ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] RDF & RDFS (was... Is there something I missed?)

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Patrick Cassidy" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 12:48:38 -0500
Message-id: <02b301c9894c$4e5ac0a0$eb1041e0$@com>
John,
   Thanks for the interesting detailed etymology.  My goal for the word was
purely practical, to avoid clumsy phrases in writing about the work I was
doing.  So I made no effort to make the spelling or pronunciation adhere
closely to the Greek origins.  I like simple, so one "g" was enough.  I had
the accent on the second syllable: is-AG-el-ous, and for the objects which
were isagelous, on the first syllable I-sa-gel (analogous to I'so-mer).  As
far as I can tell, it was never actually used by anyone else (the on-line
dictionary entries are bogus, created by me when I digitized the 1913
Webster, as a way of finding where the 1913 Webster was being used.  It is
the only made-up word I added).    (01)

  Actually, originally I was looking for a word meaning "same sequence"
(sequence of nucleotides in a DNA molecule) but the ancient Greek speaker I
consulted didn't know of any Greek word for "sequence" other than sequence
of succession of kings.   I decided that "same information" was closer to
the meaning I was looking for anyway.    (02)

I wasn't anticipating scrutiny by a Greek and Persian scholar!   ;-)    (03)

Pat    (04)

Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx    (05)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2009 10:02 AM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] RDF & RDFS (was... Is there something I
> missed?)
> 
> Pat (C & H),
> 
> PC>> I had occasion, years back when I was doing DNA research, to
>  >> coin a term "isagelous" to refer to abstract informational
>  >> objects that have the same information content, but in different
>  >> physical or syntactic form.   It is from Greek, "iso" meaning
>  >> "same" and "agelos" meaning "information".
> 
> PH> Useful word, to be sure.... is it pronounced i-SA-gelous or
>  > isa-GEL-ous?
> 
> The etymology is interesting:
> 
>   1. The Persians had a word 'aggaros', which meant a mounted
>      courier who distributed dispatches for the Persian empire.
> 
>   2. The Greeks borrowed the word 'aggaros' with the same
>      meaning, from which they made many derivatives.
> 
>   3. In various Greek dialects, the A became E and the R
>      became L.  That produced the variant 'aggelos' for
>      messenger and 'aggelia' for 'message' or 'news'.
> 
>   4. By classical times, the GG combination continued to be
>      spelled GG, but the first G was nasalized.  So the
>      Latin transliterations were 'angelus' and 'angelia'.
> 
> In any case, it's necessary to keep both Gs or to make
> the first one N, because the Greek 'agele' means 'herd'.
> Therefore, 'isagelous' would mean 'from the same herd'.
> 
> There is also a problem with the ending '-ous', which
> is from Latin.  The Greek adjectival form would end
> in '-ikos', which becomes the English '-ic'.
> 
> Therefore, the correct term would be 'isaggelic'.  The
> form 'isangelic' would also be permissible, but it might
> cause confusion with the word 'angelic', which is used
> for a more specialized kind of messenger.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
> Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
> Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
> To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>     (06)


_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    (07)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>