shahbaz

[Wilson Gray]

Very interesting. Some of the more mature posters may recall the
Malcolm X Puzzle. After Malcolm moved away from the Nation of Islam
toward a more nearly orthodox version of Islam, he changed his surname
from "X" to "Shabazz" (or was it "Shabbaz"?). Unfortunately, he was
assassinated before anybody could get the word on this new name. People
agreed that the name wasn't Arabic, but, AFAIK, that was as far as
anyone could go with it.

-Wilson Gray

On Jun 22, 2005, at 7:11 PM, Allen Maberry wrote:

>
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Allen Maberry <maberry at MYUW.NET>
> Subject:      Re: shahbaz
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>
> Shahbaz is a Persian word that literaly means "royal falcon"
> (sh[macron]ah=royal, b[macron]az=falcon). In Ottoman Turkish it can
> also have the meaning "a champion" or "a rough daredevil; a bully",
> but that's probably not what is intended in this case.
>
> I don't think the word is possible in Hebrew except as a loan word,
> and I have no idea where a plural form "shahbazim" would come from. I
> believe the Persian plural is "shahbazan" (with macrons over all the
> "a"s) since "-[macron]an" is the usual plural for animate objects.
>
> allen
> maberry at myuw.net
>
> On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Matthew Gordon wrote:
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>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>
>> Subject:      shahbaz
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> In a story about nursing home reform on NPR this morning they
>> profiled a
>> home called the Green House Project. A nurse's aid in this facility
>> is known
>> as a "shahbaz," a term apparently coined by them - I think they
>> explained
>> the need for a whole new term to describe their new approach to elder
>> care.
>>
>> On the website for the Green House Project you can read "The legend
>> of the
>> Shahbaz" which is a story written to explain the term. For those fans
>> of
>> Cliff's Notes among you: Shahbaz was the name of some falcon who
>> originally
>> served a bad king and eventually became filled with compassion and
>> had to
>> help the downtrodden. It's a delightfully elaborate backstory to
>> support
>> this term. But, I wondered whether the word is completely made up or
>> just a
>> borrowing (the legend doesn't say). If it's a borrowing, I'm thinking
>> it
>> might be Hebrew since the plural is Shahbazim. Anyone recognize it?
>>
>> Link for the Project: http://thegreenhouseproject.com/concept.html
>>
>