Grand Unified Theory

James Wynn · 25 Aug 2010, 15:50 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:50:18 -0500
Subject: (urth) Grand Unified Theory
In-Reply-To: <4C753691.7090403 at gmail.com>
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>> Wynn - The word "typhoon" comes from "Typhon" -- not that it would 
>> prevent
>> Wolfe from associating the two anyway if he wanted to.
>
> Marques - That's actually open to question.
> - _Typhon_ is an english spelling pronunciation of greek <tu'fwn>, 
> which would be more or less 'two FAWN' [tu'fO:n] if read 'correctly'.
> - _typhoon_ is an english transcription of [tai'fun], from some 
> language spoken along the margins of the Indic ocean.
>
> Even if one posits that [tai'fun] is ultimately from the greek, one 
> still would have to explain how did greek [tu] become [tai]. The 
> english [ai] is merely from the english great vowel shift compounded 
> with a misreading of greek <y> as [i], which it never was. Had english 
> gotten the word by natural borrowing, rather than in misread written 
> form centuries after, it wouldn't have [ai].
>
> Not impossible, but unlikely.

Well, I'm not a linguist so I can't begin to break it down. But each 
language has it's own special tendencies to change over time. And the 
vowels change the fastest. The most common etymology I have read is that 
"typhon" came to Hindi through Parsi in order to become "typhoon". So 
there's a lot of room for mischief in there. But I'm sure you are right 
that there are alternate assertions by people who know a lot more about 
it than me. Still, the spellings and meanings are similar enough that I 
have no doubt Wolfe would happily associate them even if he knew for a 
fact that the words had no real etymological connection.

u+16b9

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