war

late O.E. (c.1050), wyrre, werre, from O.N.Fr. werre “war” (Fr. guerre), from Frank. *werra, from P.Gmc. *werso (cf. O.S. werran, O.H.G. werran, Ger. verwirren “to confuse, perplex”). Cognates suggest the original sense was “to bring into confusion.” There was no common Gmc. word for “war” at the dawn of historical times. O.E. had many poetic words for “war” (guð, heaðo, hild, wig, all common in personal names), but the usual one to translate L. bellum was gewin “struggle, strife” (related to win). Sp., Port., It. guerra are from the same source; Romanic peoples turned to Gmc. for a word to avoid L. bellum because its form tended to merge with bello- “beautiful.” The verb meaning “to make war on” is recorded from 1154. First record of war time is 1387. Warpath (1775) is from N.Amer. Ind., as are war-whoop (1761), war-paint (1826), war-path (1775), and war-dance (1757). War crime first attested 1906. War chest is attested from 1901; now usually fig. War games translates Ger. Kriegspiel (see kriegspiel).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

gun

1339, gunne “an engine of war that throws rocks, arrows or other missiles,” probably a shortening of woman’s name Gunilda, found in M.E. gonnilde “cannon” and in an Anglo-L. reference to a specific gun from a 1330 munitions inventory of Windsor Castle (“…una magna balista de cornu quae Domina Gunilda …”), from O.N. Gunnhildr, woman’s name (from gunnr + hildr, both meaning “war, battle”); the identification of women with powerful weapons is common historically (cf. Big Bertha, Brown Bess, etc.); meaning shifted with technology, from cannons to firearms as they developed 15c. Great guns (cannon, etc.) distinguished from small guns (such as muskets) from c.1408. First applied to pistols and revolvers 1744. Meaning “thief, rascal” is from 1858. The verb meaning “to shoot with a gun” is from 1622; the sense of “to accelerate an engine” is from 1930. Gun-shy is 1884, originally of sporting dogs. Son of a gun is originally nautical. Gun-metal (commonly an alloy of copper and zinc) used attributively of a dull blue-gray color since 1905. Gunboat is from 1793; gunboat diplomacy is from 1927, originally with reference to China.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

the problem with questions…

I’m inlcined to think that most if not all of the difficulties that have in the past puzzled and deceived philosophers and blocked the way to knowledge are entirely of our own making. We have first raised a dust, and then we complain that we can’t see.

George Berkley_Principles of Human Knowledge

“Any sense of ‘wholeness’ experienced in the modern world is nothing more than a dangerous illusion.”

Merce Cunningham & the Politics of Perception

by Roger Copeland (Merce Cunningham, ed. Germano Celant, CHARTA, 1999)

JDF

respond

From Latin – respondere “respond, answer to, promise in return,”

derives from re- “back” + spondere “to pledge

and then I wrote something like this – as a kind of response to this http://www.chequerboard.net/art.html – but I don’t know what kind of a thing it is – tis hardly a criticism, tis hardly an applause…

Is it a pledge-back?

Not nostalgia –

paper pasts
darker
rougher
colonized
proud
austere
timeless
classic
frozen
footpaths
dirt
snow
journeying
pushing towards the invisible
for power
an empire
shards and fragments
of images
chosen
saved
kept
pieces left
unused
the bits that remain
how we remain with them
proud mercenary
tied to each other
with string
separated by glass
reflecting glass

the currency
the flight
the plan
the design
all weeping in decay
stretching out and
behind
ageing and stoic
soldered badges
of posterity
Orchestrated in harmonious random order 

the lull
the rhythm
the confidence
pulling you along
through your centre
out from within
on a strange story
of redemption
celebration
light
pulled out
from the darker caves
of collectors
debris
spun back into itself
Refrain –

backwards
pacing
breathe
slow
Suspend

The wake of time
sleeps us all
in its lullaby

Say goodbye
Say goodnight

the lights dim
closing down the lids
of eyes
and pianos

The darkest age
becomes glorious
in the honeyed glow
of memory and heartache

Old sounds
beat out their new existence
scratching
impatient
the needle and shellac
resonating with our analogue
pulling at metaphor
pulling us back
into dreams
and Daydreams
And pushing us out
Into concepts…

J.D.F.