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"History" goes back to ancient Greek and Herodotos. The original word is "historia" and refers to an inquiry or a summary. In French it's "histoire" and in other languages it's "historia" or some other similar word.
Its origins have nothing to do with the history of any particular "guy" or even "guys".
When I was in school and even later, "mankind" always meant humanity as a whole, speaking of which "humanity" also has a "man"in it. I'm a big reader, aka a bookworm, and I wonder if that is why the term is familiar to me and not to others. Northrop Frye, a Canadian professor lamented the lack of Biblical literacy in his many books, and in his classes and argued that a lack of Biblical literacy such as used to be common in western society, has deprived readers of a real understanding of western civilisation, especially as expressed through writing. Just as smelling a scent can remind people of a loved one, so too a word has echoes if one is aware of their history.
Terms such as "Children of men" come to mind, a phrase found in the Bible. Writers such as Margaret Atwood were his students. Frye's thoughts on the Bible were on the Bible as literature, not as a holy book.
I have wondered if we are entering some kind of language revolution where people forget what words mean and the history behind them, and current misspellings of "wordz" like "alot" or "noone" for no one and text message shortcut English, will become through common usage, a new standard of English.
...... I have wondered if we are entering some kind of language revolution where people forget what words mean and the history behind them, and current misspellings of "wordz" like "alot" or "noone" for no one and text message shortcut English, will become through common usage, a new standard of English.
I hope not. When I see words like gonna, wanna, shoulda, coulda, prolly, alot, both spoken or spelled out that way in posts and texts it makes me want to rip off the writers' fingers.
Living on a personal linguistic divided it's interesting how "l'homme" which means "man" is still much more commonly used in French in reference to humanity.
Of course, French is a much less PC language than English, as we all know.
As a kid I loved this show, which was imported from France.
Well guys, it's been great but gotta go. I have a skating party on the Rideau Canal tonight so I have to run!
Sounds like fun!
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