
How Do You Decode a Hapax? Also, What’s a Hapax? (2017) - brudgers
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hapax-legomenon-hapaxes
======
throw0101a
The article mentions the Old Testament, but there's also a hapax in the New
Testament: the "daily" bread in the Lor'd Prayer ('Our Father'):

> _Epiousios (ἐπιούσιος) is a Greek adjective of controversial meaning whose
> only recorded appearance is in the Lord 's Prayer. Although it is
> traditionally translated as "daily" in the phrase τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν
> ἐπιούσιον ("our_ epiousios _bread "), most modern scholars reject that
> interpretation._

[…]

> _The modern Catholic Catechism holds that there are several ways of
> understanding_ epiousios, _including the traditional 'daily', but most
> literally as 'supersubstantial' or 'superessential', based on its
> morphological components.[14]_ […]

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiousios](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiousios)

~~~
sago
Not the only one in the New Testament, but definitely one of the most juicy.
Even Wikipedia calling 'daily' the 'traditional' translation is dubious:
'daily' comes from a particular Latin translation, not the earliest, nor the
most common ancient one, nor the most famous.

A more denomination/sectarianism musing:

[https://irrco.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/give-us-this-day-
our-...](https://irrco.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/give-us-this-day-our-bread/)

~~~
throw0101a
> _Not the only one in the New Testament_

What are some others?

~~~
sago
There are more than 1500 NT hapax, and epiousios (and others) aren't exactly
hapax (they appear twice ['dis legomena'], or more, though often in bits
arguably copied from one source). A minority are names (e.g. Epicurean only in
Acts 17:18), most are words that appear in non-NT texts (technically hapax,
but often meh, obviously), most others (like 'epiousios') are compound word
that are easy to understand (e.g. if you read an English writer saying 'she
metathought about the problem' it wouldn't mystify you), but that still leaves
plenty of oddities.

But the juicy ones have theological significance. If more significant, even
simply compound words can generate debate, even words known outside the NT
('What did they mean in this context?'). Off the top of my head: Theopneustos
(a hapax) from 2 Tim 3:16 is the forceful example (forceful for evangelicals
at least). Authenteo in 1 Tim 2:12 is important in feminist theology.
Arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6:9 is a crucial question in LGBT theology (a dis
legomenon, strictly, [oh hai 1 Tim, again], though I guess this post is
allowing those ;)

Tanakh hapax are more difficult because we don't have masses of other/earlier
Hebrew and Hebrew is less often based on compound morphemes. So 'OT' hapax are
more widely known, imho.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
As always, Chinese takes this to the next level, since there are historical
characters for which both meaning _and_ pronunciation have been lost.

A famous one is 篪, used exactly once in the Classic of Poetry (1000 BC), whose
meaning was unknown until another text surfaced describing it as a type of
flute.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon#Chinese_and_Ja...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon#Chinese_and_Japanese_characters)

------
boreas
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEjQX8HVtG4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEjQX8HVtG4)

~~~
mhh__
It annoys me slightly how - at least of the questions that make it to air -
some are almost totally unanswerable unless you went to a private school and
studied classics. I can sometimes go the best part of a series without getting
a Physics or Mathematics one wrong, but some questions just do not represent
knowledge actually held by all but few of the student populace (considering
the name of the show).

~~~
082349872349872
[http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/2cultures/Rede-lecture-2...](http://s-f-
walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/2cultures/Rede-lecture-2-cultures.pdf)

Then again, if it comes down to Eloi and Morlock, you're part of the culture
higher on the food chain (well, at least in the far, far, future).

~~~
mhh__
It's not a cultural divide amongst academics, just that the questions often
feel like they were drafted by recruits of the Cambridge five back in 1935.
Quite often no imagination at all, i.e. You can usually get a point on most
pop music rounds by guessing Bon Dylan.

~~~
082349872349872
I'd been hoping the Cambridge five were what the _Sex Viri_ changed to after
Haldane, but they added a member instead of subtracting one, becoming the
_Septem Viri_ in a fit (worthy of classically-trained cunning linguists?) of
prudishness.

[https://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/about-us/history/establishing-
the...](https://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/about-us/history/establishing-the-
department/haldane-and-the-sex-viri)

As to Dylan, _Bob Roberts_ is worth a shufti. The soundtrack wasn't available
at release, but from what I've seen floating around the interwebz, it, like
_The Onion_ , has been outstripped by reality.

Anyway: if the Cambridge five were more up-to-date, wouldn't they be setting
questions like "which Alexandrov tune has been set to english lyrics by both
Paul Robeson and Greg Camp?"

------
stolen_biscuit
> Hence, “apoculamus” might be defined as “hauling your posterior away from”
> something.

we've found the latin term for "haul ass". brilliant.

~~~
082349872349872
We can see technical progress, too.

Consider _ploxeni_ , the manure wagon, present among the ancients.

At the end of the nineteenth century,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Oppenheim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Oppenheim)
invented the manure spreaderб so his students would have more time to study.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VerrkfIGSBY&t=140](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VerrkfIGSBY&t=140)

At the end of the twentieth century, Sir Tim (as he is now) invented the web
(allowing further and faster spread of virtual manure[1]).

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/55/ec/fb55ec281c2ac9c427b9...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/55/ec/fb55ec281c2ac9c427b928dd85b14325.jpg)

[1] by which I clearly mean a powerful substance that promotes growth, innit
guv'nor?

------
daniel-thompson
I knew this phrase only from its appearance in NetHack, as a randomized scroll
name
([https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.7/src/obje...](https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/blob/NetHack-3.7/src/objects.c#L873)).
Since most of the other randomized names are nonsense words, I just figured
this one was too. Interesting to see what it actually means.

------
badrabbit
I wonder if many of these were slang terms used regionally that would normally
be excluded from most formal writing because people who knew how to read and
write also spoke more "properly". Literacy rate has been low historically.

------
dangoljames
The atlas obscura is a literary and jounalistic rabbit hole filled with salt
licks and honey pots.

Great site, I never spend less than 20 minutes there.

------
gdprfail
This site isnt GDPR compliant, no opt-out available or hard to find.

[https://outline.com/NbVGmT](https://outline.com/NbVGmT)

