A debriefing on camels and dromedaries

Tue May 6 23:59:12 UTC 2008

Yes. I fully agree. I'd even agree that the article, had it been
better written or better vetted (Yes, yes. I've railed against the
creeping Briticization of American, but I try to avoid cutting off my
nose to spite my face. The devil with "early on" and "at the end of
the day"! But "vet" is quite useful) would have noted that _dromas_
was applied to entities that were *seen to be* swift runners and not
that it *means* "swift runner."

-Wilson

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>  Subject:      Re: A debriefing on camels and dromedaries
>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  At 4/22/2008 08:55 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>  >I wonder why it is that the article supplies the misinformation that
>  >_dromas_ means "*swift* runner," when it means merely "runner."
>
>  Is it possible that if the Greeks called something "a runner", it was
>  because it was good at running?  Don't we have the same semantics in
>  English today?  "He's a ___" (my mind fails of a good example).
>
>  Joel
>
>
>  >-Wilson
>  >
>  >On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 12:15 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>  > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>  > -----------------------
>  > >  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>  > >  Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>  > >  Subject:      A debriefing on camels and dromedaries
>  > >
>  > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  > >
>  > >  <html>
>  > >  <body>
>  > >  <font size=3D3>Some time ago I asked about the distinction between
>  > >  "camel" and "dromedary", particularly in the 18th and
>  > >  early 19th centuries.  I now report:<br><br>
>  > >  Even lexicographers of the eighteenth century had difficulty! Both Nathan
>  > >  Bailey's <i>Universal Etymological English Dictionary</i>, in 1737 and
>  > >  through at least 1790 (after Linnaeus=92s 1751 classification), and Samuel
>  > >  Johnson=92s <i>Dictionary of the English Language</i>, from its first
>  > >  edition in 1755 through 1828, say there are three kinds of camels, one
>  > >  bunch, two bunch, and the dromedary. Bailey gives the dromedary two
>  > >  bunches; Johnson says there are two kinds of dromedaries, one with
>  > >  "two small bunches", the other with "one hairy eminence=94.
>  > >  Noah Webster=92s 1828 <i>American Dictionary of the English
>  > >  Language</i><a name=3D"_ednref1"></a> (its first edition) is consistent
>  > >  with modern nomenclature (<i>Grzimek=92s Encyclopedia of Mammals
>  > >  (1990)</i>, 5:110);<a name=3D"_ednref2"></a> Webster's
>  > dromedary, =93called
>  > >  also the Arabian camel=94, has one bunch, his
>  > >  Bactrian<a name=3D"_ednref2"></a> camel has two.<br><br>
>  > >  The site
>  > >  <a href=3D"http://www.livius.org/caa-can/camel/camel.html"
>  > eudora=3D"autourl=
>  > >  ">
>  > >  http://www.livius.org/caa-can/camel/camel.html</a> asserts:<br><br>
>  > >  "The confusion is easy to explain. The Babylonians and Assyrians
>  > >  were, as far as we know, the first to describe an animal known as
>  > >  gammalu. (A similar word, g=E2m=E2l, is used in the Bible.) This refers to
>  > >  the dromedary, which was originally called dromas, 'swift runner', by the
>  > >  Greeks. They saw the first representatives of this species in the sixth
>  > >  century [BCE], when the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered Lydia
>  > >  (western Turkey). However, the Greeks also accepted the loan word
>  > >  kam=EAlos. So, they had two words to describe the same animal.<br><br>
>  > >  "This would not have led to confusion if they had not used the same
>  > >  pair of words to describe the [Bactrian] camel, which they first
>  > >  encountered during the reign of Alexander the Great (336-323) [BCE].
>  > >  Following the Greek example, the Romans ignored the difference as well:
>  > >  they called the animals dromedarius and camelus. The sharp distinction
>  > >  between the two animals is modern, but the official names are still a bit
>  > >  confusing: camelus dromedarius and camelus bactrianus."<br><br>
>  > >  Joel </font></body>
>  > >  </html>
>  > >
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>  >
>  >
>  >--
>  >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.
>  >-----
>  >  -Sam'l Clemens
>  >
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--
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.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org