Re: Soul of a dead person?

FCS wrote:
> On Jan 25, 1:04 am, Molly Mockford <nospamnob...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>> At 15:43:39 on Thu, 24 Jan 2008, FCS <sipston_...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
>> in
>> <106e69fe-cc30-4251-bef2-5ca810544...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I would venture to suggest that you should move out of
>> Tolkien(sic)-esque mode. JRRT was deeply immersed in the cultural
>> linguistics of many languages, and in LOTR he played fun games with
>> that knowledge, for his enjoyment and ours.
>>
>> Wight means man, person, living being. Nothing more, nothing less.
>> The fact that Tolkien used it for his own purposes in LOTR does not
>> mean
>> that the word relates in any way whatsoever to the dead or to the
>> undead.
>
> I shall have to check out the fuller version
> but the OED I'm using gives a second definition
> as "spirit/ghost" with a poetic/literary usage.
>
> Appearing in Tolkein does not satisfy the OED
> requirements. Thus Tolkein did not originate
> this usage. TSR and Gary Gygax are not considered
> to be poetic/literary; and it's hardly a term I
> keep reading in the Diary pages of the Daily Mail.
>
> Have you ever being diagnosed as suffering from
> AECMA by the way?

Association Europeene des Constructeurs de Materiel Aerospatial?
-- 
John Briggs