2020-11-10
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M – Myth & fable & legend
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ความหมาย อาจยืดหยุ่น ขึ้นอยู่กับ ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง Myth = ‘MITH’
ออกเสียง fable = ‘FEY-buhl’
ออกเสียง legend = ‘LEJ-uhnd’
Dictionary.com
HISTORICAL USAGE OF MYTH
Myth came into English in the early 19th century via Latin mȳthus “myth, fable”
from Greek mŷthos. Latin mȳthus is straightforward:
it means “a fable or myth,” such as one would read in Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
and in Late Latin, mȳthus is even used as a synonym for fābula “a story, fable.” Greek mŷthos has a tremendously wide range of meaning: “a word, a speech, mere speech (as opposed to érga ‘deeds’),
something said, a thought, an unspoken word, a purpose, a rumor, a report, a saying, fiction (as opposed to lógos ‘historical truth’), the plot of a play, a narrative, a story, a story for children, a fable.”
Sixty percent of Greek vocabulary has no known etymology, and mŷthos is probably within that 60 percent, but it is possible that mŷthos comes from the uncommon Proto-Indo-European root mēudh-, mūdh- (with other variants) “to be concerned with, crave, earnestly desire, think over.”
Following this theory, from the variant mūdh-, Greek derives mŷthos and its derivative verb mȳtheîsthai “to speak, converse, tell”; Gothic has maudjan “to remind, remember”; Lithuanian has maûsti “to be concerned with,” and Polish has myśleć “to think.”
Dictionary.com
SYNONYM STUDY FOR LEGEND
Legend, fable, myth refer tofictitious stories,
usually handed down by tradition (although some fables are modern).
Legend, originally denoting a story concerning the life of a saint,
is applied to any fictitious story, sometimes involving the supernatural, and usually concerned with a real person, place, or other subject:
the legend of the Holy Grail.
A fable is specifically a fictitious story (often with animals or inanimate things as speakers or actors) designed to teach a moral: a fable about industrious bees.
A myth is one of a class of stories, usually concerning gods, semidivine heroes, etc., current since primitive times, the purpose of which is to attempt to explain some belief or natural phenomenon: the Greek myth about Demeter.
Dictionary.com
HISTORICAL USAGE OF FABLE
Fable comes via French from Latin fābula “talk, conversation, gossip or the subject of gossip, a story for entertainment or instruction, a fable.”
The plural fābulae is used as an interjection meaning “nonsense! rubbish!”;
the idiom lupus in fābulā, literally “the wolf in the fable,” is the equivalent of our “speak of the devil.”
The derivative verb fābulārī “to talk, chat” is especially common in the comedies of Plautus and Terence. Fābulārī, regularized to fābulāre, is the source of Spanish hablar and Portuguese falar “to speak.” Catalan, however, always influenced by French, uses parlar. French parler and Italian parlare are verbs derived from the Latin noun parabola “comparison, explanatory illustration,” in Late Latin (and especially in Christian Latin) “allegorical story, parable, proverb.” Parabola becomes parola “word” in Italian, parole in French, paraula in Catalan. And by metathesis (transposition of letters) common in Spanish and Portuguese, parabola becomes parabla in Old Spanish, palabra in Spanish, and palavra in Portuguese.
The related English word fib “a small or trivial lie” is a shortening of earlier fibble-fable “nonsense,” an obsolete or dialectal compound based on fable, in the sense “a story not founded in fact.”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Myth and Urban Myth
For a word so often applied to events or stories from long, long ago,
myth has a remarkably recenthistory in the English language. The earliest evidence for the word is from 1830, well after the time when the events themselves are thought to have occurred
(though it should be noted that the related words mythology and mythic are hundreds of years older – still not as old as Achilles, but not young, either!).
One application of myth, however – in the phrase urban myth – is quite new.
Curiously, an urban myth does not usually have anything to do with the city:
it is simply “a story about an unusual event or occurrence that many people believe is true but that is not true.”
An example would be the tale that Elvis Presley is still alive after spending decades in a witness protection program. The phrase urban myth has been used to describe such hoaxes since at least 1971.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Trending: ‘legacy,’ ‘legend,’ & ‘mamba’
Why are people looking up the words legacy, legend, & mamba?
The tragic death of nine people, including former L. A. Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, caused a number of words to spike on January 26th, 2020. In addition to surreal, legend, legacy, and mamba all increased dramatically in lookups.
Basketball Legend Kobe Bryant And Daughter Gianna Die In Helicopter Crash
— (headline) NPR (npr.org), 26 Jan. 2020
“I will love Kobe forever and always cherish the time that I spent with him,” continued West, now a Clippers consultant. “I watched him grow from an energetic kid into the man he became, making a difference in so many people’s life. He has left the world a better place. Kobe’s legacy will live forever.”
— Mirjam Swanson, The Orange County Register (ocregister.com), 26 Jan. 2020
Remembering Black Mamba: World reflects after Kobe Bryant, daughter Gianna, 7 others killed in helicopter crash
— (headline) KFOR (kfor.com), 26 Jan. 2020
What do the words legacy, legend, & mamba mean?
Legend, which comes from the Latin legere (“to gather, select, read”)
initially meant “a story coming down from the past”
when it entered English in the 14th century.
The word has taken on a variety of additional meanings over the centuries,
including the one most apt for Bryant “a person or thing that inspires legends.”
Legacy may likewise be defined in multiple ways;
the sense referenced in the tributes to Bryant is “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.”
Mamba is a reference to Bryant’s nickname Black Mamba; the mamba is “any of several chiefly arboreal venomous green or black elapid snakes (genus Dendroaspis) of sub-Saharan Africa.” The word came into English in the early 19th century from the Zulu imamba.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary,
syn: legend, myth, fable refer to stories handed down from earlier times, often by word of mouth.
A legend is a story associated with a people or a nation; it is usu. concerned with a real person, place, or event and is popularly believed to have some basis in fact: the legend of King Arthur.
A myth is one of a class of purportedly historical stories that attempt to explain some belief, practice, or natural phenomenon; the characters are usu. gods or heroes: the Greek myth about Demeter.
A fable is a fictitious story intended to teach a moral lesson; the characters are usu. animals: the fable about the fox and the grapes.
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression
Myth & fable & legend
A myth is not only a legendary or traditional story,
usually one concerning a superhuman being and dealing
with events that have no natural explanations (See MYSTERIOUS),
but also an unproved belief ad an invented idea or story:
“The story of Atlas holding up the world on his shoulders is a myth,”
“It is a myth that all sharks are dangerous.”
“His excuses for his failure are only myths,”
A fable is a simple story with animals as characters, one designed to teach a moral truth:
“His favorite fable was the one about the fox and the grapes,”
Fable is also applied to stories about superhuman being (resembling a myth) to account of extraordinary events, and to outright falsehoods:
“Jim’s account of flying with self-made wings is an outright fable,”
A legend is a traditional or story handed down from earlier times and now popularly accepted as true, believable, or delightful:
“A Legend forms the basis of Irving’s short story about a headless horseman in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’”
