Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

ASF Word of the Day

Jump to new
Terra Australis
and
the first "Australische Compagnie" (Australian Company) in 1615 to trade with Terra Australis, which they referred to as "Australia" :2twocents

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Australis
Terra Australis (Latin, "land of the south") was a theorized continent appearing on European maps from the 15th to the 18th century. The theorized continent was also called Terra Australis Incognita (with incognita stressed on the second syllable). Terra incognita, Latin for "unknown land", was also used in reference to "the unknown land of the South".

The notion of Terra Australis was introduced by Aristotle. His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy (1st century AD), who believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. During the Renaissance, Ptolemy was the main source of information for European cartographers as new land started to appear on their maps. Although voyages of discovery did sometimes reduce the area where the continent could be found, cartographers held to Aristotle's opinion.

Scientists argued for its existence, with such arguments as that there should be a large landmass in the south as a counterweight to the known landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere. Usually the land was shown as a continent around the South Pole, but much larger than the actual Antarctica, spreading far north – in particular in the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand, first seen by a European (Abel Tasman) in 1642, was regarded by some as a part of the continent, as were Africa and Australia.

Terra Australis was depicted on the mid-16th-century Dieppe maps. There was much interest in Brazil and Terra Australis among Norman and Breton merchants at that time, and the colony of France Antarctique was established in Brazil in 1555. In 1566 and 1570, Francisque and André d'Albaigne presented Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, with projects for establishing relations with the Austral lands. Although The Admiral gave favourable consideration to these initiatives, they came to nought when Coligny was killed in 1572 during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.[1]

Juan Fernandez, sailing from Chile in 1576, claimed he had discovered the Southern Continent.[2] In the 1760s, Alexander Dalrymple accepted this claim and prompted the British government in 1769 to order James Cook in HM Bark Endeavour to seek out the Southern Continent to the South and West of Tahiti.[3]

Isaac and Jacob Le Maire established the Australische Compagnie (Australian Company) in 1615 to trade with Terra Australis, which they referred to as "Australia".
Click to expand...

Back to the Antipodes - and the Equator proving that only heathens could live in the southern hemisphere ;)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes

Historical significance [Antipodes]
The term plays a certain role in the discussion about the shape of the Earth. The antipodes being an attribute of a spherical Earth, some authors used their perceived absurdity as an argument for a flat Earth. However, knowledge of the spherical Earth being widespread even during the Dark Ages, only occasionally disputed on theological grounds, the medieval dispute surrounding the antipodes mainly concerned the question whether they were inhabited: since the torrid clime was considered impassable, it would have been impossible to evangelize them, posing a dilemma between two equally unacceptable possibilities that either Christ had appeared a second time in the antipodes, or that the inhabitants of the antipodes were irredeemably damned. Such an argument was forwarded by the Spanish theologian Tostatus as late as the 15th century. Saint Augustine (354–430) argued that since these people would have to be descended from Adam, and the equator had presumably always been impassable, no people could have come into the area. ...
Click to expand...

Terra Australis as mapped in 1570 :-
 

Attachments

  • antipodes2.jpg
    antipodes2.jpg
    9.6 KB · Views: 216
  • terra australis.jpg
    terra australis.jpg
    27.4 KB · Views: 208
noirua said:
Antipodes: I have a globe and put one finger on New Zealand and one on Spain. Does that make one finger antipodean to the other or both antipodeans?:D
Click to expand...
reminds me of the joke of the blonde walking along the river bank - wondering how to get over to the other side ....
and lo and behold she sees another blonde over there ... and she calls out " Gee am I glad to see you! - say , how do I get to the other side"

long pause
then the other blonde replies "Why? - you're already there!!" :rolleyes:
 
This website gives you the antipodal map to any nominated place/city (just double click somewhere) :-
http://www.antipodemap.com/

Greymouth, NZ, mean temp 13degC;
Pontevedra, Portugal, mean temp 15degC
 

Attachments

  • antipodes greymouth.jpg
    antipodes greymouth.jpg
    27.9 KB · Views: 207
  • antipodes4.jpg
    antipodes4.jpg
    13.7 KB · Views: 205
A word for the day "triff". Most spellcheckers say this is not a word, in a word "balderdash".
Triff means: Terrific, excellent, highly enjoyable and attractive.
Yes indeed, ASF is triff.
 
I've always thought of 'triff' as a slang contraction of 'terrific'.
 
Julia said:
I've always thought of 'triff' as a slang contraction of 'terrific'.
Click to expand...
Yep, I thought it was as well. Anyway, I believe they are about to add the one millionth word to the dictionary shortly. Not sure which dictionary though.

My word of the day "uvarovite" (my spellchecker doesn't like it, it's still a word though). Or maybe it's a case of "my dictionary is bigger than yours".
Uvarovite means: A green lime-chrome garnet. Named after Count S. S. Urarof, Russian Minister of education.
 
My word for today is "gowpen". It means the hollow of the two hands held together; a double handful. A Scottish word, and is in goodly sized dictionaries.
 
Today's long word is "electroencephalograph" and means; an instrument for detecting and recording the electric currents generated by activity of the brain.
 
egregious (pron e-gree-jus) - means outstanding but in terms of within a group. e.g. Amongst the members on ASF Joe Blow was egregious, in that he could decide the fate of threads.

Comes from Latin meaning separate from the flock.
 
Sorry to contradict you, but it really doesn't usually mean that, and Joe mightn't be all that pleased to have it applied to him!:)

It's usually applied in a pejorative, negative sense and means 'conspicuously bad'.

i.e. Malcolm Turnbull has made an egregious error of judgement.

It might also be used as you suggest, but that would be unusual.
 
Julia said:
Sorry to contradict you, but it really doesn't usually mean that, and Joe mightn't be all that pleased to have it applied to him!:)

It's usually applied in a pejorative, negative sense and means 'conspicuously bad'.

i.e. Malcolm Turnbull has made an egregious error of judgement.

It might also be used as you suggest, but that would be unusual.
Click to expand...

Agree Julia

And in this example where the State of Maine in the US egregiously banned Santa Claus' butt from a beer bottle label.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070410butt.html

gg
 
Today's word: battre la campagne (batr' la ka-pan-y') - to scour the country, to beat the bush.
 
My word of the day is "brer" (Southern US dialect) - n brother (usu -an abreviation of usual- followed by a name).
 
quidnunc \KWID-nuhngk\, noun: One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who knows or pretends to know all that is going on; a gossip; a busybody.

"What a treasure-trove to these venerable quidnuncs, could they have guessed the secret which Hepzibah and Clifford were carrying along with them!" -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

I like it cause I know a few people who resemble this word. :banghead:
 
Today's word, after brer rabbit, is "neophile" - n someone who loves novelty and new things; someone who is obsessive about keeping up to date with fashion, trends, etc. ----- n "neophillia". --- n "neophiliac".

The opposite to neophile is "neophobia", n a dread or hatred of novelty, ---n "neophobe". --- adj "neophobic".
 
Top