Re: "Secular"

On Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:15:42 -0600, John O'Flaherty
<quiasmox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:37:34 +0000, Chuck Riggs <chriggs@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:43:25 -0600, John O'Flaherty
<quiasmox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:10:46 +0000, Chuck Riggs <chriggs@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On 7 Nov 2008 11:48:26 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Paul Wolff <bounceme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
On Wed, 5 Nov 2008 12:19:07 +0000, Paul Wolff <bounceme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Wood Avens <woodavens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
"A fundamental secular shift in attitudes on race." Thus historian
Niall Ferguson, of Harvard University, speaking on the UK BBC Today
programme this morning. I take him to mean "a shift from one age to
another", or "from a past age to a new one". I thought it an apt and
refreshing change from the common sense of "non-religious".

It's a word I like, though I'm always a little uncertain of its meaning
when I bump into it, perhaps because I dabble in astronomy from time to
time. I think that in the context of change it boils down to very
slow-moving and, as a result, practically irreversible from the point of
view of any living human being with a Keynesian view of the long run.

Encarta:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx
?refid=1861710849

secular

4. occurring once in century: occurring only once in the course of an age
or century
a secular change

5. astronomy geology occurring over long period: taking place over an
extremely or indefinitely long period of time

[14th century. Via French< Latin saecularis< saeculum "world, generation"]

That's the point, really. When I see or hear the word I have difficulty
in deciding whether the event took a century, an age or an indefinitely
long period.

That sense of the word comes from an age which viewed time as cyclical
rather than linearly progressive in an analogy derived from the
heavenly cycles, which ranged from the short cyclings of the moody
moon and the messenger Mercury to the vast millennial cycles of the
Great Ages. What seems to us, with our modern linear view of time, to
be vagueness, is in fact precision in a different perspective of time
and history.

I agree that in that sense it's a very good word.

My view of time must not be modern, for it is not linear. If time
began at the Big Bang and will end in the Big Crunch, it is far from
being linear, what what?

What could you compare it to?

y = mx + b

So if y is time, what is x?

Sorry, I thought you were simply asking for a linear equation. I don't
have an answer to today's question.
--

Regards,

Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland
.

Relevant Pages

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    ... or "from a past age to a new one". ... moon and the messenger Mercury to the vast millennial cycles of the ... What seems to us, with our modern linear view of time, to ... My view of time must not be modern, for it is not linear. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: "Secular"
    ... or "from a past age to a new one". ... moon and the messenger Mercury to the vast millennial cycles of the ... What seems to us, with our modern linear view of time, to ... My view of time must not be modern, for it is not linear. ...
    (alt.usage.english)