On Jan 21, 6:50=A0pm, "John Briggs" <john.brig...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Ulrich Schwaderlap wrote:
> > Hello,
>
> > I am not an native speaker. Can someony please explain
> > the difference between:
>
> > Ghost
> > Phantom
> > Wraith
> > Spectre
> > Spirit
>
> > My dictionary translates these words all to
> > the same word.
>
> > Thanking ou in advance,
> > Uli
>
> You just have to accept that English has more words than German. Some
have=
> been borrowed from other languages, and often acquire gradations of
meanin=
g,
> whereas others are just synonyms.
>
> "Ghost" is from Germanic, "phantom" is from French. "Wraith" is
Scottish,
> with possible Norse origins. "Spectre" is from Latin, via French, as is
> "spirit", which originally meant the same as "ghost", which now has a
> different meaning - except in the phrase "Holy Ghost".
The first poster however was still mistaken in
assuming there was any "odd one out".
Moving into a Tolkein-esque reading of the words
were Wraiths, as in the Ring Wraiths, ever but
wraiths? Or were they, too, the intangible essences
of once-living but now dead life?
If so then no fair treatment of the subject would
omit "Wights", after which I surmise the Isle of
Wight is named and presumed the most haunted place
in Britain. As its Latin name was "Ventnor" there
is no obvious link to Lingua Romanes.
Otherwise to claim the "spirit" is the part which
goes to heaven and this is somehow unique and part
of the essence of the word itself is to ignore basic
tenets of Orthodox Exorcism--which seek to free
trapped tortured souls into Salvation as well as
bind Demons identified via a match-book or grammar
(where Spiritualism is concerned) and other such
nasty hellish creaures and despatch them back off
to the realms of interminable tedium in the form
of menial mind-numbing unrewarding labour for eternity.
Sprites were generally considered benevolent, IIRC
but are still distinct from Spirits. The concept of
the Holy Ghost is likely to be hung over from the
days of syncretism with Germanic peoples, and as
such its inclusion in the King James (Authorised
Version) should come as no surprise, although
obviously the islands of the Faroese were bigger
back then, in 1066 and all that.
Ghouls seems also to have been omitted from this
list.
As far as I'm aware - and no I haven't checked -
soul was at one point identical to sole, again in
the non-Roman, non-podiatric, sense of the word,
and means the indivisible essence of an individual
after all the concepts of "zeitgeist" and Holy Ghost
are of self-similarity manifest across populations
rather than anything so intuitive as individuality.
> --
> John Briggs- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
G DAEB
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