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Duncan71
In: Calgary
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1)Are there any left-wing MPs from Calgary?
2)Are there any intellectuals from Calgary? |
According to many Calgarians, the fact that there are none of the former proves there are at least a few of the latter.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | Of course the union jack looks like a 2-dimensional representation of this 3-dimensional shape.
Personally, I am satisfied that this solves mystery #2. We now know the meaning of ... union jack.
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The Union Flag only becomes a Union Jack when flown from the jack staff at the bow of a naval vessel. Any flag becomes a jack when flown in this context and doesn't need to feature any particular motif.
Why it's called a jack I haven't a clue, but it's nowt to do with the design of the Union Flag.
This for instance is the Spanish Naval Jack:
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | The symbol appears to be a kind of short-hand for the union jack -- or the union jack was created in homage to the circle symbol. They appear to be related by common colors and common purpose (identifying the good guys). |
Not sure about this either. The RAF roundel wasn't always simply red, white and blue:
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If anyone's interested:
- the castle represents "Castille" (Catalonia and Murcia also mean "castle land")
the chains represent Navarre (can't remember why - chains of mountains???)
the stripy flag represents the marks left by a dying catalan king as he grabbed for a yellow wall cloth (i.e. one bar for each bloody finger).
the lion represents Leon (though "Leon" is really meant to be a corruption of Latin "legion", there was a military base there - just like the castra behind Chichester, chester, manchester, etc.
That's the official version anyway. No doubt there's an alternative interpretation from above the 49th parallel...
Oh, and before anyone gets excited because the Basque flag looks like a Union Flag (or a gunport or a rose), it is of modern design and consciously based on the British flag.
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I'm not advancing any argument but it seems like crass stupidlty to paint what are essentially colourful targets on the body and wings of planes - how they won the Battle of Britain I don't know.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Chad wrote: | | The Union Flag only becomes a Union Jack when flown from the jack staff at the bow of a naval vessel. Any flag becomes a jack when flown in this context and doesn't need to feature any particular motif. |
...damn
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The naval background is fitting for an eight-pronged cross, the navigational associations are overwhelmingly 'megalithic'. But I would say that.
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Hang on, people. Are you for real? There are dozens of paintings and references to the flag combining first the flag of St. andrew and St. George and then finally the horizontal (Northern) Irish one.
Any Megalithic or Anatolian significance you ascribe to the Union flag must take into account its evolution between the 17th and the 19th Centuries.
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...or perhaps you see the "British" flag and the Union flag as essentially the same thing...
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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The way I heard it, St. George's Cross represents the Sun: red cross on white. Equivalent to the flag of Japan, which uses a disc. St. Patrick's Cross is certainly the same and St. Andrew's probably -- though that might be a Moon or star in a night sky?
So the RAF roundel is another expression of the Union flag, of the Sun, or 3 Suns...
What's that about an asterism representing the Minotaur in the Labyrinth...?
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Maybe RAF is Really Ra-F (fekkin sun-god, innit?).
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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PS. How long has the bull's-eye in archery been (Sun) gold (not black)?
Anyone got any legends about shooting arrows into the Sun (the window to the bull's soul)?
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Duncan71
In: Calgary
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I thought that the colours of the target in archery had much to do with the fact that red, yellow and blue are the base colours from which other colours are made. This is at least the case when it comes to painting. Black and white are used to lighten or darken a given colour. That being said, in colour psychology, yellow is often referred to as a colour of irritation.
Which brings me to a certain well-known legend from Greek mythology... For his tenth labour Herakles has to fetch the cattle of Geryon, the king of Erytheia (Cadiz in modern Spain). Along the way Herakles builds the pillars at the straits between Africa and Europe. (Either that or he breaks a mountain here in two to form the straits) This work was so long and hard that the demigod was in danger of overheating. In his frustration he threatens the sun with an arrow. Impressed by the hero's boldness Helios awards Herakles with a golden goblet that is so large that the demigod uses it to sail through the straits.
Herakles kills the two-headed watchdog (the brother of Cerberus) tending to the cattle and then takes off with the herd. Later in the legend the three-headed king Geryon hears of what Herakles has done and chases the demigod down only to be shot full of arrows.
Up to this point the task has been relatively easy. On the way back to Greece he is faced by two sons of Poseidon and has to kill them. The bull of the herd jumps into the sea at Rhegium (Italy's toe) and swims to Sicily. Since the local word for bull is 'italus' the land becomes known as Italy. The bull is found by a local ruler named Eryx who puts it in his own herd. Herakles defeats the ruler in a wresting match and returns the bull to the original herd. Of course Herakles encounters several other difficulties getting the herd the rest of the way home but I haven't seen anything in my references that mentions Herakles threatening the bull.
Perhaps DPCrisp could elaborate further of what he knows of the bull-sun connection. I have seen pictures of the sun placed between the horns of the Apis bull from Egyptian mythology. I have also read that the bull was once worshipped as a moon deity in the near east.
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A momentary distraction from suns and bulls...
I thought you lot might enjoy this quote from "The Last Word: Tales from the Tip of the Mother Tongue" by Ben MacIntyre (The Times's resident language expert):
"Between 100 BC and AD 400, the number of languages spoken in the Mediterranean dropped from sixty to ten, eliminated by the steady march of Latin and Greek." (p. 306)
I knew you'd enjoy that! Otherwise, it's not a bad book.
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Duncan71
In: Calgary
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| "Between 100 BC and AD 400, the number of languages spoken in the Mediterranean dropped from sixty to ten, eliminated by the steady march of Latin and Greek." (p. 306) |
It's curious that historians claim this language loss due to the alleged spread of Latin and Greek in the heyday of the Roman empire ignoring the obvious fact that the same did not happen to Turkish during the apex of the Ottoman Turks. (Yet they support the dubious claims of the pre-Ottoman 'turkification' of Anatolia starting in the 11th century).
As Ottoman domination recedes, woe and behold, the language map appears to have been affected ne'er a bit. (Aside from pockets of Turkic speakers in Greece and Bulgaria claimed to have been created by Ottoman migration.)
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