--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel J. Milton" <dmilt1896@...>
wrote:
> After reading Dan Waniek's "Sine-cera-ly" signoff of
> posting 28770, I did some poking around and found he had written
> the following postscript to a letter on the Iridology Research
site:
> "*NOTE: The origin of the word "sincere" was exceptional.
> SINE was of course Latin for "without" and CERA, stood only
> for "wax"; SINE-CERA, sinceritas...The Roman matronnae used wax on
> their cheeks, to hide their blushing. Not only today there is no
> such thing any more, but we are encouraged by the industry to buy
> and use that "blusher" stuff. "
>
> However, I found in Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary:
> "sincerus , a, um, adj. [sin- = sim-, v. simplex; root in Sanscr.
> sama, whole, together; and root skir-, Sanscr. kir-, pour out] ,
> clean, pure, sound, not spoiled, uninjured, whole, entire, real,
> natural, genuine, sincere "
> and a different root for the second element from Watkins in the
AHD
> under *ker- "grow":
> "Compound *sm-ke:ro- "of one growth".
>
> I couldn't check the Leiden Pokorny, which seems to be
> unreachable more often than not the last few weeks.
>
> I've read the "without wax" etymology before, and don't
> know if it's ancient or modern (although it does sound like
> something that Varro, or maybe Isidore, would come up with).
> Sorry to spoil an amusing story, but it's not accepted by serious
> etymologists.
>
> Poured out whole and of one growth (no wax either),
> Dan Milton
Dan,
There is, in Lewis, this fascinating and old (before the Empire)
sincērasco, to begin to clear, grow clear, like in 'aer
sinceravit'
(bronze statues, of course, and incidentally it was wax that filled
the cracks).
If you look further, there is in-sincērus , a, um, adj., (not
genuine, not pure, adulterated, spoiled; not honest or candid),
insincere (poet. and in post-Aug. prose) with a hint at 'cracking'
the character.
What I really found significant though, was the reverse search. That
opened yet new cracks in my own current search of etymologic
secrets. Took some time in Pegasus. Even the Leiden Poko does better
on long Sunday nights, never on Fridays : ) Anyway, out popped:
Lat. cerno; Gr. kêros; cf. sincerus !
krino= to pick out, choose, before it is a lily
So it was worth looking under cĕrăs, ătis, n., = keras
to start with.
I'll make sure I end my trip where I started, with the usual caveat
of my not being a specialist, takes more amazement and pleasure in
my eyes.
After Richard's kind suggestion, let's look into Julius Pokorny's
k̂erǝ- (lemma 927) :
Poko gives gr. kore/sko with *korFos for the Attic ko/ros, which he
equates with Homeric, and Ionian kou=ros.
I will refrain here from quoting Mr Faucounau on this all-important
key (for he identifies the first Phaistos face A glyph with it - in
the mean time you may check the disk photos on cybalist, where I
uploaded them earlier this evening).
The kouros grows and runs a lot, apparently disregarding his own
transforming laryngeals. Even the ko/re (hom, ion kou/re, dor kw/ra)
moves and grows, like in choreography, pupils, anisocoria and stuff.
Homeric kou/retes (waffenfähige Jungmannschaft) my or may not
grow;
Albanian thjerrë (strangely, in the sense of "Linse") and
Kerus
Manus; pro-cērus, crē-sco, and all that Material
interesting as
usual would rather grow. The lens, is, BTW the only organ _always_
growing in our body, even at my age, if not discarded.
I might add
*e(sperion keras,
keras okeanoio
cēra , ae, f.
No ce:ra, and no (Sanscr. kar-, to scatter, throw away) here.
So far, we only have as candidates in search of sense Gr. krino=;
with Lat. cerno in discernere. Problem is, wax grows and shrinks
with physical state, and this I see in Frisk's own sincerity,
ei)likri/n-eia, if only metaphorically suggested at page 1,459
(Expressives Wort ohne überzeugende Etymologie.).
For "of one growth", to spring, and all the qualities of the sky and
of wax, I might dream on Poko's lemma 1736, also indicated by
Richard below. For skerǝ- is to spring, to turn, and ahd.
scerōn 'mutwillig sein', but ... Might not apply to a paradise
gained, even for modest uranoscopic purposes, be it only for the
existence of that restless worm a/skaris, a/skaridos.
My digging for sense remains tricky.
Cicero's imago, imaginis is a wax funerary mask before an imago
mundi.
For the Volkstymologie bandwagon there are - besides my own site for
which I take due credit (you forgot to mention here the encaustic,
but thanks for your kind visit anyway : ) - representatives as
www.rossicatelli.com/Ing/sinecera-f-3.htm and legion.
No Hispalensis, Varro, Gellus to my knowledge. Gellus only
intimates 'philosophus' by 'in-since:rus'
Suda is silent on the
matter (except for ei)likri/n-eia), as is Hesychius. However,
Statesman, 310 d puts the foreigner on the soul's part (h( de\ ai)
dou=s ge au)= li/an plh/rhs yuxh\ kai\ a)ke/rastos) and, cunnigly,
most translators care to choose "courage and boldness" for this a-
kerastic quality.
The bottomline:
You did not spoil any story ! Just made me regain my own lost
paradise (no pun intended) lost years ago, when I had to start
making a living without words.
Let me then settle for a rather dull, but more etymologically
consensual
Sine - cĕrăs - ly yours
Dan
(no horns, no kera-titis, no kerato-cone-prone resident irismeister)
PS sorry for the UTF-8 garble - too tired to do the cleanup at 02:00