![]() The King James translation of the Bible (KJV, 1611) doesn’t use the word animal a single time, only beast. This eventual substitution will prove significant for the narrowing in popular language of the non-plant, non-mineral animal.Ī query at Open Source Shakespeare, for instance, yields only 8 results for animal, most notably in “paragon of animals” in Hamlet’s soliloquy “What a piece of work is man.” Beast, however, including the adverb beastly, shows up 118 times. Although still rare before 1600, the word animal eventually supplanted the French borrowing beast in most contexts. ![]() Tier) was well on its way out except for the hart, now known generically as a deer. ![]() With the same meaning as in Twenty Questions, i.e., ‘sentient living creature’, animal entered English from Latin animale, ‘being that breathes’, in the early 14c. This means that on one level - thanks to Aristotle and people like the London brewery expert who continued to use the phrase - every child who’s ever played Twenty Questions somehow figures out that a chicken, whale, or earthworm is an animal. brewing manual written “by a person formerly concerned in a public brewhouse in London”:įor this Purpose, in my Opinion, the Air and Soil are to be regarded where the Brewing is performed, since the Air affects all Things it can come at, whether Animal, Vegetable or Mineral … - The London and Country Brewer, 5th ed., London, 1744. In common language, Aristotle’s three kingdoms became a metonym for the entire physical world, as in this 18th c. …it must also follow that both the Starrs in the higher heaven and the compound-creatures, beneath in the elementary world be they meteorologicall, or of a more perfect mixtion, namely animal vegetable or minerall, must in respect of their materiall part or existence proceed from waters, … - Robert Fludd, trans., Mosaicall philosophy grounded upon the essentiall truth, or eternal sapience, 1659. When children begin a round of Twenty Questions by asking if the object to be guessed is animal, vegetable, or mineral, they are echoing a taxonomy that since the time of Aristotle divided physical things into these three great “kingdoms”: ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |