"scurrile"

[Nick Thompson]

All--

I do not believe for a minute that the person who came up with "scurrile" is not a native english speaker.  I have spoken the language for 65 years, married to an obsessive reader for 46, my mother was newspaper writer and literary editor, my father a publisher, and I have NEVER heard the word scurrile before.  But, lo, it exists.  


"[French, from Old French, from Latin scurrlis, jeering, from scurra, buffoon, possibly of Etruscan origin.]"

The dictionary tries to insist that it is equivalent to scurrilous, but scurrilous sounds light hearted, compared to the dark sponde of scurrile, with its echoes of "vile" and "servile".   It is a good day that brings a new word.  THANK YOU.  It's like saying that

"Un tambour; un tambour!  Voila Monsieur Macbeth qui est arrive."(sorry, no special characters.  that should be "arrivay")

has the same meaning as

"A drum, a drum.  Macbeth doth come."

By the way, I had a look to see if the root "scurr-"  had anythng to do with "squirrel".  No, in fact.  The rodent's name comes from another root, scuir- which means, both "tail" and "shadow".  When you see your next squirrel, call out to him "Shadow-Tail" and see what he says.

Nick


Nicholas S. Thompson
Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
[hidden email]
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/
 [hidden email]

> [Original Message]
> From: <[hidden email]>
> To: <[hidden email]>
> Date: 4/27/2005 10:00:33 AM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 25
>
> Send Friam mailing list submissions to
>  [hidden email]
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>  http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>  [hidden email]
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>  [hidden email]
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 24 (Joshua Thorp)
>    2. Re: Re: Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 24 (Russell Standish)
>    3. quark-gluon, uh, fluid (Carl Tollander)
>    4. AW: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid (Jochen Fromm)
>    5. RE: quark-gluon, uh, fluid (Robert Holmes)
>    6. AW: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid (Jochen Fromm)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 12:23:26 -0500
> From: Joshua Thorp <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Re: Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 24
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
> Isn't it a contradiction to say GM is safe  " because they [scientists]
> know from their own work how robust wild ecologies are in defending
> against new genes, no matter how exotic" and then tell us one of the
> great uses of GM would be to control invasive species?
>
> --joshua
>
>
>
> On Apr 26, 2005, at 11:03 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
>
> > Send Friam mailing list submissions to
> >  [hidden email]
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >  http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >  [hidden email]
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> >  [hidden email]
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Environmental Heresies (Owen Densmore)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 21:51:34 -0700
> > From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Environmental Heresies
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
> >
> > SFI associate Stewart Brand has a nifty article here:
> >
> > http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/feature_earth.asp?
> > p=0
> >
> >  -- Owen
> >
> > Owen Densmore - http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com -
> > [hidden email]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Friam mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >
> >
> > End of Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 24
> > *************************************
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:43:32 +1000
> From: Russell Standish <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Re: Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 24
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>  <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Not really, but it does tell us that biological control is not a
> trivial task. GM will add to the biological control toolkit, but is no
> magic bullet.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 12:23:26PM -0500, Joshua Thorp wrote:
> > Isn't it a contradiction to say GM is safe  " because they [scientists]
> > know from their own work how robust wild ecologies are in defending
> > against new genes, no matter how exotic" and then tell us one of the
> > great uses of GM would be to control invasive species?
> >
> > --joshua
> >
> >
> >
> > On Apr 26, 2005, at 11:03 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
> >
> > >Send Friam mailing list submissions to
> > > [hidden email]
> > >
> > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> > > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > >or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> > > [hidden email]
> > >
> > >You can reach the person managing the list at
>
> --
> *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> may safely ignore this attachment.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> Mathematics                                 0425 253119 (")
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                   [hidden email]            
> Australia                                http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
>             International prefix  +612, Interstate prefix 02
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 22:55:14 -0600
> From: Carl Tollander <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>  <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Brookhaven announced it has found a quark-gluon plasma, only its more like
> a liquid than a gas, thereby opening up whole new frontiers in mathematical
> plumbing and cobordism fitting and giving Maxwell's Daemon something
> more to think about.
> http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=05-38
> Nice animation at: http://www.bnl.gov/video/files/aniliquid_v3.mpg
> (this is the same one as in Nature online).  Fizzy.
>
> Curious quote from the article:
> "However, unlike ordinary liquids, in which individual molecules move
> about randomly, the hot matter formed at RHIC seems to move in a pattern
> that exhibits a high degree of coordination among the particles --
> somewhat like a school of fish that responds as one entity while moving
> through a changing environment."
>
> We of course don't know anything about such things. :-)
>
> carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:15:06 +0200
> From: "Jochen Fromm" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: AW: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
>  <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> The quote sounds indeed interesting ;-)
> If they are right, it would be a kind
> of swarm intelligence or flocking.
> Self-Organization on the scale of
> elementary particles. Fascinating.
>
> Yet I am a bit sceptical about this news,
> particle physicists have tried to produce
> quark-gluon plasma for a long time. Now
> they think they have found "an elusive
> state known as the quark-gluon plasma".
> Do they observe what they _want_ to see ?
> http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-56/iss-10/p48.html
>
> What they report in these Nature and
> BBC articles is quite different from
> what they really observe, which actually
> looks more like this
> http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/images/ev2_front1.jpg
> http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/images/ev2_side.jpg
>
> They say themselves "if quark-gluon plasma is
> formed in a collision it will last less
> than 0.00000000000000000000001 seconds".
> Not much time to observe :-)
> The colorful animation is nice, and
> the article on the BNL site shows many
> very important persons and ends with a
> remark about funding. Do they need more
> funding or have they really observed
> something new ?
>
> Since Gell-Mann invented the Quarks,
> no one really made an important progress.
> Particle physicsts try to observe
> Quark-Gluon plasma for over ten years
> and longer now. Theoretical physicists
> meanwhile got lost in string theory and
> its 26 dimensions.
>
> At the CERN they are looking for the
> Higgs particle. The Higgs mechanism
> was postulated by the British physicist
> Peter Higgs in the 1960s. That was nearly
> half a century ago.
>
> It is time for some really new, path-breaking
> ideas. Maybe the "sciences of complexity"
> have something to offer here..
>
> -J.
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag
> von Carl Tollander
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 27. April 2005 06:55
> An: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Betreff: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid
>
> Brookhaven announced it has found a quark-gluon plasma, only its more like
> a liquid than a gas, thereby opening up whole new frontiers in mathematical
> plumbing and cobordism fitting and giving Maxwell's Daemon something
> more to think about.
> http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=05-38
> Nice animation at: http://www.bnl.gov/video/files/aniliquid_v3.mpg
> (this is the same one as in Nature online).  Fizzy.
>
> Curious quote from the article:
> "However, unlike ordinary liquids, in which individual molecules move
> about randomly, the hot matter formed at RHIC seems to move in a pattern
> that exhibits a high degree of coordination among the particles --
> somewhat like a school of fish that responds as one entity while moving
> through a changing environment."
>
> We of course don't know anything about such things. :-)
>
> carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:20:05 -0600
> From: "Robert Holmes" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: RE: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
>  <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>  
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jochen Fromm [mailto:[hidden email]]
>
> ...> Since Gell-Mann invented the Quarks,
>
> Invent or discover? ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:49:59 +0200
> From: "Jochen Fromm" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: AW: [FRIAM] quark-gluon, uh, fluid
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
>  <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-7"
>
>  
> You are right, of course he invented the theory
> (QCD) or model and discovered the Quarks :-)
> I think he also coined the name 'quarks' in reference
> to the line 'three quarks for Muster Mark'  in James
> Joyce's book 'Finnegan's wake' from 1939.
>
> The full quote goes like this
> "Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn't
> got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all
> beside the mark." I do not know how this sounds
> to a native English speaker - to me it sounds
> somewhat scurrile, weird and odd.
>
> The other names for the fundamental units
> of matter are more systematic:
> "Atom" is from the Greek word for
> "indivisible". The "monads" from Leibniz
> come the Greek word ìïíÜò, which means
> "one", "single" or "unique".
>
> By the way, I wonder if his "monads" are similar to
> emergent properties of evolutionary processes ?
> A monad is according to Leibniz something unique
> and abstract with no parts. An emergent property has
> no parts and no extension: it is either there or not
> there, and if we dissect the system, it vanishes
> like a ghost or spirit, and there is no trace
> of the emergent property. Like monads, emergent
> properties can not be dissected. They are irreducible
> and abstract.
>
> Although his notion of "monads" looks as strange
> and weird as the name quark, it is quite interesting.
> Leibniz's "Monadology" is very short, see
> http://eserver.org/philosophy/leibniz-monadology.txt
> http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/kant/MONADOLO.HTM
>
> If you think for example of "Process Physics"
> http://www.physicsdaily.com/physics/Process_Physics
> http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/people/cahill_r/processphysics.html
> where space-time self-assembles itself out of a sea of randomness
> and reality is modelled as self-organizing information,
> Leibniz' Monads are not completely on the wrong track,
> if you consider them as emergent properties of an
> evolutionary process.
>
> -J.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
>
> ...> Since Gell-Mann invented the Quarks,
>
> Invent or discover? ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Friam mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 22, Issue 25
> *************************************

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20050427/40c11112/attachment-0001.htm