Topic derives from the Latin topica, which is a tranliteration of the Greek topica (of a place, local, the name of a work by Aristotle; τοπικά) from topos (place, subject for conversation; τόπος)
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From the same root:
topical, utopia, topography
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In modern Greek
a) topicos: local, regional [τοπικός]
b) topos: place, country, position, locus [τόπος]
c) topio: landscape, seascape, scenery [τοπίο]
d) topographos: topographer [τοπογράφος]
e) topographia: topography [τοπογραφία]
f) topotheto: to place, to post, to position [topo (place) + theto (put)] [τοποθετώ]
g) utopia: utopia [ουτοπία]
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More:http://ewonago.blogspot.com/ [English Words of no Apparent Greek Origin]
Don’t know much about topic yet. Will read this later today when I can devote more time to it. Looks fascinating, lots of words.
What is the origin of your avatar? Looks like an eastern European flag. I really like it. Or is it heraldry of family? If too
personal, that’s OK, you don’t have to answer. But I love heraldry, and study it whenever I get a chance.
Hi Luke,
this is the flag of the last Roman Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, defender of Constantinople.
The flag includes all the emblems of the Eastern Roman Empire:
a) the Cross with the inscription “εν τούτω νίκα” (with this you win) shown in the sky to the Emperor saint Constantine I the Great.
b) the double-headed eagle, emblem of the Empire
c) the emblem of Jesus Christ (the small one above the doudle-headed eagle). It is a combination of three letters: (1) I [for Iesus, Ιησούς, Jesus]; (2) XP [for Xpistos, Χριστός, Christ].
d) the four Bs standing for the phrase: King of Kings Reigning over those who Rule (Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων)
The imperial purple and gold were the colours used.
There you are.
I hope you like it.
Best regards
John
τοπικά, πειράω καὶ τὰ λοιπά excellent choice altogether of linguistic & historical material, John Neos, keep up the good work—καλημέρα σας!
thus myself, bandito - 16 December 2008 10:56 AM
As pagan Rome struggled in her 2nd cent. heyday, with the contrasting philosophies of divine Epicurus and the glorious στοὰ ποικίλη “Painted Stoa” in cerebral Athens, Aegean Hellas, so today is contemporary America likewise riven by stark polarity—the inevitable result of opposite, conservative & progressive values that may together affect our national politics on a truly grand scale. Thus either one of two sides has unofficially endorsed a controversial "litmus test" for personal orientation, i.e. regarding those divisive issues which beleaguer us all: where you stand on abortion for GOP Republicans, and uninhibited minority rights for outspoken Democrats. Yet in spite of everything we disdain, like profile assassination & violent protest, heated debate over central themes and proper attitudes can, in my humblest opinion, no less equally reflect the healthy condition as moribund demise, of any certain polity including the United States or Roman Empire.
In more general terms, however, it so happens Edward Gibbon 1737-94 really did in cold print blame the gratuitous collapse of Roman civilization alone, squarely upon the gradual accession of Christian virtues in the already decadent West! But first of all, this erudite historian spared no predetermined mindset to have a literary bestseller published in his own time, a foregone era dominated by the atheistic rationalism of Voltaire & Rousseau, themselves yet again rather fashionable lately in just the previous century of both "destructive materialism" and the world famous agnostic, Dr. Bertrand Russell 1872-1970. Hence it comes as no surprise whatsoever, that said Georgian Livy should accordingly tender such a brazen proposition, especially when adamant resolve in Jesus Christ truly our Lord & Savior had meanwhile lost its historic foothold among the teeming masses, composed of intellectual savants and curious readers he avidly wished to court. Now secular humanists could finally revel in Mr. Gibbon’s pensive but scathing attack upon the fast entrenched doctrine of gluttonous excess & heathen debauchery, even if only to make a small fortune for himself!
Unfortunately for this celebrated author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ever since 1776) religious conviction would again find new light in the nineteenth century to follow ja doch most notably in the clairvoyant person of the great, but hitherto unsung jurist & ancient historian, the unassailable Dr. Theodor Mommsen anni cui 1817-1903 whose studied opinons and profound deliberations impart much upbeat enthusiasm for the Hohenzollern kindom of Prussia, then also strategically positioned in eastern & central Europe. For it was this highly renowned paragon among legal scholars who, through only a few insightful papers and his penetrating Römische Geschichte “History of Rome” in 1854, saw to it that a more circumspect world finally came to realize the fullest implications of his altogether pervasive contention, to wit the Roman empire did not actually perish in 476 AD, as Gibbon before him so arduously maintained, but survived & prospered for yet another thousand years in the Sublime Porte, edenesque Constantinople, until the inordinately large cannon of Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror r. 1444-46 & 1451-81 at once breached the heretofore impregnable wall of Theodosius II Augustus ipse 401-450 and subsequently buried the very last Byzantine autocrat Constantine XI Palaeologus underneath a merciless pile of rubble. In no uncertain terms, therefore, mistress Fate savored her lasting fill of disastrous games & perilous folly, and merrily so with the imperial standards & ensigns on that unforgettable day in 1453!
rhetorical argument, sing. of Topics, title of a work by Aristotle, from Latin Topica, from Greek Topika, commonplaces, from neuter pl. of topikos, of a place, from topos, place
1634, “argument suitable for debate,” singular form of “Topics” (1568), the name of a work by Aristotle on logical and rhetorical generalities, from L. Topica, from Gk. Ta Topika, lit. “matters concerning topoi,” from topoi “commonplaces,” neut. pl. of topikos “commonplace, of a place,” from topos “place.” The meaning “matter treated in speech or writing, subject, theme” is first recorded 1720. Topical “of or pertaining to topics of the day” is recorded from 1873.
The word “etymology” derives from the Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumologia)[1] < ἔτυμον (etumon), “‘true sense’” + -λογία (-logia), “‘study of’”, from λόγος (logos), “speech, oration, discourse, word”.[2] The Greek poet Pindar (b. approx. 522 BC) employed creative etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds. Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of “first things” that remained uncritically in use in Europe until the sixteenth century. Etymologicum genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople in the ninth century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The fourteenth-century Legenda Aurea begins each vita of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.
The word “etymology” derives from the Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumologia)[1] < ἔτυμον (etumon), “‘true sense’” + -λογία (-logia), “‘study of’”, from λόγος (logos), “speech, oration, discourse, word”.[2] The Greek poet Pindar (b. approx. 522 BC) employed creative etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds. Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of “first things” that remained uncritically in use in Europe until the sixteenth century. Etymologicum genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople in the ninth century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The fourteenth-century Legenda Aurea begins each vita of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.
The search for meaningful origins for familiar or strange words is far older than the modern understanding of linguistic evolution and the relationships of languages, with its roots no deeper than the 18th century. From Antiquity through the 17th century, from Pāṇini to Pindar to Sir Thomas Browne, etymology had been a form of witty wordplay, in which the supposed origins of words were changed to satisfy contemporary requirements.
