Posted by Eric Abraham on July 18, 2007 at 13:37:02 from 63.245.133.173 user EricAbraham.
In Reply to: Re: Where are all the eels going? posted by Adam Quinan on July 17, 2007 at 13:42:56:
And this is one of my complaints about our society - History is not remembered or (it sometimes seems) hardly respected. Captain Flint explains the derivation of the words in question. We only tend to acknowledge the current use of an ancient term.
I have found History an exciting and very lively story (a "High Story")of where we have been, where we are and were we are going. When we read stories form the past, we must put them in their historical context. That is what so many folks DO NOT DO when confronted with tales such as Huckleberry Finn - and even in Peter Duck. We do not explain to our children the historical situations these stories cover -and this includes intersociatal relationships. I remember reading in the Tod Moran series about sailors "smoking rope". Will cigarette smoking wind up as the "N-word" or "smoking rope" (it almost has)? These were all socially acceptable at one time. (I was just in a little town near here yesterday where the city park has four gates built by several civic organizations in the 1890's which had plaques in their honor on each gate. One gate now has its organizational plaque covered with a sign that simply says "Ciy Park". The orgaization was the KKK - acceptable in the 1890's.) How about the "F-word" which seems to be more acceptable in our society than it used to be - will that ever be acceptable? The language changes as the world changes - but we must still remember where we have been.
It seems to me that history is usually taught in school as a very boring and dead subject (or was when I was in school as the snores in World History class could have literally awakend the dead!). I am grateful for the historical presentations on PBS and the History Channel - if only I could have had them when I was taking history! What I learned about history was pretty much on my own at that time.
Not all change is for the good, but change is inevitable. If we forget out history, it is not easy to avoid repeats. And as for the eels ---- check out our activities which we "can't change".
Three Cheers for Captain Flint for explaining the derivation of the questionable terms!
Eric Abraham - Post Rock Kansas