Well, I read through Peter Green's introduction to his translation of Apollonios Rhodios [apologies for former mispleling], and read a bit of the first part last night. As Bob and Argus have already pointed out, the ship (spelt 'Argo' in the Greek, as per Argus' post) was named by its builder (spelt 'Argos' in the Greek, and I assume 'Argus' in Latin, as per Argus' post) for himself.

Of course, there are at least a few Argoses in Greek mythology; one, Argos Panopticos or Argos of the Hundred Eyes (actually, "All-Seeing", but he was described as having 100 eyes all over his body), was placed by Hera to watch over the cow-bespelled Io [look! obligatory astronomical reference! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] ] to prevent Zeus from turning her back to human and, er, ahum, having his way with her. He had nothing to do with the legend of Jason and the Argonauts. Also, there was a city named Argos as well.

All of which leads me to question whether 'argos' really means "idle" in Greek or not. While I will not dispute Grapes' post from http://www.dictionary.com, I have found the following from an Ancient Greek Lexicon on-line, Perseus:

That II definition, at least, provides a more logical sense for a fleet ship, a Greek pentecoster (50-oared galley) as described by Apollonios and others. While the ironic use of names such as "Lazy Daze" or the like is certainly common enough today, it really doesn't "feel" like something the Greeks would do (whatever that might mean! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] ).

[Added note:I checked a couple of Interactive Periodic Table links, and found the following on 'argon' from http://www.resource-world.net/Ar.htm: "Origin of Name: From the Greek word argos (inactive)"; http://www.chemsoc.org/viselements/pages/argon.html agrees with that derivation. That's not too far from "idle" [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] . And that supernumary '1' on the excerpt from the Lexicon I quoted shows that there are other uses of the word with unrelated meanings, which I didn't follow up on. So 'argos' means "inactive" or "dead slow" when talking about gases, but "blindingly fast" when talking about dogs or ships. Go figure. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ]

Okay, Greek lesson over for today. Tomorrow we discuss the Aztec word for "pizza" and what it has to do with phases of the Moon. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

The (don't I wish) Curtmudgeon

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: The Curtmudgeon on 2001-11-29 13:57 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: The Curtmudgeon on 2001-11-29 14:11 ]</font>

Sheesh, I'm finding all kinds of errors in my typing today. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: The Curtmudgeon on 2001-11-29 14:17 ]</font>