew Waugh, who decided to

name the mountain after the previous leader of the Survey,

Sir George Everest.

When George Everest heard however that this colossus of a

mountain had been named after him, he was not honoured

at all, rather he was embarrassed. George had spent so

much of his life on the Survey team in India that he felt all

discoveries should maintain their native names and not

have names of English language origins thrown onto them.

Though we now know that the mountain had/has a native

name (two in fact!) at the time of its discovery by the British,

they didn’t know of these names. Not only did they not

know of them, but the Nepalese banned the Survey team

from entering their country! With no known native name

and the fear that the natives wouldn’t be able to say his

name, George Everest stopped fighting against it and let

the mountain be called Mount Everest. Poor George died

around a year after the mountain was named after him

and we don’t know if he even got to see it with his own

eyes.

11]                       DISASTER

Why are so many of the abstract nouns I’m covering so

negative? Honestly, it’s these negative words that seem to

have a more interesting etymology. That theme seems to

continue with the concept of a disaster. While things that

are disasters: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, are

all very much real things, the actual concept of what

makes something a disaster is very much an abstract noun.

The English word disaster came from the French désastre

which came from the Old Italian disastro. Dis is a common

prefix to words, normally with a negative connotation:

disappoint, disapprove, diss track. So what about the “aster”

part of the word which, as we see in Old Italian, was “astro”

which has a very cosmic feel to it. The idea of disasters have

their root in the world of astronomy. The Greeks thought so

much about their lives and the world around them could be

understood by “reading” the stars in the night sky. They

thought the way the stars and planets aligned would tell

them what their future had in store for them.

When the stars told the ancient Greeks of negative events

that would be coming up, this would be known as “illstarred

events” with the “ill” part of this becoming “diss” and

the Greek word for star being astron. This of course led to

the word disaster as we know it now. And while astrology

is now only partaken by the select few and not the

majority, disasters unfortunately still keep on happening.

12]                                          MEME

Is meme even an abstract noun? I mean you can certainly

see memes (they are becoming ever more present in our

daily lives) but you can’t really grasp or take hold of a

meme, unless you print one out but that’s a whole ce n’est

pas une meme type scenario. But I couldn’t not talk about

memes, so here they are.

Modern internet memes can come from a huge variety of

places, random photos, clips from movies, real world events,

animals. Anything (and I mean anything) is game in the

world of online memes. The name meme for these online

funnies however dates back to 1976, written first in the book

The Selfish Gene written by evolutionary biologist Richard

Dawkins. In his book Dawkins played with the concept of

ideas being like organisms, wondering what would happen

if ideas bred and mutated in the way the organisms did

through evolution.

Following this idea led Dawkins to feel that ideas and

organisms were similar for they both rely on replications.

Organisms rely on reproduction to continue while ideas rely

on spread from brain to brain to survive. Not all ideas

survive however, and even the ones that do survive can

change over time. This concept of ideas behaving like living

organisms needed a name. For a name he borrowed from

the Greek mimeme which means “that which replicates”

but cut of the “mi” at the start so it rhymes more with the

term gene. He also insisted that the name meme could

relate to the French même meaning “memory.”

And at the dawn of funny images being passed around

online, the name meme was adopted for them because like

Dawkins concept of memes. Online memes changed and

mutated over time the more they were shared around, and

like Dawkins memes, they even died too.

Also of interest :- https://time.com/4824551/history-word-origins/

Wherein you find , “That is why feminists, for example, rejected the word history and championed the notion of herstory during the 1970s, says Dictionary.com’s Jane Solomon, “to point out the fact that history has mostly come from a male perspective.” The “his” in history has nothing, linguistically, to do with the pronoun referring to a male person. And some critics pointed that out back in the 1970s, saying that the invention of herstory showed ignorance about where the word comes from. But sociolinguist Ben Zimmer says there’s evidence that the feminists knew as much at the time. And more importantly, the fact that it sounds plausible that there would be a link can still tell us something.

Take the fact that similar plays on the word have been made by people in other marginalized groups too: When jazz musician Sun Ra quipped that “history is only his story. You haven’t heard my story yet,” that statement might have nothing to do with etymology but it can suggest a lot about race and whether an African-American viewpoint is included in the tales passed down in textbooks. That’s why, even if the origins of the word “history” are clear, the question of who gets to decide which version of the past is the right one remains a contentious debate centuries after the term came to be”.

Note:-Though in the past 4 years having read some 200+ serious books on various aspects and topics on Language. I thought collating those extremely serious stuff would require lot of time, revisit those books and end up producing something that may get forwarded without being read as people are not inclined to read long, serious and original stuff in all sorts of media unless they happen to be textbooks. However, I may do at least some small piece when time permits amid too many diversions and duties.