Seldom-used words - M to A

[CarlusMagnus]

The CSS Alabama, built in the UK, was 'commissioned' as a ship of the Confederate Navy, but in practice was preying on Northern Shipping under a Letters of Marque. Since the Confederacy wasn't recognised as a 'country', the Alabama's Letters of Marque were void - hence the British had to pay compensation to the US for damage caused by the Alabama.

In fact, Lincoln threatened to hang (as pirates, I presume) sailors taken in any act against US shipping under Confederate Letters of Marque. He was only prevented from doing so by the Confederacy's counterthreat to have an equal number of captured US Naval officers hanged.

 

[AllardChardon]

Excellent discourse, gentlemen, in my absence. I hope you all had a lovely holiday, if you observed the Easter celebration in one of its many forms. Mine was very nice. Og, thank you for reminding me of the CSS Alabama. A most interesting part of the Civil War.

And there are also these;

letters of administration
letters close
letter of intent
letter of credit
letter(s) of credence

lethe - noun (14c) 1. cap: a river in Hades whose waters cause drinkers to forget their past 2. OBLIVION, FORGETFULNESS

 

[oggbashan]

In fact, Lincoln threatened to hang (as pirates, I presume) sailors taken in any act against US shipping under Confederate Letters of Marque. He was only prevented from doing so by the Confederacy's counterthreat to have an equal number of captured US Naval officers hanged.

Letters of Marque were always of dubious validity. If a ship carrying those letters met a trading ship of the enemy nation, the letters of marque enabled the ship to be a warship and capture = rob the trading ship.

If the Letter-carrying ship met an enemy warship, she could pretend to be a peaceful trader, but was more likely to be sunk as an opposing warship.

They have a long and dubious history. In Queen Elizabeth 1st's time the Queen and London traders would finance a ship to carry letters of marque and expect a share of the proceeds. Sir Francis Drake, financed that way, was considered by the Spanish to be a Pirate and would have been hung, or worse, if caught. The English considered him a carrier of Letters of Marque and therefore legitimate.

But he wasn't. Letters of Marque are only valid in time of war. England wasn't officially at war with Spain, or was sometimes and not at others. We were effectively at war in the Caribbean, the so-called Spanish Main, but not elsewhere. IF Sir Francis and his crew had been caught by the Spanish, they could have been hung as Pirates and Queen Elizabeth would have been obliged to deny her financing of the ship(s) and denounce the Letters of Marque as forgeries - because England was not officially at war with Spain.

The financial backers knew that but relied on Sir Francis to bring back Spanish Gold and make large profits. He did.

 

[oggbashan]

...

And there are also these;

letters of administration
letters close
letter of intent
letter of credit
letter(s) of credence

lethe - noun (14c) 1. cap: a river in Hades whose waters cause drinkers to forget their past 2. OBLIVION, FORGETFULNESS

UK interpretations:

Letters of administration are required, in the UK at least, to sort out a deceased person's estate.

Letter of intent - if buying a property, a letter of intent should show that you are a serious buyer, but in practice is meaningless. Nothing is certain until the contracts are signed.

Letter of credit were initially between banks to transfer funds from one branch or bank to another. They date back to medieval times and were a serious source of income for the Knights Templar. But in modern times a cheque (US = check) was a letter of credit.

Letter of credence was used to identify people as acting on another person's (or organisation, or state) behalf, so an ambassador, consul, or shipping agent had a letter of credence that established their authority to act.

The Lethe was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld:

Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld, the other four being Styx (the river of hate), Acheron (the river of sorrow), Cocytus (the river of lamentation) and Phlegethon (the river of fire). According to Statius, it bordered Elysium, the final resting place of the virtuous. Ovid wrote that the river flowed through the cave of Hypnos, god of sleep, where its murmuring would induce drowsiness.[2]

The shades of the dead were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly life. In the Aeneid, Virgil writes that it is only when the dead have had their memories erased by the Lethe that they may be reincarnated.

The Styx was used to make Achilles invulnerable, except for his heel by which his mother held him. As with many Greek Myths there is confusion about whether it was the Styx that made him invulnerable, or some other means, but his heel lacked protection in any version.

 

[trysail]

That word reminds me of the Victorian obsession with the legality of 'marriage with deceased wife's sister'.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/49722/65-year-battle-over-deceased-wifes-sisters-marriage-act

What was the big deal? Opponents of the bill saw it as a slippery slope that would lead to the legalization of all kinds of incest. They drew arguments from the Bible: Genesis 2 states that husband and wife "became one flesh," therefore your wife's sister was really your own sister. Leviticus prohibits a man from uncovering "the nakedness of thy brother's wife," and so, by analogy, he shouldn't do it to his wife's sister either. Arguments from science included the bizarre claim that married couples become blood relations through some biological consequence of sexual intercourse, or that the idea that in-law marriage was wrong came from evolutionary instinct. People also thought it would destroy the family by encouraging husbands and their wives' sisters to lust after each other while the wives were still alive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceased_Wife's_Sister's_Marriage_Act_1907

How can one not immediately think of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon?



...the legality of 'marriage with deceased brother's wife.'

​

 

[oggbashan]

How can one not immediately think of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon?



...the legality of 'marriage with deceased brother's wife.'

​

It was claimed that Henry's brother hadn't consummated the marriage, so the sacrement was incomplete - therefore the marriage was void.

Even then, money and influence could get around the law.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

UK interpretations:

Letters of administration are required, in the UK at least, to sort out a deceased person's estate.

I think they're called letters testamentary in the US. And I don't believe they're necessary in most jurisdictions unless the estate goes to probate court—which often can be avoided for small estates.

 

[Handley_Page]

I think they're called letters testamentary in the US. And I don't believe they're necessary in most jurisdictions unless the estate goes to probate court—which often can be avoided for small estates.

From:- https://www.rocketlawyer.com

"A Letter of Testamentary -- sometimes called a “Letter of Administration” or “Letter of Representation” -- is a document granted by a local court. The document simply states that you are the legal executor for a particular estate and that you have the ability to act as such.

Generally, a Letter of Testamentary, along with a legally binding death certificate, are the two documents you’ll need to do the real estate transactions, banking, and asset distribution you were appointed to do. "

 

[CarlusMagnus]

From:- https://www.rocketlawyer.com

"A Letter of Testamentary -- sometimes called a “Letter of Administration” or “Letter of Representation” -- is a document granted by a local court. The document simply states that you are the legal executor for a particular estate and that you have the ability to act as such.

Generally, a Letter of Testamentary, along with a legally binding death certificate, are the two documents you’ll need to do the real estate transactions, banking, and asset distribution you were appointed to do. "

More: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Letters+Testamentary

And there are a bunch of links lower and to the right on that page that, individually, lead to many other kinds of letters.

 

[AllardChardon]

How wonderful to arrive here and have several posts to read through. I love that, so thank you, kind gentlemen.

Handley, my brother, who lives in Tennessee, and I were discussing our final wishes the other day and I found your post very timely and informative. Thank you.

Og, I had no idea Greek Hades had so many rivers or what they were called. Thanks for educating me, again and again.

letch - noun (1757) 1. CRAVING; specif: sexual desire 2. LECHER

 

[Handley_Page]

How wonderful to arrive here and have several posts to read through. I love that, so thank you, kind gentlemen.

Handley, my brother, who lives in Tennessee, and I were discussing our final wishes the other day and I found your post very timely and informative. Thank you.

Og, I had no idea Greek Hades had so many rivers or what they were called. Thanks for educating me, again and again.

letch - noun (1757) 1. CRAVING; specif: sexual desire

2. LECHER

Ah, Lecher; The Honourable Ernst of that ilk, who's contribution to the science of Radio was really quite profound.

We now return you to the studio. . .

 

[oggbashan]

lethe - noun (14c) 1. cap: a river in Hades whose waters cause drinkers to forget their past 2. OBLIVION, FORGETFULNESS

lethargy is also derived from the River Lethe.

The sin of acedia was characterised by lethargy or lethe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia

The Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church[2] defines acedia (or accidie) as "a state of restlessness and inability either to work or to pray". Some see it as the precursor to sloth—one of the seven deadly sins. In his sustained analysis of the vice in Q. 35 of the Second Part (Secunda Secundae) of his Summa Theologica, the 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas identifies acedia with "the sorrow of the world" (compare Weltschmerz) that "worketh death" and contrasts it with that sorrow "according to God" described by St. Paul in 2 Cor. 7:10. For Aquinas, acedia is "sorrow about spiritual good in as much as it is a Divine good." It becomes a mortal sin when reason consents to man's "flight" (fuga) from the Divine good, "on account of the flesh utterly prevailing over the spirit." Acedia is essentially a flight from the world that leads to not caring even that one does not care. The ultimate expression of this is a despair that ends in suicide.

Even the Ancient Greeks realised that lethargy could be very dangerous.

 

[AllardChardon]

Thank you, Handley, for instructing me in the other definition of Lecher, which was not listed, of course.

Og, I saw that lethargy was related and found that interesting enough, but the additional information you supplied added nicely to it. I had a friend, who was sleeping 20 hours a day from depression, until his family discovered it and keep him awake long enough to pull out of it. Could a person sleep themselves to death, I wonder?

lèse–majesté or lese majesty - noun (1536) 1.a. a crime (as treason) committed against a sovereign power b. an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power 2. a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance

 

[AllardChardon]

Hello, everyone. The sun came out and the tulips bloomed, so I went outside to enjoy it, and ended up weeding nasty invader plants out of my flower gardens, before they got any bigger, and by the time I was done, well, I was well-done, and too tired to go online. Please excuse my enthusiasm for killing dandelions that lasted days. LOL

A fabric word;

leno - noun (1821) 1. an open weave in which pairs of warp yarns cross one another and thereby lock the filling yarn in position 2. a fabric make with a leno weave

 

[Handley_Page]

Hello, everyone. The sun came out and the tulips bloomed, so I went outside to enjoy it, and ended up weeding nasty invader plants out of my flower gardens, before they got any bigger, and by the time I was done, well, I was well-done, and too tired to go online. Please excuse my enthusiasm for killing dandelions that lasted days. LOL

A fabric word;

leno - noun (1821) 1. an open weave in which pairs of warp yarns cross one another and thereby lock the filling yarn in position 2. a fabric make with a leno weave

It's also known as "Gauze Weave," I believe.

 

[beachbum1958]

Thank you, Handley, for instructing me in the other definition of Lecher, which was not listed, of course.

Og, I saw that lethargy was related and found that interesting enough, but the additional information you supplied added nicely to it. I had a friend, who was sleeping 20 hours a day from depression, until his family discovered it and keep him awake long enough to pull out of it. Could a person sleep themselves to death, I wonder?

lèse–majesté or lese majesty - noun (1536) 1.a. a crime (as treason) committed against a sovereign power b. an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power 2. a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance

It's entirely possible to die from too much sleep, but ultimately the causes of death would most likely be starvation and/or extreme dehydration, rather than sleeping per se; it's theoretically possible for a human being to hibernate (or estivate) in much the same way as a bear or a dormouse; the genes that regulate and modulate physiology to enable and mediate hibernation are common across all mammalian species'; to accomplish hibernation they are switched on and off in very unique ways through the year; they're not, however, specifically evolved from species to species, and missing in some while present in others, so it's eminently possible, theoretically, for any and all mammalian species to hibernate.

I wouldn't recommend trying it, though, for the reasons given above. We are evolved from species' that developed and refined many and varied survival strategies over the course of the evolution of those species', and the ability or potential to sleep to death would run counter to this set of adaptive and evolved behaviours; ditto hibernation; it would have had no strategic or survival value, either to our tree-dwelling or our grassland hominid ancestors, so it would be an aberration rather than a meaningful behaviour or ability. Animals that hibernate tend to be either small enough to burrow too deeply for predators to reach them, or be top predators and so immune to predation; the hominids from which we are descended were neither, and so had to remain agile and capable of evading predators year round; torpidity in either winter or summer would not have been a viable survival strategy.

 

[AllardChardon]

Handley, yes, that makes sense, thanks.

beachbum, thank you for such an insightful explanation of sleeping to death. Hibernation from extreme depression would have been one of those traits that would not succeed.

I missed this one;

lentic - adj (ca. 1935) of, relating to, or living in still waters (as lakes, ponds, or swamps) - compare LOTIC

 

[oggbashan]

...

lèse–majesté or lese majesty - noun (1536) 1.a. a crime (as treason) committed against a sovereign power b. an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power 2. a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance

Commit lèse–majesté against Henry VIII and you could literally lose your head. At one time counterfeiting money was classed as lèse–majesté because the monarch's head was on the coins.

It was a specific offence that still exists in some countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lèse-majesté

 

[AllardChardon]

Og, that was an interesting Wiki article on lèse–majesté or lese majesty. Thank you very much for taking the time to post it.

lenitive - adj (15c) alleviating pain or harshness: SOOTHING

 

[oggbashan]

Og, that was an interesting Wiki article on lèse–majesté or lese majesty. Thank you very much for taking the time to post it.

...

An interesting aside - forgery of money. After the 1789 French Revolution the new government issued paper money - assignats - which were supposed to be based on the value of the land and property confiscated from the King and the aristocrats.

Each assignat had a legend (in French) that counterfeiting it would be punished by death.

However, the French Government were the counterfeiters. The lands and property the money was based on had been sold to fellow revolutionaries, so the assignats were effectively worthless.

They announced in the official newspaper how many assignats had been withdrawn and burned every week, to try to keep the value of the remaining assignats reasonable.

Even then they lied. They SOLD the assignats to English factory owners who used them to pay their workers. In England the assignats were useless, except to pay for factory owned housing, and to buy food etc. from the company store - in assignats. But the factory owners cheated even then. The company's store prices were higher than other retailers, but the factory workers couldn't buy from the others with their worthless assignats.

Which is why MORE assignats survive in England than in France. I have about a dozen of them.

The government and big business lying in the 18th Century? No much change then.

 

[AllardChardon]

Og, it does amaze me how much things are the same. I recently read An Autobiography of Davy Crockett, the senator from Tennessee, and his comments on the overall lack of work from Congress, until the final week of the session, was amusing. Then, everyone got busy and passed bills, but still managed to work on Sundays to receive the increased compensation.

lemures - noun plural (1555) spirits of the unburied dead exorcised from homes in early Roman religious rites

 

[Handley_Page]

Og, it does amaze me how much things are the same. I recently read An Autobiography of Davy Crockett, the senator from Tennessee, and his comments on the overall lack of work from Congress, until the final week of the session, was amusing. Then, everyone got busy and passed bills, but still managed to work on Sundays to receive the increased compensation.

lemures - noun plural (1555) spirits of the unburied dead exorcised from homes in early Roman religious rites

There are reputed to be a few of them on the Moors near the M62 in England;
courtesy of Myra Hyndley and Ian Brady.

 

[oggbashan]

...

lemures - noun plural (1555) spirits of the unburied dead exorcised from homes in early Roman religious rites

Not just unburied, but unhonoured:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemures

The plot of Sophocles play Antigone is about the need to formally bury the deceased, and the anger of the Gods that this had not been done because Creon ordered it should not be.

Locally we have an apparent example of Lemures. There is an ancient Roman fort and people passing it a night have heard a baby crying when there is no baby around. During archaeological investigations in the 1960s, the skeletons of two babies were found in the foundations of a gate tower. They were given Christian burial in the local church's cemetery, but the sounds of a baby crying are still heard occasionally.

Were the babies buried as human sacrificies? Or were they the illegitimate children of sex between troops of the garrison and local women who just died young? 'In the foundations' seems to suggest the first theory, but they might have been buried there to honour them.

It is suspected that there are more infant burials than the two found so far. But at the time, Roman burials were normally OUTSIDE the walls of edges of a settlement, not in the walls, although some small infants were buried under the floor of a family room.

Whatever happened, the sound of a crying baby seems to be an example of Lemures still surviving in the 21st Century.

 

[AllardChardon]

Thank you, Handley and Og, for commenting on my last entry of lemures. Very interesting story you shared, Og.

Obviously, I have been bitten by the bug of spring, meaning the Blackberry Wars for this year have begun, and most of the battles already waged. Hence, my absence. Last year, I just cut back the shoots, but this year I am digging out the hearts of those blasted thorny berry bushes. People say, "Rust never sleeps", well, neither do blackberries. My hope is to be back here on a more regular basis very soon. Thanks for your patience.

leman - noun (13c) archaic: SWEETHEART, LOVER: esp: MISTRESS

 

[Handley_Page]

Thank you, Handley and Og, for commenting on my last entry of lemures. Very interesting story you shared, Og.

Obviously, I have been bitten by the bug of spring, meaning the Blackberry Wars for this year have begun, and most of the battles already waged. Hence, my absence. Last year, I just cut back the shoots, but this year I am digging out the hearts of those blasted thorny berry bushes. People say, "Rust never sleeps", well, neither do blackberries. My hope is to be back here on a more regular basis very soon. Thanks for your patience.

leman - noun (13c) archaic: SWEETHEART, LOVER: esp: MISTRESS

Oh come now, please.
Blackberries are tasty and make good jam and preserves.