Tuesday, November 16, 2010
ghost - word origin and history
O.E. gast "soul, spirit, life, breath," from P.Gmc. *ghoizdoz (cf. O.S. gest , O.Fris. jest, M.Du. gheest, Ger. Geist "spirit, ghost"), from PIE base *ghois- "to be excited, frightened" (cf. Skt. hedah "wrath;" Avestan zaesha- "horrible, frightful;" Goth. usgaisjan , O.E. gæstan "to frighten"). This was the usual W.Gmc. word for "supernatural being," and the primary sense seems to have been connected to the idea of "to wound, tear, pull to pieces." The surviving O.E. senses, however, are in Christian writing, where it is used to render L. spiritus , a sense preserved in Holy Ghost . Modern sense of "disembodied spirit of a dead person" is attested from c.1385 and returns the word toward its ancient sense. Most IE words for "soul, spirit" also double with ref. to supernatural spirits. Many have a base sense of "appearance" (e.g. Gk. phantasma ; Fr. spectre ; Pol. widmo , from O.C.S. videti "to see;" O.E. scin , O.H.G. giskin , originally "appearance, apparition," related to O.E. scinan , O.H.G. skinan "to shine"). Other concepts are in Fr. revenant , lit. "returning" (from the other world), O.N. aptr-ganga , lit. "back-comer." Bret. bugelnoz is lit. "night-child." L. manes , lit. "the good ones," is a euphemism. The gh- spelling appeared c.1425 in Caxton, influenced by Flem. and M.Du. gheest, but was rare in Eng. before c.1550. Sense of "slight suggestion" (in ghost image, ghost of a chance, etc.) is first recorded 1613; that in ghost writing is from 1884, but that term is not found until 1927. Ghost town is from 1931. Ghost in the machine was Gilbert Ryle's term (1949) for "the mind viewed as separate from the body."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
ghost
1. a disembodied spirit of a dead person supposed to haunt the living as a shadowy, pale, evanescent form.
2. a haunting memory, a semblance, a trace, a ghost of his former self.
3. a faint possibility or glimmer, a ghost of a chance.
4. the principle of life, soul, spirit.
5. a secondary image, especially one appearing on a TV screen as a white shadow caused by poor or double reception or a fault in the receiver.
6. a faint secondary or out-of-focus image in a photographic print or negative resulting from reflections within the camera lens.
7. another name for ghostwriter.
8. a fictitious employee fabricated for financial benefit.
2. a haunting memory, a semblance, a trace, a ghost of his former self.
3. a faint possibility or glimmer, a ghost of a chance.
4. the principle of life, soul, spirit.
5. a secondary image, especially one appearing on a TV screen as a white shadow caused by poor or double reception or a fault in the receiver.
6. a faint secondary or out-of-focus image in a photographic print or negative resulting from reflections within the camera lens.
7. another name for ghostwriter.
8. a fictitious employee fabricated for financial benefit.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
japan - ghosts
just when I think I'm winning
when I've broken every door
the ghosts of my life
blow wilder than before...
another 80s favourite...
when I've broken every door
the ghosts of my life
blow wilder than before...
another 80s favourite...
all hallows' e'en
To mark Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, Samhain, ghosting through considers La Isla de las Muñecas (The Island of Dolls) among the Xochimilco canals south of Mexico City.
The local folklore goes something like this: that three young girls were playing in a canal and one drowned. The island was deserted for years until the 1950s, when a loner, Don Julian Santana, moved there and began to place discarded dolls and toys on the trees to honour the spirit child said to haunt the area. Locals began bringing him old dolls in trade for fresh vegetables. Eventually Don Santana also drowned in the canal.
The island now has an amazing collection of thousands of dolls in various stages of macabre disintegration.
The extreme contrast between childish, playful innocence and disintegration and death, as embodied in the dolls, is fascinatingly creepy and the stuff of horror films... Their empty staring eyes, the corpse-like torsos - why do these provoke fear?
It's a curious practice - hanging dolls, teddy bears, stuffed toys in trees and bushes, and it happens in my part of the world as well, although I'm not sure what the motivation is... I found this one in a graveyard:
So cute! Sleep well - Happy Halloween!
The local folklore goes something like this: that three young girls were playing in a canal and one drowned. The island was deserted for years until the 1950s, when a loner, Don Julian Santana, moved there and began to place discarded dolls and toys on the trees to honour the spirit child said to haunt the area. Locals began bringing him old dolls in trade for fresh vegetables. Eventually Don Santana also drowned in the canal.
The island now has an amazing collection of thousands of dolls in various stages of macabre disintegration.
The extreme contrast between childish, playful innocence and disintegration and death, as embodied in the dolls, is fascinatingly creepy and the stuff of horror films... Their empty staring eyes, the corpse-like torsos - why do these provoke fear?
It's a curious practice - hanging dolls, teddy bears, stuffed toys in trees and bushes, and it happens in my part of the world as well, although I'm not sure what the motivation is... I found this one in a graveyard:
So cute! Sleep well - Happy Halloween!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
house of stone
While I'm in 80s nostalgia mood, this is The Roaring Boys...
...although I remember them in their previous incarnation - the brilliant Cambridge student band The Models... Paul Michell, Tim May, Stefan Osadzinski, Paul Goldbart, the Great Northern pub, the make-up...
...although I remember them in their previous incarnation - the brilliant Cambridge student band The Models... Paul Michell, Tim May, Stefan Osadzinski, Paul Goldbart, the Great Northern pub, the make-up...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)