Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 December 1

= December 1 =

etymology of utica
Hello

I would like to know the etymological meaning of "utica"

THANKS CARLOSVER


 * What does it mean? How is it used? Context? 惑乱 分からん 14:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * According to our article, the City of Utica, New York, got its name by picking one at random from a hat! The name that was picked was that of an ancient Phoenician colony, Utica, whose location was in what now is Tunisia, on the Mediterranean North Coast of Africa. I don't know why the Phoenician founders called their colony "Utica", some 31 centuries ago. Maybe they also picked it from a hat. The Phoenician language spoken by the colonists, now extinct, was a Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew, and maybe the word "utica" has a meaning in Phoenician; but if so, I don't know it. --Lambiam Talk  14:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Most people have heard of Utica, Tunisia, if at all, in the name of Cato of Utica, and this may be why the name was notable enough to be in the hat in the first place. Wareh 15:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * On the Semitic root in "Utica," this subscription-only article (which I had to browse via Google) includes the claim, "The North-African city of Utica has nothing to do with ‘attiq, 'old' in Biblical Aramaic, since its name is written ’tg on the Neo-Punic coins of the city (OLA 64, p. 399)." (This would refute the tempting connection made by this blogger.)  Wareh 16:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * But I wonder if the identification of ’tg as Utica is universally accepted, since NumisWiki s.v. Numidia mentions, "Tucca (?). Late autonomous bronze. Inscr., אתג (’tg). Heads of the Dioskuri or Kabiri laur., each surmounted by star, rev. Horses of the Dioskuri. These coins have also been attributed to Utica (Müller, ii. 164)." Wareh 16:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * A lot of the cites of Upstate New York have names from classical cities - Syracuse, Attica, Corinth, Ithaca, Troy, Rome ... User:Zoe|(talk) 03:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Grammaticality of depictions
There's a grammaticality discussion going on at Talk:History of erotic depictions. The other side is demanding a source, but I doubt any published grammars have gone into these particular minutiae of the language, and even if they had, it would be hard for me to find. So can I get a second opinion or two? --Ptcamn 17:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "Erotic tales" means "tales of erotic matters"&mdash;why not the same for depictions? For depictions without "of," compare the Oracle of Google #1, #2, #3, etc. I'll grant your point that "depiction" used absolutely is a bit unusual, but it's in the nature of an encyclopedia article's title to be more abstract than common speech. Wareh 19:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)