Re: Uglossia and Utopia

On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

> Wow, I always thought that "utopia" came from eu+topia, and meant
> "the good place," but the WWWebster dictionary agrees with you -- it
> says it comes from ou+topia, "no place."  Which is better
> transliteration (ou transliterates as u, but eu generally doesn't),
> but I've never heard of "ou" being used as a prefix before outside of
> pronouns like "ouden"!  I would have thought of "atopia" to mean "no
> place."
>
Lines on the Island of Utopia by the Poet Laureate, Mr Anemolius,
Hythlodaeus' sister's son:

NOPLACIA was once my name,
That is, a place where no one goes.
Plato's Republic now I claim
To match, or beat at its own game;
For that was just a myth in prose,
But what he wrote of, I became,
Of men, wealth, laws a solid frame,
A place where every wise man goes:
GOPLACIA is now my name.

Taken from the Penguin Edition.  Noplacia is Utopia and Goplacia is
Eutopia in latin according to the endnotes.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

Giles: Honestly, Buffy.  You order these products, practice with them for
a morning and then cast them aside in favour of a piece of kindling.
When's the last time you used your hippe?
                        - Buffy the Vampire Slayer #3, Dark Horse Comics.