From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 61774
Date: 2008-11-20
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...>
>
>
Why do you reject the evidence of Latin 'aevum' which could mean both
"lifetime" and "eternity"?
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I'm not rejecting it, as anyone can check aevum has both of these meanings
in Latin.
I consider there are two different roots :
R1. means "to be alive"
R2. means "forever"
and Latin polysemy results from the fusion of two roots.
A.
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In English people say 'forever' in such
cases as "You'll be trying forever to get that promotion" or "I want
to be with you forever", when what is really or in practice meant is
"for the rest of your/my life, for your/my lifetime", even though
'forever' can also refer to eternity, infinity of time. The absolute
longest period of time any human being can experience is his or her
own lifetime, which is precisely what Latin 'aevum' means,
principally. The meaning 'eternity' is fundamentally just an
exaggeration of the idea of 'a whole lifetime', since again of course
no one can experience eternity, only his own lifetime.
Andrew
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With that kind of reasoning, you could put Paris in a bottle.
And I repeat that the life-time of our ancestors was about 35 years,
this is just enough to reproduce and die.
A.