Monday, October 15, 2012

Spartan Gold: Gibbous moon and more

pg 63

"'Gibbous' means a moon that's between half and completely full."
 A lunar phase or phase of the moon is the appearance of the illuminated (sunlit) portion of the Moon as seen by an observer, usually on Earth. The lunar phases change cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the changing relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. The half of the lunar surface facing the Sun is always sunlit, but the portion of this illuminated hemisphere that is visible to an observer on Earth can vary from about 100% (full moon) to 0% (new moon). The lunar terminator is the boundary between the illuminated and unilluminated hemispheres. Aside from some craters near the lunar poles such as Shoemaker, all parts of the Moon see around 14.77 days of sunlight followed by 14.77 days of "night" (there is no permanently "dark side" of the Moon).
"'Gibbous also means hump-backed."
From Middle English, from Latin gibbus (humped, hunched), probably cognate with cubō (bend oneself, lie down), Italian gobba (humpback), Greek κύφος (kyphos, humpback, bent), κύβος (kybos, cube, vertebra).
"The Days of the Upright, by a guy named Roche.
A term used originally in derision, Huguenot has indefinite origins. Various theories have been promoted. The nickname may have been a combined reference to the Swiss politician Besançon Hugues (died 1532) and the religiously conflicted nature of Swiss republicanism in his time, using a clever derogatory pun on the name Hugues by way of the Flemish word Huisgenoten (literally housemates), referring to the connotations of a somewhat related word in German Eidgenosse (Confederates: i.e. A Citizen of Switzerland)  Geneva was John Calvin's adopted home and the center of the Calvinist movement. In Geneva, Hugues, though Catholic, was a leader of the "Confederate Party", so called because it favoured independence from the Duke of Savoy through an alliance between the city-state of Geneva and the Swiss Confederation. This theory of origin has support from the alleged fact that the label Huguenot was first applied in France to those conspirators (all of them aristocratic members of the Reformed Church) involved in the Amboise plot of 1560: a foiled attempt to wrest power in France from the influential House of Guise. The move would have had the side effect of fostering relations with the Swiss. Thus, Hugues plus Eidgenosse by way of Huisgenoten supposedly became Huguenot, a nickname associating the Protestant cause with politics unpopular in France.
A version of this complex hypothesis is promoted confidently by O.I.A. Roche, who writes in his book, The Days of the Upright, A History of the Huguenots, that "Huguenot" is:
"a combination of a Flemish and a German word. In the Flemish corner of France, Bible students who gathered in each other's houses to study secretly were called Huis Genooten ('housemates') while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed Eid Genossen, or 'oath fellows,' that is, persons bound to each other by an oath. Gallicized into 'Huguenot', often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and triumph, a badge of enduring honor and courage."



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