[Ads-l] OT: Sheelanagige was Re: It was not permitted to pass.

Amy West medievalist at W-STS.COM
Mon May 29 18:48:40 UTC 2017


On 5/23/17 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Mon, 22 May 2017 14:36:58 -0400
> From:    Wilson Gray<hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: It was not permitted to pass.
>
> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> Perhaps you've observed that the OED def. is, shall we say, very discreet.
>
> About as discreet as the version now used by Starbucks. Apparently, they
> had no idea at all what that image was a symbol of. There are also
> continental variants. I came across it first in the journal,_Via Domitia_,
> noted as a former or a current feature of the exterior and the interior -
> on finials of pews, etc. - of churches in the Midi.
>
> The original version used by Starbucks is below, if the system permits it
> to pass.
>
> http://idsgn.org/posts/starbucks-reveals-new-logo-drops-wordmark/
>
> -- -Wilson ----- All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a 
> strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to 
> live. -Mark Twain
I don't get it: the Starbucks logo is a mermaid (or as later identified 
a siren). A sheelanagig is a very different thing: a grotesque squatting 
female form with a toothed vulva.

Yeah, I'd say that the OED def leaves out all the differentia that you 
would use to identify a sheelanagig. It's discreet to the point of being 
useless.

---Amy West



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