666 The Number of the Beast

The number of the beast is 666 by William Blake

In manuscripts of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation (13:17-18) cryptically asserts that 666 is the "number of a man," associated with the beast. This beast is an antagonistic creature that appears briefly about two-thirds into the apocalyptic vision. Some manuscripts of the original Greek use the symbols chi xi stigma (or digamma), while other manuscripts spell out the number in words.

The number was a way of identifying the beast without saying its name, but even saying the number 666 is reportedly a way to invoke Satan.

In much more modern popular culture, 666 has become a way of referencing the Antichrist or the Devil. In the Harry Potter book and film series, evil is represented by the character Voldemort. Almost no witch or wizard dares to speak that name. He is referred to as "You-Know-Who", "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "the Dark Lord".

In the ancient texts, the number of the beast identifies the beast from the sea, the first of two symbolic beasts described in the Book of Revelation's thirteenth chapter. In most New Testament manuscripts, the number is rendered as 666.

One interpretation is that the number has a symbolic correlation to the Emperor Nero, whose Greek name transliterated into Hebrew has the numeric value of 666. In Revelation's narrative, the "mark of the beast" is used to identify the beast's acolytes (a person assisting the celebrant in a religious service or procession).

Some groups interpret Revelation to mean that the mark will take the form of a number or symbol that will be revealed only during the End Times.

Revelation 13 actually describes John's vision of two beasts. The first beast emerges from the sea having seven heads inscribed with blasphemous names (possibly reflecting the titles given to Roman emperors such as "Lord and Saviour", "Saviour of the World"  which would be blasphemies in the eyes of Christians).

A second beast emerges from the earth and "speaks like a dragon". The second beast will ensure that everyone is required to bear the mark of the first beast on their right hand or forehead, "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." [Revelation 13:17]

Catholic scholars' interpretation side with those who believe the Greek alphabet is an inaccurate way to interpret the meaning and prefer the using the Hebrew alphabet. When Nero Caesar is spelled in Hebrew letters it identifies the cipher 666. So, their conclusion is that Nero is the beast and it is not a prophesy for identifying a future Antichrist

The program Radiolab has an episode about the Oxyrhynchus Papyri which contains a fragmentary papyrus of Revelation which is considered the earliest known witness to some sections (late third / early fourth century). This papyrus assigns to the Beast 616, rather than the usual 666 and the variant 616 is found in critical editions of the Greek text, such as the Novum Testamentum Graece.

Is it strange that Emperor Nero's Latin name written into Hebrew is 616?


In the novel, The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, the Biblical number of the beast turns out to be, not 666, but (6^6)^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056, which is the initial number of parallel universes accessible through a "continua device" in the book. It is later theorized by the character Jacob that the number may be merely the instantly accessible universes from a given location, and there is a larger structure that implies an infinite number of universes.

Engraving by Gustave Doré illustrating Canto XXXIV of Divine Comedy, Inferno,
by Dante Alighieri showing Lucifer, King of Hell

This is a cross-posting with Weekends in Paradelle

Boiler Plate

The term "boilerplate" has an interesting etymology. The word has come to mean in publishing and other fields as a unit of writing that can be used over and over without change.

printing plate

In the field of printing, the term dates back to the early 1900s. Starting in the late 1800s, printing plates of text that were going to be used over and over, such as advertisements or syndicated columns, started being stamped in steel instead of the much softer and less durable lead. They came to be known as 'boilerplates'. Until the 1950s, thousands of newspapers received and used this kind of boilerplate from the nation's largest supplier, the Western Newspaper Union.

Some companies sent out press releases as boilerplates because then they had to be printed as written and without changes. Literal plates are not used for printing today, but boilerplate, or "boiler," text might still be text sent out to be used "as is" which saves the recipient from having to create content.

In contractual law, the term "boilerplate language" describes the parts of a contract that are considered standard.

Even computer programs may contain boilerplate sections of code that are used in many places with little or no alteration. It is used for efficiency.

But why BOILER plate?  The term boiler is used for a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. They are constructed of boilerplate, a relatively thick, high quality sheet steel. The metal at least resembles the sheets used in the printing process. Those boilers also typically carried a smaller plate of embossed metal (as shown here) that told who had produced the boiler.

Baby Animal Names

whelp

As groups of animals have some interesting name - such as a murder of crows -so too do the names given to baby animals have some curious constructions and origins.

Here is a whole gaggle of baby animal words.

For example, a whelp is the young of a tiger, lion, wolf, bear, or dog. But it is also a modern slang term for a bratty, obstinate or overly vivacious child. There are early forms of the word appearing in Old English as hwelp, Old Norse as hvelpr, and Old High German as hwelf, and all of them seem to relate to "the young of the dog."

alligator hatchling

The word hatchling covers a lot of species. A hatchling is a young alligator, bird, reptile or fish recently emerged from an egg. It slipped into common usage in 1900, but the first documented "hatchery" for birds operated under that name in 1880. The word originates from the Old English heaccan meaning "to produce young from eggs."

Okay, a baby bird is a hatchling once it comes out of the egg, but when it's learning to fly it becomes a fledgling. We also use the word for an inexperienced person or someone newly entering a profession, such as a fledgling pilot.

The word spat refers to the young of an oyster or similar shellfish. I could not find any connection to our  "spat" is also the past tense of "to spit" - though maybe those unappealing-to-me oysters look a bit like some spit!  In American English, we also consider a "spat" to be a petty argument or quarrel.

A leveret is a young hare, especially one that is less than a year old. The word is a diminutive of the Norman French levre for "hare." The addition of the suffix -et denotes that the hare is young or small.

Have you heard of a  polliwog? That is a a young frog or tadpole that has not yet grown legs. The word is derived from the Old English polwygle with pol meaning "head" and wygle meaning "wiggle." Idiomatically, a tadpole is a "wiggling head." In mariner slang, polliwog can also refer to a sailor who has not yet crossed the equator.

cygnet on its mother

A cygnet is a young swan. The word comes from the Latin cygnus meaning "swan" plus the diminutive suffix "-et." The more common English word swan stems from the Old Norse word svanr and its related German equivalent Schwan.

A shoat is a young pig that has recently been weaned off of its mother's milk and onto solid food. Though a definitive origin of the word is unknown, "shoat" may come from the West Flemish schote referring to a pig under one year old.

A fairly common name is "kid" for a baby goat or antelope, though the word may also refer to leather made from goat hide. You might recognize the phrase, "to handle with kid gloves" meaning "to handle with care."

The first recorded usage of kid as slang for "child" was in 1599, and the verb form to kid (meaning "to joke") entered the vernacular in 1839.

A smolt is a young salmon in the midst of its first migration from fresh water into the sea. The word is of Scottish origin, though it grew to prominence in the Middle English. "Smolt" may be related to "smelt" (one of many silvery fishes that prefer cold northern waters) because salmon in this young stage resemble the smelt fish.

An eyas is a young nestling hawk or falcon. In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, hawks and falcons were esteemed hunters and the practice of training the birds was known as "falconry" or "hawking" and an eyas might have been a young bird taken from the nest for training. It is a variant of nyas from the Middle French niais meaning "nestling."

peregrine falcon eyas

Meh

Have you seen the word "meh" online? It is a new interjection used to express indifference or boredom. Sometimes it is used as a verb or an adjective.

Since the word doesn't appear in mainstream dictionaries, it is hard to confirm its etymology.  But it is included in the online Wiktionary and it in the online Urban Dictionary.

Samples usages:
“What do you want to do tonight?”
“Meh. I don't care.”

"That movie was great." 
“Meh. I’ve seen better.”

Some websites give a Yiddish origin because it is similar to the interjection "feh" which is supposed to be a transliteration of the sound a goat makes.

Wikipedia says that meh appeared back in 1992 on a Usenet forum.

It seems that the first print usage was in the Canadian Edmonton Sun in 2003: "Ryan Opray got voted off Survivor. Meh."



I believe the first time I encountered it must have been on TV's The Simpsons in the1992 episode "Homer's Triple Bypass." Sadly, that is Lisa's explanation of her generation's reaction to things like her father's open heart surgery.

It shows up in a few other episodes too. When Homer tries to get the kids away from the TV and out to an amusement park. Lisa and Bart reply 'meh' and keep watching TV and when Homer asks again, Lisa says "We said MEH! M-E-H, meh!' "

X and O Hugs and Kisses

Have you ever added "hugs and kisses" to a card or letter by adding some X or O characters?  It has come to be that  O = Hug and X = Kiss. But why?

According to urbandictionary.com, looking at those characters as representing two people from a bird's eye view, makes the "O"into the arms of those persons hugging each other while the "X" is evocative of two people kissing each other. I don't buy that origin story.

But hugs and kisses, as in  XOXO, is a term used for expressing sincerity, faith, love, or good friendship at the end of a written correspondence and now in email or text messages.

I did some searching online and there are far older and more complicated origin tales.

Putting X's on correspondence to mean kisses seems to date back to the Middle Ages. At that time, putting a Christian cross on documents or letters was supposed to signify sincerity, faith, and honesty. You then placed a literal kiss upon the cross by the signer as a display of their sworn oath.

Even earlier, when most people could not read or write, the 'X' was placed on documents as a signature and a kiss placed upon it as a show of their sincerity.

Chi Rho

The Chi Rho, often represented in the simpler form of a letter 'X', was also used as a holy symbol throughout Christian history as it represented the Greek word for Christ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ.  This also led to the practice of using the letter 'X', once again kissed, as a way of displaying a sacred oath.

The 'O' is far more modern and is of North American descent. Jewish immigrants arriving to the United States, and whose first language was Yiddish, would use an 'O' to sign documents - deliberately not using the sign of the cross. Shopkeepers would often use an 'O' when signing documents, in place of an 'X'.

But how that became a "hug" is something I have not discovered.  Post a comment if you have more to add to this story.