From: David Duffy <davidD@qimr.edu.au>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v019.n018
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 22:34:42 +1000 (EST)

Robert Borski wrote:
> ...Apheta (whose name means "starting place").
> 
My Shorter Oxford has apheta as "M 17 Gk starter or sender off = HYLEG

hyleg E 17 Pers celestial indicator of the length of a newborn child's
life.  Astrol.  The giver of life in a nativity.

Amusingly, the adjacent item was hyle Gk primordial matter of universe.

I have two possibly deceptive or just nice folk entymologies:  In _Peace_, the
brand new axe on the first page is suggested by Weer to be branded new.  The
SOD suggests it burning (brand) new.  And in _Castleview_, Morgaine says
the name of Excalibur derives from Ex Calibor, although it's origin is 
in fact as a corruption of the Welsh -- is this in Tennyson perhaps?  M. is
a pretty unreliable informant anyway, I guess.  This latter nitpick comes from
a review of _Castleview in the journal Arthuriana (1993 3:66), which has
a few interesting thoughts.

BTW the Shorter Oxford has many BOtNS words and names, incl Severian.

David Duffy.

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