[eric l (OP)]

In Belgium we had a science show on the radio (Radio 1)(Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) up to a couple of years ago.  It was broadcasted from Monday to Friday, from 9 to 11 a.m.  and treated 2 questions every day.  The public participated by phone, by e-mail and by the forum.  Each afternoon, the questions for next day appeared on the forum, so often there was already a already quite a discussion before actual broadcasting started.
But the questions did not remain on the forum indeffinitely, as in your case.  On occasion, some "members" posted their e-mail adres on the forum in order to continue the discussions by e-mail, using a newsgroup format.
What I do miss here is forums on history or language.
Anyway, I think I'll enjoy it very much, and already posted some replies on subjects where I thought I had something to say.
The show in Belgium was called "Jongens en Wetenschap" (roughly "Boys and Science"), a title borrowed from a series of books from the eraly 1950's.  This was not meant to exclude either the female sex or the elderly, but was indicating that a scientific mind helps to keep you young.
So keep up the good work, and may you be forever young !

[another_someone]

Glad you enjoy the forum.

I myself have in the past suggested a linguistic forum, and would happily participate in a history forum.

In any case, I don't think anything major will be happening on the forum structures until we move to the new software – which they tell me will be any time soon – which they have been telling me for a long time now.  Hopefully, not too far into the future.

It is clear that the primary focus of the forum is, and will be, science.  How far some people might judge adding linguistics and history as a dilution of this, I cannot say (although it cannot be more diluting that some of the chat that we have).  One could argue that they both, in their own way, are soft sciences (part of the social sciences – although history can also be said to utilise hard science in its application, even if the answers are regarding human society than the physical world).

Maybe when we move to the new software, you and I might raise these matters again, and see how the powers that be might feel about it.

George

[neilep]

Hi Eric,

I quite agree...this is a great forum.

Glad you like it and you are most welcome here too. tell all your buddies also.



Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[eric l (OP)]

Hi George, Hi Neil

Thanks for your reactions.

Just to illustrate linguistic aspects that may show up in "hard" science :  one day on our Belgian forum we discussed fermentation.  It struck me that the English word "yeast" and the Dutch translation "gist" both seem to be related to "yesterday" and the Dutch translation "gisteren", while the French "levure" and the German "Hefe" seem related to the respective translations for "lifting up".
Since the original yeast was actually "sourdough", a leftover from yesterday's dough, I thought that the relationship between "yeast" and "yesterday" was quite plausible, and even wondered which word had come first.

[neilep]

Woo !!

Excellent stuff Eric.....I hope we gert some good speculations/answers.

How many languages do you speak ?



Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[eric l (OP)]

Dutch, French, English and German I speak well enough to contribute to a forum like this.
That's one of the advantages of having ones education and training in Belgium.
But I do have problems with the English some of those youngsters use - I almost have to read it aloud to know what they 're writing.

[another_someone]

According to Eric Partridge's 'Origins', yeast is related to a Greek work zeistos, which means boiled, and the Sanskrit yasati which means it seethes or boils.

The relationship between yesterday and gisteren is consistent with many words where 'y' and 'g' and interchangable – the one that always comes to mind for me are the English words 'yard' and 'guard' which are related (a yard being a guarded area – this being even more apparent in the English word 'garden' for which the Dutch 'tuin' which is cognate with the English 'town', which are all walled or protected areas).

George

[eric l (OP)]

Thanks for enlightening me on this, the more so because you probably had to do some checking up.  A biologist or biochemist might know about the Greek word "zeistos",but to him the relationship between the English "garden" and the Dutch "tuin" as "guarded area's" would problably not be ready knowledge.
I don't know which is your background, but like me, you seem to cover a lot of areas.  Maybe the "universal man" did not die with the Renaissance period after all.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by eric l
Thanks for enlightening me on this, the more so because you probably had to do some checking up.  A biologist or biochemist might know about the Greek word "zeistos",but to him the relationship between the English "garden" and the Dutch "tuin" as "guarded area's" would problably not be ready knowledge.
I don't know which is your background, but like me, you seem to cover a lot of areas.  Maybe the "universal man" did not die with the Renaissance period after all.

I had to look up the etymology of 'yeast' in one of my two bibles regarding the etymology of the English language, Eric Partridge's book 'Origins'; but the others I have known from long ago.  My nephew was brought up in his early years in Holland, so he would point to our back garden and say something that sounded like 'town', and we (my mother and I) had to go running to the dictionaries to try and work out what he was saying – and then we realised that 'tuin' was garden, and our curiosity got the better of us, so we had to see if it was related to the English word 'town', which it sounds so much like.

As you said in one of your other posts, knowledge has no boundaries, and I'm afraid I like to trespass in every domain of knowledge, and see no fences or gates between them.

I am not a biologist, or a biochemist, or even a scientist.  I am a computer programmer.

I am indeed very envious of that period of time when a man could hold in his mind all the knowledge that existed, when he could have in his library all the books ever written.  In that time, just as the peasants could allow their sheep to freely wonder the common land, so to the man of learning could wonder all the common lands of knowledge.  Since that time, the land owners have fenced in the common land, and each man may only graze his sheep upon his own land, bounded by the fences and wall between the fields.  So too have men of learning built fences, and the astrophysicist will feed upon the knowledge within his field, and the historian will feed upon the knowledge within his field, and the biochemist will feed upon the knowledge within his field.  I am afraid that I am a bit of a marauder, I trample down the fences, and feed off the knowledge of each field as suits my fancy.

George