Know your English !! Part.IV

Cloud-cuckoo-land: An idealized fantasy world: this term is a translation of the name for an imaginary city, floating in the air in the play The Birds by Aristophanes.

Cutting the Gordian knot: Solving a problem by taking prompt and extremely bold or unconventional action: The phrase is based on a supposed incident that occurred in ancient history. The Gordian knot was an enormous and intricate knot tied with rope made of bark by King Gordius of Phrygia in the 4^th century BC. According to the oracle, whoever could undo the knot was destined to reign over a large empire in Asia Minor. Alexander the Great apparently took up the challenge by simply hacking through the knot with his sword in 334BC.

Curate’s egg: Something that is actually bad although claimed by some-out of sensitivity or some other reason – to have both good and pad parts. The phrase derives from a punch cartoon in which a nervous young curate at a bishop’s table is given what is obviously a bad boiled egg but fearful of giving offence tells his host that ‘parts of it are excellent.

This term is often misused. It correctly refers to something which is in fact completely bad or which cannot be redeemed, and not to something which has both good and bad qualities.

Beyond the pale: totally unacceptable, unreasonable or unbearable: the original pale was an area surrounding Dublin which was under English control in 12^th to 16^th centuries. People living outside it were considered to be dangerous and civilized.

History Mystery: Sex And The Religions Part.VII

In India the lingam was also symbolized and worshiped in the shape of lotus flower or the lotus bud. The lily is often the symbol of The Father in the Christian church art. It was come from the Pagan origin which transplanted into Christian art. The Madonna and the child with lily symbolical of the holy family and the Assyrian god Ashur having a pine cone in the hand is worth mention. The lingam is also shown as a divine rod or a two forked stick the two forked stick represents the penis with two testicles and the Clover leaf or shamrock also represents the same.

The Russian and the Greek orthodox cross is with three cross bars, that was later the cross of the pope of the Roman church and that was also a religious symbol of Ancient Egypt and on the lids of Sarcophagi. The Shamrock is the emblem of Trinity in Irish.

In ancient times in India there are many shrines with realistic figures of lingam where the sterile women go on pilgrimage and touch those holy images with their vulvas with the hope to conceive. Some sects in Hinduism believes that a woman who dies as virgin cannot go to the heaven (remember child marriage is predominant in those days and the widow children could not re marriage). Such girls goes to those temples with scared stone phallus and ruptures their hymen with the belief the angles guarding the gates of heaven will examine them and they will find that she had done her duty(coition) in earth and allow them to proceed.

According to Menander, a pre Christian believer in Gnosticism, Of all the wild beasts on the land and water, the greatest is the woman. Even many of the Christian priests held the same views and early saints also preached that woman are unholy and made to tempt the man hence men should deliberately avoid her. According to St. Paul (I Cor. vii, 1), It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Hence everyone thought that sexual connection was the greatest sin by that time.                
                                                                                                                                             (to be cont.)

Know your English !! Part.III

Blue blood: Noble birth, aristocratic descent. The term is a direct translation of the Spanish songre azul:  In Spain, a pale complexion used to be considered a sign of pure breeding—unmixed by Moorish stock from the long Arab occupation of Spain. Such fair skin showed up the bluish veins on the wrist or temple, and so the idea of blue blood developed as a mark of nobility.

Crossing the Rubicon:  Taking a step or making a decision on which there is no going back, and which marks the start of a chain of events:  The Rubicon is the ancient name of a river in northern Italy, believed to be the present day Fiumicino, which Julius Caesar was prohibited from crossing. In 49 BC, however, he forced the river with his army, effectively declaring war in Rome.

Dark horse: unfamiliar competitor or quiet new comer whose abilities remain unknown or untested. The phrase derives from horse racing: the betting public might be ‘in dark’ regarding the speed, stamina, or jumping ability of an unfamiliar runner- a dark horse- and therefore uncertain about the odds.

Devil to pay:  An idiom used to warn that trouble is on the way: the original version shows hot its meaning has changed; the devil to pay and no pitch hot suggests a lack of preparation for some important task – that is, the sailors’ task of sealing with tar the seam (known as ‘the devil’) between the planks of a wooden sailing ship.

Know your English !! Part.II

Weasel Words: Words or phrases with a vague meaning- such as efficiency or not in the public interest- as used in official statements to avoid specific commitments. The idea behind the term is the supposed ability of a weasel to suck out the contents of an egg while leaving the shell intact.

Upper case: Capital letters, the larger and less common form of the letters of the alphabet, as used at the start of sentences or proper names.

The terms ‘Upper Case and Lower Case’ come from the early days of printing when type was stored in a case with capital letters at the top and small letters at the bottom.

Accent: Way in which words are pronounced in a particular region or by a particular social class. It also refers to DIACRITICAL MARKS such as ACUTE ACCENT and GRAVE ACCENT, which adjust the way letters are pronounced in some languages. The word can also refer to the emphasis or stress placed on a particular syllable in a word.

Acronym: Words formed by combining the initial letters or syllables of a name or phrase, and pronouncing it as if it were an ordinary word.

Example:  Radar, Radio Detection And Ranging.

Ante-: Prefix from Latin, meaning ‘before,’ as in anteroom.

Anti-: Prefix, from Greek, meaning ‘against’ or ‘opposed to’, as in anticlockwise

Back-formation: Words created accidentally, on the mistaken assumption that it is an earlier and more basic form of an existing word.

Example: burgle and laze are back formations of burglar and lazy

Know your English !! Part.I

Expletive: Any exclamation or oath, especially one considered to be blasphemous or obscene, whether currently or formerly, such as Damn! Or Heavens above! Nowadays, any obscene word can be loosely referred to as an expletive.

Feet of Clay: Phrase used of a highly regarded person revealed to have a character weakness or flaw: it probably comes from a passage in the Book of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar had dreams of a huge statue with gold head, silver arms, and so on, down to feet or iron and clay. Daniel interpreted the dream to mean that a future kingdom would be divided, and would eventually crumble like the clay that supported the statue.

Gilding the lily: Trying to improve something that is already beautiful or perfect: dyeing her naturally
blonde hair would just be gilding the lily. The phrase is often taken to be a quotation from Shakespeare, but the words he actually used in King John were: ‘To gild refined gold, to paint the lily… is wasteful and ridiculous excess’.

In the doldrums: Gloomy, down in the dumps, feeling depressed and lazy. It can also be used of economic condition.
The phrase originated as a reference to equatorial seas, where ships were often becalmed.

Grist to the mill: Something that can be turned to one’s advantage or something that should prove useful even thought it may not appear particularly promising at first. The image is of an old grain mill such as a watermill, which treats anything presented to it as grist or grain, and grinds it regardless.

History Mystery: Sex And The Religions Part.VI

In ancient Rome and Hellas, the people erected the image of Pariapus and Pan in the fields (usually pillars with a head or a phallus in the front) for the productivity of crops, flocks and family. In the temples of Pariapus, a figure of Pariapus in a sitting posture with the erected penis kept. The soon-to-be married brides were taken to the temple and the priestess elaborated them about the male genetic organs and its functions and the brides were usually sat on the lap of the nude god in a position such that their vaginas introduced on to the erected penis of the god, thus rupturing their hymens (which is an offering to the deity). Most of the male gods in Egyptian temples carries icas or their sex organs in their hands. Seti is a symbol based on male triangle. The Egyptian pyramids are the oversize seti symbols.

Male deities in Egyptian temples are often indicated by carrying- this pole in their hands, but frequently they held their real organs in their hands. In the ancient art work “welt Gemaelde Gallerie” one can see one copper plate cut of God appearing to Mosses in the burning bush. In that Jehovah is represented as a male triangle.

In India, the Kama Devan the god of love is represented by shooting an arrow made up of lotus bud which is the representation of male organ phallus or lingam and the bow is made up of sugar cane. The God is riding on the dove or sparrow both are the symbolic representation of coition. In ancient Greek, The god of wine Dionysus or Bacchus was worshiped the rituals on his festive days were accompanied by rampant sexual excesses.

 The god Dionysus scepter was a cane surmounted by the figure resembling grape punch or otherwise called thyrsus scepter ( the figure is not clearly represented and it resembles a pine cone also ). This symbol represents the penis erected on the influence of illicit love. This pine cone is the most frequent ornament of the ancient Christian churches. The arrow in the hand of god Eros is the lingam erect under the pressure of lawful love. The cane held by the god Bacchante or Bacchus is the symbol of lingam erect under the excitement of lust. The word erotic came from the name Eros.
                                                                   Cont....