Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:28 PM 9/22/03 -0400, frank theriault wrote: >BTW, I don't know Latin, but does Orient simply mean "east", and not "rising >sun" as you say? I do remember that the maxim "ex Orient Lux" means "from the >East comes light"... I take Safire with a strong dose of salt: he is often correct but often allows his enthusiasms to run ahead of his knowledge. "Oriens" is a present active participle derived from the third -io declension intransitive verb, "orior", meaning, "I rise". Thus, the participle means rising, and the reference was to the rising sun. Later, the term came to mean "east" and "morning", as the morning sun, from Rome, was located to the east. I believe that we derive "orient", as in align, and "orienteering" from the same root, but I'm too lazy to pull my Lewis & Short or OLD at the moment. Vale! Marcus Iacobides Parvus msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html