cellio | weekend bits

My rabbi was at services Friday night. I didn't expect that; he's still recovering from surgery and we weren't expecting to see him so soon. He's taking it very easy and he didn't come Saturday morning, which is probably good. Don't want him pushing himself.

On the original schedule he was going to read torah next Saturday morning. Last week I asked someone else to learn it on contingency (i.e. you'll probably get to do this but you might get bumped). (This is someone who explicitly volunteered to do stuff on short notice; we'd know a couple days out if he was going to get bumped. So it was a request for speedy work, not possibly-wasted work.) On Wednesday he told me oops, he'd forgotten about a commitment that would keep him away that day. So I started to look at the portion myself, because I can't ask anyone else to do possibly-wasted work. Fortunately, I'm now off the hook; I asked the associate rabbi if he could do it (he'll be there anyway) and he said yes. I'd rather have more than a week to learn a portion, even a short one.

This afternoon I went to a friend's baby shower. There seemed to be a "classic Pooh" theme going, and, of course (the baby being a girl), enough pink to set off allergic reactions. :-) It was a fun afternoon; it was nice that so many of her friends could be there.

There was one game (showers are required to have games, apparently). The hostess had taken the names of everyone who would be there and looked them up in some sort of "meanings of baby names" book. She grouped them in batches of ten or so and we were to match the names to the meanings. Of course, many of these so-called meanings are hokey rationalizations applied after the fact, not the origins of the names, but you expect that from a book that attempts to attribute meaning to every name. (Y'know, sometimes a Susan is just a Susan...) Anyway, I looked over the list and said to myself that hey, I know a lot of the relevant cognates in at least three source languages (English, Hebrew, Latin), but that even so, I didn't know half of these names. So I filled in the ones I knew and guessed the rest. I was surprised to get 29 or 41 right, which I gather was the highest score in the room.

No, I have no idea of the basis this source had for saying that my name means "advisor". I can't even get a language connection out of that one. I completely missed "Cara" ("beloved"), but could have gotten it if I'd made a logical leap from the madrigal "Matona mia cara". Duh. I was minorly proud for getting "Barbara".

Speaking of languages (sort of), my friend dglenn has a question about language structure and resulting expressiveness, with a geek twist that made me giggle. Hebrew speakers in particular might be able to help him out.

I had planned to go to a going-away party for a friend who's moving to the west coast, but I've been losing a fight against a headache all evening, and I don't think the noisy environment will help. I hope to connect with him before he leaves town. Worst case, he'll be back in a few weeks to arrange for packing and moving.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thanks for the link to the language question -- I got to start my day with a bit of grammar geekery. :)

As for the baby name book ... I am a bit suspicious of those things. I guess I have seen too many that include rather dicey etymologies and definitions. They never get it completely wrong, but I keep running into things that raise my hackles.

I am a bit suspicious of those things.

I'm a lot suspicious of those things. :-)

They never get it completely wrong,

Allow me to present some excerpts from this list, then. :-)

Sarah: princess or lady
Rebecca: a snare
Jenn: fair, white, and smooth

I mean, I'm not saying that people with these names can't have these characteristics, but I fail to see the origins of those meanings in those names. I can see how some definitions could be justified after the fact -- for example, you could say that when Sarai's name was changed to Sarah it was due to an elevation in status, hence "princess" or "lady", but that's reaching. (For Leah, they give "weary or mistress or ruler". Ok, in some sense the biblical one played the role of a quasi-mistress -- wife but not desired -- and that probably made her weary, but...)

But whatever -- it was good for some entertainment. :-)

Hmmmmm.

Sarah: princess or lady

OK, so far so good.

Rebecca: a snare

Uh, I think the root resh-beis-kof conveys the meaning of "binding" ...

Jenn: fair, white, and smooth

Actually, so far as I know, this is relatively correct. The name Jennifer is a derivation of Guinevere, which itself is based on the Celtic root "gwen-" or "hwyn-", which means "white".

Yeah, I think these definitions are mostly interesting for the entertainment value.

Hmm, interesting. These ones struck me as either wrong or questionably fabricated, but obviously you have more linguistic clues than I do.

Uh, I think the root resh-beis-kof conveys the meaning of "binding" ...

Interesting. Has the midrash done anything with Rikva=binding and the akeidah, which was (presumably) a life-altering case of binding for Yitzchak?

>> Has the midrash done anything with Rikva=binding and the akeidah, which was (presumably) a life-altering case of binding for Yitzchak?

I do not know. Wish I did!

Sarah: princess or lady

As far as I know that one's correct or at least close. "Sar" is used in Bereshit to mean minister or official (describing the people who work for Pharoh who get dumped in jail with Yosef and have dreams which he correctly interprets). "Princess or lady" seems a reasonable translation of the feminine equivalent, given that "minister or official" doesn't have any gender marking and, until recently, would have been assumed to be male because of real-world demographics.

Thanks. I didn't know that.

That one's of personal interest to me (see the very top line of http://www.livejournal.com/users/chaos_wrangler for a hint why).

Oh, hey. I hadn't noticed that. :-)

Andrew, Andreas, Andrea. I am supposed to be strong. There's probably a Russian equivalent that I haven't met yet.

I could have helped on "Cara" or "Amanda" but am clueless on "Barbara". Something to do with barbarians, maybe. Wild guess.

I matched "Barbara" with "foreign", yes.

The Russian equivalent is Andrei.

I should have known that, being a long term fan of Andrei Codrescu. Although he's Romanian. I can't always remember and put together everything I know. Thank you.

Names: I don't have any of those names books, though I've seen 'em. I do have a section in my dictionary (Webster's 7th Collegiate) that has a fair number of names and their meanings, but fortunately they don't try to come up with a meaning for every single name: several are marked, "from a surname" and no attempted "translation" is given. Yeah, I guess it's disappointing to someone who really hopes to uncover the specialness of what their name "really means", but ...

Language geeking: The discussion in my journal has quickly gotten over my head, so I'm playing catch-up to the folks discussing my question. Thanks for tossing more folks in my direction; this is quite educational. And downright fascinating.

weekend bits

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