MAGAZINE

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7417
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

MAGAZINE

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:39 pm

• magazine •

Pronunciation: mæ-gê-zeenHear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A storage area or building for weapons and ammunition, especially on a ship. 2. A chamber for holding objects to be fed into a mechanism, such as (a) cartridges fed into the firing chamber of a gun, (b) slides fed into a projector, or (c) film fed into the shutter of a movie camera. 3. A periodical appearing no more often than weekly printed on heavy, polished paper containing a collection of articles, pictures, and other features.

Notes: What do all the meanings of this Good Word have in common? They all store multiple objects, sometimes different, sometimes the same. Writers have had a lot of fun with this word: magazinedom has been offered as the world of magazines, a magaziny (or magazinish) newspaper is one more like a magazine than a newspaper, those who work for magazines engage in magazinery, and may even work in a magazinary.

In Play: Today we are trying to understand the confusion that statements like this lead to: "The entire Marine company was severely punished when dirty magazines were found in the barracks." (Would you want to say that this company was rotten to the Corps?) If sailors had been involved, dirty magazines might have been found in a dirty magazine. I'm not sure a court martial could sort all that out.

Word History: Although we clipped today's word directly from French magasin "storehouse", where it found its way from Old Italian magazzino, it originated in Arabic. Arabic mahazin is the plural of mahzan "warehouse, storage", a noun made from the verb, hazana "to store, put away". But the story doesn't end here. Arabic picked up the word from the language of Christ, Aramaic, where hassen "to possess, hoard" was derived from hêsan "to be strong". Having come all that distance in space and time, the semantic move from a storehouse of goods to a storehouse of weapons to a store of articles in a periodical is but a couple of metaphorical skips for agile minds. (Thanks to the agile mind of Larry Brady for thinking we might like to tease apart the various meanings of magazine and put them back together.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

anders
Lexiterian
Posts: 405
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:46 am
Location: Sweden

Postby anders » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:08 pm

More correct transcriptions of the Arabic word ﻥﺰﺨﻣ would be maxzan or makhzan.
Irren ist männlich

User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7417
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

Hazana?

Postby Dr. Goodword » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:03 am

How about hazana?
• The Good Dr. Goodword

anders
Lexiterian
Posts: 405
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:46 am
Location: Sweden

Postby anders » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:17 am

ﻥﺰﺨ xazana/khazana 'to store, stock, lock up, hoard, amass, accumulate; to keep secret, keep (a secret)'.
Irren ist männlich

Flaminius
Lexiterian
Posts: 408
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:36 am

Postby Flaminius » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:40 am

Any chance that the same root engendered Hebrew geniza by metathesis?

anders
Lexiterian
Posts: 405
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:46 am
Location: Sweden

Postby anders » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:58 am

Gesenius' BH dictionary gives the origin of gan@zan (@ for schwa) 'storage or treasury chamber in a temple' as Persian ganja. In modern Hindi, gañj is 'a store, hoard; a market; heap, pile.'
Irren ist männlich

Garzo
Lexiterian
Posts: 137
Joined: Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:22 pm
Location: A place to cross the river Thames with your Oxen
Contact:

Postby Garzo » Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:20 pm

The Syriac word ħesnā means fortress or stronghold: from ħsan, to be strong. In Imperial Aramaic, the verb ħăsan (where the very short vowel is marked) appears in the book of Daniel, in the haph'el form haħsēn, meaning to possess. The general Semitic meaning, therefore, seems to be increase of power, strength and riches.

-- Garzo.
"Poetry is that which gets lost in translation" — Robert Frost


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Google Adsense [Bot] and 55 guests