History Challenge & Journal

[dtaai-maai]

A topical question

scottish flag.jpg (6.44 KiB) Viewed 555 times

No prizes for guessing that this is the Scottish flag, but what is its 2-word name and what is the story behind that?

Not much of a clue, but to avoid confusion, the first word is "The"...

NO GOOGLING

[Frank Hovis]

It's The Saltire. or is it? isn't it just 'a saltire' because the Northern Irish Flag is also a saltire.

The cross is a St. Andrews Cross, based on the presumption that he was crucified on an X style cross rather than a normal Jesusy-type vertical cross.

But I suspect that's not the answer as the St. Patricks saltire is the same shape and I don't think he was crucified at all so I don't know where the word 'Saltire' comes from.

[dtaai-maai]

Right or wrong, it's definitely the answer I was looking for!

[Frank Hovis]

Bugger, I was rather hoping you were going to enlighten me on where the word 'saltire' came from.

[dtaai-maai]

I think it refers to rubbing salt in Scottish wounds, making them a bit cross...

[dtaai-maai]

I just happen to know it's a heraldic term, whose origins are: "1350-1400; Middle English sawtire < Middle French sautoir crossed jumping bar"

[arcadianagain]

I just happen to know it's a heraldic term, whose origins are: "1350-1400; Middle English sawtire < Middle French sautoir crossed jumping bar"

Talking of middle English, I learned this week that a journey was Middle English for the distance that could be travelled in one day.

[Jimbob]

I just happen to know it's a heraldic term, whose origins are: "1350-1400; Middle English sawtire < Middle French sautoir crossed jumping bar"

Talking of middle English, I learned this week that a journey was Middle English for the distance that could be travelled in one day.

I had read that most peasants travelled no more than seven miles from home during their life time. Gap years definitely came later unless going to the holy lands

[dtaai-maai]

Talking of middle English, I learned this week that a journey was Middle English for the distance that could be travelled in one day.

Those bleedin' Normans have a lot to answer for!

[PeteC]

Thank our well hung friends on the Caption Competition for this one. The son of some famous person disappeared and is assumed eaten by cannibals I think in New Guinea or New Caledonia, back in the 1940's or 1930's...or perhaps 1950's? I don't know the answer(s), and I don't know the exact time......but I'm thinking he may have been a US President's son? I really don't know and throw it out here. Pete

[Nereus]

^^^^ You may be thinking of Michael Rockefeller, Pete. He disappeared in
New Guinea in 1961.

[PeteC]

^^^^ You may be thinking of Michael Rockefeller, Pete. He disappeared in
New Guinea in 1961.

Bingo! Not President's son, but President maker's son.

No bones, no nothing ever found from anything I've seen. I don't think any large predator animals exist there so he may well have gone into the pot.

[dtaai-maai]

Talking of middle English, I learned this week that a journey was Middle English for the distance that could be travelled in one day.

I was reading a novel last night in which the (12th century) narrator was imprisoned in a Middle-Eastern caliphate and referred to the division of a day into 'hours' as if he'd not come across the concept before. This made me realise that although I 'sort of' knew that water clocks, hourglasses, etc. came here from the East, I had no idea when 'we' started thinking of a day in terms of hours and minutes.

From a brief period of surfing (can't really call it research ), my guess is that we started thinking of the time of day in terms of hours in about the 13th-14th century, and then minutes when clocks became more accurate post-Galileo in the 18th century.

Some snippets of info if you're interested:

The English word clock probably comes from the Middle Dutch word klocke which, in turn, derives from the mediaeval Latin word clocca, which ultimately derives from Celtic and is cognate with French, Latin, and German words that mean bell. The passage of the hours at sea were marked by bells, and denoted the time (see ship's bell). The hours were marked by bells in abbeys as well as at sea.

The Middle English word ure first appears in the 13th century, as a loanword from Old French ure, ore, from Latin hōra.[2] Hora, in turn, derives from Greek ὥρα ("season, time of day, hour").[2] In terms of the Proto-Indo-European language, ὥρα is a cognate of English year and is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *i̯ēro- ("year, summer").

The ure of Middle English and the Anglo-French houre gradually supplanted the Old English nouns tīd (which survives in Modern English as tide) and stund. Stund is the progenitor of stound, which remains an archaic synonym for hour. Stund is related to the Old High German stunta, from Germanic *stundō ("time, interval, while").

Earlier definitions of the hour varied within these parameters:

One twelfth of the time from sunrise to sunset. As a consequence, hours on summer days were longer than on winter days, their length varying with latitude and even, to a small extent, with the local weather (since it affects the atmosphere's index of refraction). For this reason, these hours are sometimes called temporal, seasonal, or unequal hours. Romans, Greeks and Jews of the ancient world used this definition; as did the ancient Chinese and Japanese. The Romans and Greeks also divided the night into three or four night watches, but later the night (the time between sunset and sunrise) was also divided into twelve hours. When, in post-classical times, a clock showed these hours, its period had to be changed every morning and evening (for example by changing the length of its pendulum), or it had to keep to the position of the Sun on the ecliptic (see Prague Astronomical Clock).



The Babylonians (about 300-100 B.C.E.) did their astronomical calculations in the sexagesimal (base-60) system. This was extremely convenient for simplifying division, since 60 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10. The first fractional sexagesimal place we now call a minute, the second place, a second.

[arcadianagain]

Could you repeat that please?

[Nereus]

Could you repeat that please?

I beleive it is something to do with French whores, although some of the spelling is a bit off.