the fallacy of modernity [was RE: chiclassiccomp.org was Re: Mysterious website]

[Rich Alderson]

> From: Ethan Dicks
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:40 AM

> On 6/29/09, Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote:

>>> I'm sorry I know this is off topic, but why did the Atari group call
>>> themselves SCAT!?!

>> The www.chiclassiccomp.org website is back up.  Temporary server issue.

>> As for the name, it's just the acronym right?
>> SCAT - Suburban Chicago ATarians

> Besides the obvious modern dirty meaning of the word, there is another.
                      ??????

The use of the word "scat" to mean "ordure, dung" goes back several centuries.
It is a learned borrowing, from the ancient Greek _skOr_, _skatos_,[1] of the
same meaning (with and without the overtones of the related Germanic words).
Scholars needing to refer to the subject simply borrowed the stem of the
Greek word, at a time when English-speaking scholars regularly learned both
Latin and Greek to a comfortable reading level by their early teens.

[1] The "O" represents the Greek letter _o mega_.  Traditionally, Greek words
     are cited in the nominative and genitive singular (the latter to show the
     stem, which may be obscured in the former).  I've left off the accents
     for simplicity.


Rich Alderson
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Vulcan, Inc.
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