2023-06-22 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด L - legend & myth & fable

Revision L

Ref: GTK#686617เขียนเมื่อ 29 ตุลาคม 2020

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การใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ไม่กำหนดมาตฐาน ถือตามส่วนใหญ่ที่ใช้แต่ละท้องถิ่น

ความหมาย อาจยืดหยุ่น ขึ้นอยู่กับ ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค

 

Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง legend = ‘LEJ-uhnd’

ออกเสียง myth = ‘MITH’

ออกเสียง Fable = ‘FEY-buhl’

NECTEC’s Lexitron-2 Dictionary

ให้คำแปล legend = N. ตำนาน คำจารืก เรื่่องของผู้มีชื่อเสียง

ให้คำแปล myth = N. นิทานปรัมปรา เรื่องโกหกเพ้อฝัน

ให้คำแปล Fable = N. นิทาน เรื่องเล่าที่เป็นความเท็จ

Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary

legend & myth

Myths are generally considered to be traditional stories 

whose importance lies in their significance, 

like the myth of the Fall in Eden; 

whereas legends can be merely famous deeds, 

like the legend of Davy Crockett.

 

In common usage “myth” usually implies fantasy. 

Enrico Caruso was a legendary tenor, 

but Hogwarts is a mythical school.

 

Legends may or may not be true. 

But be cautious about using “myth” to mean “untrue story” 

in a mythology, theology, or literature class, 

where teachers can be quite touchy 

about insisting that the true significance of a myth 

lies not in its factuality 

but in its meaning for the culture which produces or adopts it.

 

Dictionary.com

SYNONYM STUDY FOR LEGEND

Legend, fable, myth 

refer to fictitious 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, semi divine 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 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 usedas 

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

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

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.”

 

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 recent history 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.

 

Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words

myth

A fictitious story, frequently intended to explain 

a phenomenon and generally concerning gods 

or beings from before written history; 

a story in which a theme or character 

embodies an idea in a similar way.

 

Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words

fable

A short, allegorical story to point a moral, 

especially using animal characters.

 

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.