RE: Pterosaur diversity (was: Re: Waimanu)

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Nick Pharris wrote:

> The original meaning of the root (in Proto-Indo-European) is pretty clearly 
> 'eye' or 'see', but in Greek it usually means 'face'.

Generally, yes.  The Greeks tended to use 'ophthalmos' specifically for eye. 
 (The word 'ophthalmos' has the same root as 'ops'.)  For example, the 
ancient Hellenistic king Antigonus I was nicknamed Antigonus Monophthalmus, 
because he only had one eye.  The word 'ophthalmos' is incorporated in 
modern words and names like ophthalmologist, exophthalmia and 
_Ophthalmosaurus_.

However, the Greeks were a little flexible in this respect, because 'ops' 
appears to have been used for both 'face' and 'eye', as well as in a broader 
sense.  Antigonus I was also nicknamed 'Cyclops', after the one-eyed giants 
of Greek myth - creatures that Adrienne Mayor would be familiar with.
:-)  In this context, the '-ops' part seems to mean 'eye'.  Other ancient 
Greek names appear to use 'ops' (masc.) or 'ope' (fem.) in the sense of face 
- like Calliope ('beautiful face') or Europe ('wide face').  The latter 
appears to denote something other than just the literal description of 
having a wide face, such as referring to a full moon.  Other Greek names 
ending in '-ope'/'-ops' are similarly poetic, like Asterope ('star face') or 
Oenope ('wine face').

In modern usage, we have words like presbyopia, myopia and rhodopsin that 
pertain to the eye (specifically, sight).

There may be a subtle distinction, in that 'ops' and 'opsein' (to see) refer 
more to countenance or to the act of beholding, respectively, rather than to 
the eye as an object.  Thus, 'ops'/'ope' is more abstract than 'ophthalmos', 
which refers specifically and literally to the eye itself.  But this is just 
a guess.  It's all Greek to me.

Cheers

Tim


From
> what I know of *Eryops*, the 'face' meaning would certainly seem to make 
> more sense.
>
> --
> Nick Pharris
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Michigan
>
> "Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."
>     --Edwin H. Land