Subjects Cambridge Does Not Want You To Take (Part II): Things Man Was Not Meant To Know
It's always fascinating to delve into the encyclopaedic tomes which form 'core' or 'accessory' rulebooks in role-playing games and RPG systems. You learn about all kinds of things that your character can develop awareness, knowledge, skill, proficiency, talent or manifestation of and in. The lists come, literally, to thousands of these things, if not myriads. Some of these things are real, and I have relatives and friends who actually have some proficiency in them.
Here are a few you have to be careful with.
1. Orchidology: This would seem obvious. It has to be the study of orchids, right? Well... it turns out that the Greek orchis means 'testicle'. If I offer you an orchidectomy, it is not an offer to prune your Vandas. An orchidologist studies orchids, and not testicles; an orchidomaniac studies testicles, and not orchids. Go figure.
2. Inductive Divination: This one's not so obvious. It's actually the practice of making many observations and then recording the consequent events following those observations. A pattern that develops is then applied in forecasting. This is the way a lot of predictive sciences (e.g. broadcast meteorology – weather services and petrochemical assessment) work.
3. Necrophilology: No, this has nothing to do with the science of necrophilia. It's the study of dead languages. Somewhat unfortunately, it can be translated in a few ways depending on how you break it up. The three Greek elements here are nekron ('corpse'), philia ('liking') and logos ('structure, language, word, words').
4. Demonoology: Yes, this one is speltcoorectly correctly. The Greek nous means 'mind', 'noology' is the study of the phenomenon of mind. Greek demos means 'the people (of a state, for example)' and hence 'demonoology' means 'the study of the collective mind of a population'. That extra 'o' in the middle, very important.
5. Demonoology: Yep, here we go again... 'oology' is the study of eggs. I'm not kidding. The Greek daimon(ion) means 'a spirit (manifesting personally and locally)'. So this particular formulation means 'a study of the physical origins of spiritual things'. The problem, of course, is distinguishing between the two; careful pronunciation required.
After five such helpings, perhaps it's good to take a break. As I dig around, I begin to realise that there are ways of saying things in Greek that cannot be said exactly in English. In fact, there are some things best said in Tibetan.
Here are a few you have to be careful with.
1. Orchidology: This would seem obvious. It has to be the study of orchids, right? Well... it turns out that the Greek orchis means 'testicle'. If I offer you an orchidectomy, it is not an offer to prune your Vandas. An orchidologist studies orchids, and not testicles; an orchidomaniac studies testicles, and not orchids. Go figure.
2. Inductive Divination: This one's not so obvious. It's actually the practice of making many observations and then recording the consequent events following those observations. A pattern that develops is then applied in forecasting. This is the way a lot of predictive sciences (e.g. broadcast meteorology – weather services and petrochemical assessment) work.
3. Necrophilology: No, this has nothing to do with the science of necrophilia. It's the study of dead languages. Somewhat unfortunately, it can be translated in a few ways depending on how you break it up. The three Greek elements here are nekron ('corpse'), philia ('liking') and logos ('structure, language, word, words').
4. Demonoology: Yes, this one is spelt
5. Demonoology: Yep, here we go again... 'oology' is the study of eggs. I'm not kidding. The Greek daimon(ion) means 'a spirit (manifesting personally and locally)'. So this particular formulation means 'a study of the physical origins of spiritual things'. The problem, of course, is distinguishing between the two; careful pronunciation required.
After five such helpings, perhaps it's good to take a break. As I dig around, I begin to realise that there are ways of saying things in Greek that cannot be said exactly in English. In fact, there are some things best said in Tibetan.
etched with acid at 3:55:00 pm
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