Dear Banjo,

>>faith and belief are two different concepts (in French)<<

Thanks. Yes, of course, foi and croyance, I should have checked before asking you. As an illustration, in the dictionary I found “Sa foi en Dieu lui permettait de croire au paradis” (His faith in God led him to believe in Heaven. I wonder how this would translate into German or Russian). In Latin they have fides for faith (that apparently gave rise to faith and foi, as you point out) and credere for the verb believe, but I don’t know (my Latin is non-existent) whether they have a separate word for the noun (religious) belief.

Dear George and Banjo,

Thank you for the language lesson. I should have equated the worth of a pail of warm spit to croyance or belief rather than faith. I was arguing with the biblical ‘virtues’ of faith, hope and charity. I think it better to confront reality than either hope or despair. Charity may be ok depending on what is meant by it.

I am bothered by the careless use of language but am guilty of it myself. Gradations of approval disappear and get replaced by the all-purpose word, fantastic. Unique which meant one of a kind is used in the locutions, very unique and quite unique. If unique has gradations one needs another word to mean the absolute one-of-a-kind.

I am now reading the Aeneid. Unfortunately I am so rusty in Latin that I am reading it in translation. The kingdom of the dead is a real place at Lake Avernus in Italy.

On they went those dim travellers under the lonely night,
through gloom and the empty halls of Death’s ghostly realm,
like those who walk through woods by a grudging moon’s
deceptive light when Jove has plunged the sky in dark
and the black night drains all color from the world.
There in the entryway, the gorge of hell itself,
Grief and the pangs of Conscience make their beds,
And fatal pale Disease lives there, and bleak Old Age,
Dread and Hunger, seductress to crime, and grinding Poverty,
all, terrible shapes to see—and Death and deadly Struggle
and Sleep, twin brother of Death, and wicked twisted Joys
and facing them at the threshold, War, rife with Death,
and the Furies’ iron chambers, and mad, raging Strife
whose blood-stained headbands knot her snaky locks.

Note the above connection of crime with hunger. Some reactionary politicians apparently think that crime is a product of immorality and lack of religion when they advocate that posting the Ten Commandments in school classrooms will make the US a better country. Virgil knew better.

Lake Avernus is a volcanic crater lake near Naples.

For the ancient Romans, this was the entrance to Hades, and "Avernus" was another name for the underworld. The name means "without birds." It was thought that the smell of brimstone rising from the lake was so poisonous that birds would not fly over it.

In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas enters the underworld through the Cave of the Sibyl at Lake Avernus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl

In Dante's Inferno, the pilgrim Dante is lost in a dark wood and enters hell through an unidentified cave.

In Devil's Lair, Giovanni Boccaccio identifies Dante's entrance with Virgil's, and leads his pilgrims south to Lake Avernus, where they hope to find and enter the gate of hell.

The entrance is described as
"...a trapezoidal slit that looked like a keyhole in the crater."

It is unclear whether the lake actually was as deadly as its reputation held it to be – it certainly holds no fears for birds today – but it is possible that volcanic activity could have produced deadly fumes.

Centuries ago, concurrent with the 50th Olympiad not long before the expulsion of Rome's kings, an old woman "who was not a native of the country" (Dionysius) arrived incognita in Rome.

She offered nine books of prophecies to King Tarquin; and as the king declined to purchase them, owing to the exorbitant price she demanded, she burned three and offered the remaining six to Tarquin at the same stiff price, which he again refused, whereupon she burned three more and repeated her offer.

Tarquin then relented and purchased the last three at the full original price, whereupon she "disappeared from among men" (Dionysius).

the descent of Avernus is easy.
All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open.
But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven,
That is labour indeed. (Aeneid 6.126-129.)

as gone-west/the officer...confirms
http://new-birth.net/booklet/Gone_West.pdf

yeah..i know..like a broken record
yet its..the best record..of hadies..i have read

I'm sorry I mentioned the Aeneid, Virgil or Lake Avernus. I feel inhibited at the moment about posting anything more.

im so embarrassed

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Dear David,

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« I am bothered by the careless use of language but am guilty of it myself. Gradations of approval disappear and get replaced by the all-purpose word, fantastic. Unique which meant one of a kind is used in the locutions, very unique and quite unique. If unique has gradations one needs another word to mean the absolute one-of-a-kind.”

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Though I’m no polyglot, I understand that ambiguity, vagueness and imprecision are common features of all languages, possibly in the interest of facility, simplicity and fluidity of expression.

Limited literacy and cognitive capabilities which characterise the large majority of mankind are aggravating features. Combined with the natural language deficiencies, it’s no wonder we have difficulty communicating correctly and understanding each other.

My wife, who studied Chinese (Mandarin) tells me the need for interpretation (guess work) in that language is greater than in any of the other languages she practices ( French, Spanish and English). Knowledge of the context is important for correct interpretation in all languages but even more so in Chinese.

As Groucho Marx was quoted as saying: “I shot the elephant in my pyjamas”

While somebody else announced: “The chicken is ready to eat”.

And a very elegant young lady said “I ordered filet mignon” and was annoyed when it was served to her raw, exclaiming “That’s not what I meant!” before realizing that it was not a restaurant but a butcher shop.

Her husband said “Let’s get out of here! I’m parked in George Street.”

And as our good friend, Won Utter Gold, might well enquire in such circumstances: Get it?

PS: I hope that might cheer you both up a bit, David and One Under God !

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