Uzytkownik "Bible Bob" <biblebob@saintly.com> napisal w wiadomosci
news:2kf9vvk2pmfb4m024bjjcf5urlk35t861n@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 19:33:07 -0500, "Routerider"
> <oneznzeroz@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Uncle Davey" <noway@jose.com> wrote ...
> >
> >> More phoney scholarship. That is not the origin of the word at all.
> >>
> >> It was coined by T H Huxley. It has no more Biblical Greek provenance
than
> >> the word 'telephone'.
> >>
> >> Keep it up. Every post you write shows how little you know.
> >>
> >> Uncle Davey
> >>
> >>
> >Here is what Merriam Webster says:
> >
> >Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnOstos known,
from
> >gignOskein to know.
> >
> >Sounds to me like BB has it right.
>
> Especially since BB got it from there. Including the bottom part that
> you didn't quote.
>
> I just got tired of seeing Jason calling people agnostics, atheists,
> and heretics because they don't bow down and worship him.
>
> Uncle Davey, you are doing the boy more harm than good. He needs to
> learn how to behave like a man and you are not helping him by trying
> to fight his battles for him.
>
> BB
>
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology by T. F. Hoad ISBN
0-19-861182-x is the standard etymological dictionary for English, and that
is my source. That is why Hoad gives the actual coinage of the word, where
as Mirriam Webster goes into the realm of folk etymology. A more common word
than 'gnOstos' was 'gnOrimos' for the meanings you give, (source, Oxford
Classical Greek Dictionary) so were it not for the word being a much later
coinage from Gnosticism and the gnostics, then the term would more likely
have come to us as 'agnorimos'. It does actually come to us almost in that
form anyway, but via Latin, which switched the vowels, so we have
'ignoramous'. A word, Bob, which you could justifiably tattoo on your chest,
if tattoos were not expressly outlawed in the Old Testament.
Best,
Uncle Davey
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