Random Thought #60

As I was driving back from work today, I noticed a Hummer H3T next to me. I don't know why but I thought about how blatantly obvious the name of the vehicle was. It was a Hummer, 3rd generation model and was modeled like a truck. Their other two models were also obviously named. The H2 and the H1 or original Humvee. The humvee even got its name from an acronym HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle). Why are things so simply named? As I mentioned in a previous post, philosophy is divided up into its parts; philo = love and sophos = wisdom. Sophos is also the root of the Sophoi or 7 wise sages of the Greeks during the 6th century BC and the sophists who later perverted the term by selling wisdom through paid courses, thus setting the stage for paid education. I just read in the comics this last week that Philadelphia gets its nickname of "the city of brotherly love" because Philadelphia is translated in greek as literally philo = love and adelphos = brother. Surnames are like this too. For quite awhile, people only had one name but due to population increases, surnames were given and usually related to patronymic or matronymic system (johnson is literally john's son), a profession, a residence, or some other attribute that would define them more specifically. What's most interesting is not the logical naming of items, places, people, etc but more the evolution of language. I bet that if we knew and understood the adamic language or perhaps had insight into the complexity around the tower of babel event, we would better understand the naming conventions that arose and developed over time. Can you imagine poor Adam having to try and name everything? That would be an interesting event to behold. One last thought on context and language; if we study and understand the language and cultural norms of the piece we're reading, it makes a world of difference. How many of you actually knew Philadelphia's nickname was actually a literal translation in greek? I didn't. It would be interesting to know who named it that and why. Now that I bring this up, I can't help but think about Lehi and his posterity camping at various locations in the wilderness and in the promised land and them naming various places for certain reasons. Cool stuff. Can anyone tell me what Lehi means? Its rather intersting and there is a place named Lehi due to an event that occurred there. You'll find that story in Judges. Happy Searching!