Re: Translation question

At 9:44 am -0500 3/1/99, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
[...]
>
>Sidebar -- is a cognomen is a cognomen is a cognomen?
_cognomen_ originally meant much the same as 'nickname' (an eke-name) as,
of course, did sur-name.  I would guess it was much like traditional
nicknames in the village where I grew up.  There was one guy known as
"Bumper" - no one new why, except that his father had been nicknamed
"Bumper" and so had his father before him etc.

Or does "Caecus"
>really refer to this particular family's ability to see?
I doubt it.  I guess some forebear was nicknamed 'caecus' either because he
was actually blind or was short-sighted, and the name just got past on.

Ray.




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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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