Indeed, and if you read Thomas Hardy, you get a nice reference to 'travails and teens', where travails means painful and laborious work, and teens, meaning misery, is from the Middle English tene, from Old English tEona meaning injury, grief; akin to Old Norse tjOn meaning loss, damage
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And who said unemployement was a bad thing?artourterSeptember 25 2004, 10:14:06 UTC
Unemployment in french is said "chaumage", which appeared in french during the 1300s from the latin caumare, "to rest during the heat", which come from the greek καΰμα (Kauma), "burning heat". So far from being a terrible situation, it was in fact a rather satifying moment.
Way back in the old days, people use to stop working when it was too hot. and christian religion at the time was saying that although work was good for the soul and mind, it stopped people from praying, whereas "chaumer" wasn't. Now between praying a Saint and having a darn good party in his name was not that much different, and soon "chamuer" became synonymous of partying.
Weirdly enough, that meaning is not really there any more. I wonder why!
Re: And who said unemployement was a bad thing?emilynelfnoffenOctober 5 2004, 12:14:48 UTC
Other then not having any money, I adore being unemployed. I feel that I get more done for myself, family and friends when about 30% of my week isn't spent giving some corporation my valuable time. Then again, not having money does suck.
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Way back in the old days, people use to stop working when it was too hot. and christian religion at the time was saying that although work was good for the soul and mind, it stopped people from praying, whereas "chaumer" wasn't. Now between praying a Saint and having a darn good party in his name was not that much different, and soon "chamuer" became synonymous of partying.
Weirdly enough, that meaning is not really there any more. I wonder why!
(vaguely translated from this page in french.)
ArTourter
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