Re: Please Help with Quotation Search

John Briggs wrote:
> B. T. Raven wrote:
>> John Briggs wrote:
>>> Ed Cryer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> This got me thinking that an "apple tree" would be a wrong place to
>>>> sin under (in or on) because of Adam and Eve in Eden. So I looked up
>>>> the Genesis lines and couldn't see any specific fruit at all there;
>>>> de fructu vero ligni quod est in medio paradisi
>>>>
>>>> The "tree" is a "lignum" with "fructus".
>>>
>>> Apple is "malum" which is clearly 'evil'...
>>
>> But how about:
>> Malum cotidianum medi*** arcebit.
>>
>> malum = apple
>> mala = upper jaw
>> malus = mast (of a ****p)
>> but
>> malum(a correpta) = evil
>> so a careful pronunciation distinguishes between evil and apple
>> anyway.

As long as one uses a classical pronunciation, of course.  But with the
collapse of the classical Latin quantity system, both "malum" (bad) and
"malum" (apple) would be pronounced the same with long "a" in the
late/mediaeval Latin pronunciation.

> But seriously, the similarity of the words really is the reason that the

> fruit was said to be an apple.

Are you sure about that?  I rather doubt it.  Although the similarity of
sound is tempting, there doesn't seem to any sup****t for this in the
wording of the account of the Fall:  the Septuagint refers to "(karpos)
xylou"/"xylon" and the Vulgate to "fructus lignorum"/"lignum".  And it
should not be forgotten that it wasn't the fruit itself that was evil - it
was the disobedience that the fruit was the instrument of.  I think it
more
likely that the apple was the "typical" fruit in Europe - see how the
generic Latin "pomum" has come to mean more specifically "apple" in the
French form "pomme".

 -- 
 Will