Message: "Re: Meanings and associations are different. (m)"

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Re: Meanings and associations are different. (m)

by Array (WeloveyouJesseLacey)

7/6/2005, 6:26 AM

in reply to a message by Cleveland Kent Evans

Maybe it's a distinction that only I make, but that's calling a person a cassandra, not a Cassandra. In the same way, the word abigail means "a woman's personal servant." When one uses the name Abigail, it certainly doesn't mean that they're calling their daughter a maid (it might not be so popular then!), because she's not an abigail. In the same way, a girl named Cassandra is only a cassandra if she happens to greet people with "You'll be hit by a bus next Monday."

Array

"What are these parents thinking?...Let's name her Madison--she'll live in her own world: 16 square miles surrounded by reality." -- Susan Lampert Smith

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- Cleveland Kent Evans (clevelandkentevans) +1

7/6/2005, 5:44 PM

All I can say is that I've never seen "cassandra" written in lower case even when it is obviously being used with the general meaning. The Random House dictionary still capitalizes it under the second defintion -- just as it capitalizes "Dutch" for both the phrases "go Dutch" and "in Dutch".

- Chrisell

7/6/2005, 5:51 PM

That would support the argument that the term "a Cassandra" is given in reference to an actual Cassandra, as if it were being used as a general noun it would not be capitalised.

♦ Chrisell ♦

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien.

- Miranda (Randee15)

7/6/2005, 1:26 PM

And, of course...

You are indeed hit by a bus next Monday. :-p

Cassandra's prophecies were always true, but nobody believed them because of her curse.

Miranda
"Come... you must eat my child." — From a badfic

Proud adopter of 15 punctuation marks; see my profile for their names.

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