Norman L. DeForest wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Els wrote:
>
> [snip]
>> I still think black meant the opposite of white long before Columbus.
>
> An interesting observation in Carl Sagan's _The_Dragons_of_Eden_ is the
> fact that "black" and "white" in English have similar origins ("black"
> coming from the Anglo-Saxon "blaece" and "white" coming from the
> Anglo-Saxon "blac"), both suggesting the meaning "without colour".
At last, I know why in Dutch, white people are called 'blank'.
> The
> origin of "white" and its similarity to "black" can still be found in the
> words "blanch", "blank", "bleak" and the French "blanc".
>
> The difference between "left" and "right", on the other hand, is strongly
> culturally independant with "left" almost invariably implying bad
> ("sinister" (English), "gauche" (French), "mancino" (Italian)) and
> "right" implying good ("rightious", "rectitude", "adroit"). Even the
> word "ambidextrous" means, ultimately, two right hands.
Very informative, thanks.
(I wonder even more now why the Brits drive on the sinister side of
the road <g>)
> One place where "black" is good: A business would rather be "in the
> black" than "in the red".
Yup, indeed.
One more: black belt, in most if not all martial arts.
--
Els
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Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
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