Le Mat

firemaiden

HI Adrian, I was in the middle of editing previous post to add, but since you responded already will add here : you wrote :

"MAT has clearly no standing as a noun in the French language - but you should try to add a circumflex "Â/â" to the "A" and voilà: Le Mât is ready to set sails to roam the 7 seas of wonder because he now is well known as: The MAST"

It is true that le mat is consonant with mât/mast, however it is not true that "mat has (...) no standing as a noun in the French language" : le mat 1) = in chess - the play by which a king is made checkmate, or saying checkmate, and le mat 2) (historically meant) one who is beaten, morally beaten down, depressed, (and now means) dark, sombre.

(See TLF entry for le mat - particularly the last section on historical use of the word http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/mat).

However more probably "le mat" is just a frenchification of the italian "matto".

firemaiden

Adrian Goldwetter said:
... to find a "Bateleur-thread" in the same manner like this one that I could read - maybe to learn something new and exiting - or to post in it as well because even when jmd called The BATELEUR in his 1st post of this topic 1 of the 3 common titles I still would like to stick with The SYSTEM (in this case!).

Hello Adrian, may I point out the incredible table of contents that jmd put together some time ago, which includes a reasoned list to our long-time ago discussions/explorations of the historical tarot trumps one by one, and there you will find the original bateleur thread as well as many others.

click here ==> Table of contents by jmd

Adrian Goldwetter

You should/could know Huck (also a citizen around here) who is deeeep into chess and we had a tête–à–tête on TH in the often linked thread somewhere about this too naturally because that's the first THING people think about - to no avail though.

Le Mat, carte du tarot de Marseille
Mat (abréviation fréquente d'échec et mat), position finale gagnante du jeu d'échecs

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mat

être mat {verbe}

https://defr.dict.cc/?s=Schachmatt

Before this becomes a discussion about non-subjects you may give it a thought that I didn't do that post on a whim. I know ALL the discussions about that naming matter from conventional POVs (like your's so far here in these replies) and I believe that your last MAT-matter was discussed in the thread we are posting both in right now.

I would suggest - because this is a completely "new" POV here presented by me - that you take the time to REALLY read through the THREAD before you come up with some other long dead issue.

Adrian

P.S. Maaan we are so fassst with posting and replying to each-other that I did not get your helpful advice!
Thank YOU verrry much firemaiden!

P.P.S. This is somewhat off topic because: a technical question. Just as I looked at your above post I saw the nice blue "quoting box" that makes a post with quotes much more readable. HOW do you DO it? I know that BBCode is in use here but when I compose a post I find NO quote buttons below or above the window like on TH for example. Can I just copy them from elsewhere like this:

firemaiden

and use them here to get this blue beauty assigned for my purpose?

It WORKED! Tx for the heads up! I did not think about that before!
Now I'll rénover my above post ASAP!

P.P.P.S. It is VERY interesting though that in the FRENCH Wiki link I provided (I just saw that right now!)

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mat

Where The HEADLINE is MAT.

Mât, un espar servant à soutenir les voiles sur un bateau à voiles. De manière plus générale, un pylône vertical.

So it should be a common IDEA in French that "Mat" & "Mât" go in the same file by lexical definition in a catalog! I did NOT know that before. So tx again for another heads up with the chess thing! I like to learn new and interesting things!!

P.P.P.P.S. Excuses firemaiden I just saw that I overlooked your link to the TLF before and went there a minute ago. Very colorful was my first impression - and when I read through I found that all the quoted sources are from: 1846 - 1935 - 1870 - 1953 - 1844 - 1811 - 1890 - 1834 - in that order.

TAROT FROM PIERRE MADENIÉ Dijon 1709, France

http://tarot-de-marseille-millennium.com/english/historic_tarots_gallery.html

When you visit the Wiki link I gave above you will find this:

Un mat, nappe en fibres (de verre, synthétiques...) longues ou coupées, disposées « en vrac » (non tissées), utilisée dans la fabrication de matériaux composites

Following your logic you would be able in a 100 years to quote that sentence as PROOF that MAT is indeed a noun in French... ...and was in 1709

Adrian Goldwetter

@ firemaiden > #79

I tried this time to be specific with your objection firemaiden.

V for U is not a "disguise", it is a typographical reality.

You are obviously totally correct here - but you do not think it through. It is a bit more complicated than that BECAUSE what with the REAL "V"s?

Not only we here ponder that question so let me provide a link:

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Roman-V-meant-to-mean-the-letter-U

The quick answer is yes: a V in a Latin inscription can represent a V, which the Romans pronounced like a W, or a U, or even the number 5.

The LONG answer is interesting too - but he leaves out the PHOENICIAN "ALPHABET" which was the source for ALL our others here around - and not only those!

The long answer will take a few more steps. The ancient Roman alphabet, developed from the Etruscan alphabet, which (in turn) evolved from the Greek alphabet, is still the alphabet we use today, though there have been some modifications along the way. Here are just a few:

1. The Romans used all caps.

2. The vowels I and U had consonantal versions (pronounced like our Y and W, respectively); most Latin textbooks these days let students try to distinguish vocalic I from consonantal I, but they usually convert the consonantal U to V. You'll find words like INSULA ("island") and IUPPITER ("Jupiter") along with VACUUS ("empty") and VIVUNT ("they live") in those textbooks. Nowadays, of course, we've turned most instances of that consonantal I into a J.

3. The Romans, however, would have written these words as INSVLA, IVPPITER, VACVVS, and VIVVNT. Deciphering these Vs takes a little practice, but you get used to it.

4. Ironically, some scholarly editions have gone in the opposite direction with the U/V problem, converting all those Vs back to Us in an attempt to be more authentic to the ancient Roman practice of writing them the same way — which leaves us with INSULA, IUPPITER, UACUUS, and UIUUNT.

So: Brian Glenney, Latin teacher and a lover of ancient languages and history confirmed for us on the 6th of September 2015 that BOTH U + V are existing in the "V" (letter-wise) at the same point in spacetime - but the READER gets to DECIDE from his EXPERIENCE what he CHOOSES it to BE. Logically.
Think about Schroedinger's cat for a moment

Now: you as a reader of Tarot cards and books and forums are ACCUSTOMED to read LEFOV as LEFOU because you have trained/learned to do so by PERSONAL experience and simply CHOOSE the "U" for YOUR reading but you choose also to IGNORE the other OPTION that still stands as always.

You can relate to your decision for "U" because it opens in your mind all those experienced roads to the knowledge you have sampled over the years concerning this card and THEREFORE defend your "V"iew of the "U".

BUT it is only ONE view.
The other possibility of the "V" - that I chose to give a discourse on is simply not existing in YOUR world.

In the Roman world a similar "problem" occurred with the "C".

An EDUCATED person would SPEAK Ceasar [ˈʦɛːzaʁ] or [ˈkae̯.sar]

http://forvo.com/word/caesar/

- (and not even Merriam-Webster - an Encyclopædia Britannica Company - would tell you THAT because THEY use the ANGLICIZED version of spelling) but if you would do that on the street everybody might think you're "loco" what is Spanish for INSANE (like a fool) but the Latin root for it could lead you to > DISlocated - like the SHOULDER of LEFOV > LE MAT what refers OF COURSE to his DISLOCATION between the cards having NO numeral - BUT belongs between XX ... XXI like AEW advised correctly following Alphonse Louis Constant quoted by jmd already here.

AC has got that obviously so totally w-r-o-n-g with his pseudo-mathematical "explanations" that I am at a complete loss of words for him...

- but catboxer in the 3rd post said it already:

The Fool, as Diana is fond of pointing out, has no number; there is no zero in the Roman numerical system.

I just would like to add that LEFOV > LE MAT by no means is a FOOL & for a real dope mathematician there is a BIG difference between "0" and NOTHING. They are by NO means of kin.

A more detailed link to the spelling problem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spelling_and_pronunciation

Concerning the ROMAN numerals on the Tarot cards you should ask yourself instead WHY they were used THERE because the Arabic numerals (that were an adaption of the much older Indian system BECAUSE it contained a symbol for "0" what made calculation more effective) were widely in use in Europe since the 15th century and JN created his Tarot in the 17th century.

The European acceptance of the numerals was accelerated by the invention of the printing press, and they became widely known during the 15th century. Early evidence of their use in Britain includes: an equal hour horary quadrant from 1396,[21] in England, a 1445 inscription on the tower of Heathfield Church, Sussex; a 1448 inscription on a wooden lych-gate of Bray Church, Berkshire; and a 1487 inscription on the belfry door at Piddletrenthide church, Dorset; and in Scotland a 1470 inscription on the tomb of the first Earl of Huntly in Elgin Cathedral. (See G.F. Hill, The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe for more examples.) In central Europe, the King of Hungary Ladislaus the Posthumous, started the use of Arabic numerals, which appear for the first time in a royal document of 1456.[22] By the mid-16th century, they were in common use in most of Europe.[23] Roman numerals remained in use mostly for the notation of Anno Domini years, and for numbers on clockfaces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

When you come up with that answer to yourself - please be honest & REASONABLE - look at the pictures 1st and behold all the ROUNDED lines and CURVES.
Don't go with the flock that ba-aa-ahs how COMPLICATED it would be to cut a 2 or a 5 or a U into wood.

Maîtres Cartiers was a title for the reason to be a MASTER of that profession and his own boss in his own house in his own business. Filed with name and address in the annals of the town he was living producing and keeping his books in order in - with Arabic numbers most probably.

The answer to the WHY of ROMAN NUMERALS is that they made CODE possible that could escape the eye of the "uninvited" (remember the XI of Jean Dodal with the >> F.P.LE.TRANGE << what is ASSUMED to mean "Fait pour l'Etrange" what is just THAT: an ASSUMPTION! because all FRENCH letters stayed French (IF you would call them French anyway

)

The numerical CODE is hidden of course in the IIII that occurs 4 times in: 4 - 9 - 14 - 19 (like on Dodal's IIII too that contains a tiny 4 too

) The 4 x IIII makes 16 and from there you go straight to the (in those times assumed) Arabic Geomantic System that consists of 16 distinct "characters" that can be paired in 8 x 2.

Here on Aeclectic is a closed thread of 16 pages with quite winded wording but still comprehensible - concerning the PMB "cards" - about that (and I based a lot of my studies on the content there) and - of course - I made JPGs for orientation but that would be not for this topic here so...

>>> EDITION on the 18th + 22nd of February 2016:
I created 6 folders with 37 (from more than 500 of the same format) files on Dropbox. Just read them according to the file names for a little background knowledge in the LiBER MUNDi thread here. The text files were made available by Ross Caldwell once for the LiBER MUNDi thread:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=128423

1-16 GODs:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/706svldbo6op31h/AADYqAkHtAhNCBBjagtpGy1Sa?dl=0

2-How the Geomantic ORACLE works:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/65099zo7i856uvf/AABBy0NTI_RSr9U5UP-BVqHma?dl=0

3-How the 16 Signs got their Names in the 1st place:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fwzqndsoj5tbzbx/AADs_ej7XL9vH1lPVwwnPUc2a?dl=0

4-Distribution & Variations
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hyykxpkb4xjwvmt/AAAGSGglLn7NSPnpDEeZvkV2a?dl=0

5-How the STRUCTURE of the 16 Sign is based on the 8 folded STAR from the BEGINNING+2. Form
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zzabpvkfqp8esny/AADL3QCAe63sSpII9IkfgxHua?dl=0

6-Meaning is a matter of PERSPECTIVE
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7bn39pseo1uvurj/AAC6BIUWxSOHvbM2efV9Kd-Wa?dl=0

This system was very popular in the renaissance throughout Europe and Filippo Maria Visconti (like many aristocrats) had books in his libraries about the concerned themes - especially Geomantics. I gave more detailed but summarized info on that at TH but strewn throughout the thread there.

http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewto...7ad8675d9cafbf

complete with a free PDF on scribd ready for free download after free registration.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/241968716/...ry-dot-com-pdf

Please give it one more try and read through it again.
So many loose ends are quite neatly knitted HERE.

Adrian

firemaiden

Speculation is pleasurable and stimulates the brain, however beware of confusing creative invention with science. It is highly unlikely, nay EXTREMELY unlikely, that something written LE FOV which any French-speaker able to read would interpret as LE FOU, could have been meant to signify anything else. What do we gain from searching for the most unlikely possibility ?

Adrian Goldwetter

Dear firemaiden if you go through the annals of Tarot from the revival kindled by Antoine Court de Gébelin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Court_de_Gébelin

on right through time until you reach our post here in this topic on Aeclectic you will come (I think) to the conclusion that ALL that was ever written about Tarot WAS speculation - some quite unfounded some not.

BECAUSE I am aware of the risk to confuse >> creative invention with science << I AM posting this here FROM a scientific POV that follows the EVIDENCE that I present in small slices.

By the way: did you know that Sir Isaac Newton a pillar of our modern and reasonable world dedicated a great deal of his lifetime to ALCHEMY and The LAPIS? Even his apple anecdote was a disguised appearance of his studies in that other field that would have made him a "persona non grata" in the eyes of his peers and so he kept those works hidden from review and slander.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

The point of CODE in secret fields of knowledge (like Tarot perhaps?) is to keep it HIDDEN from >> any French-speaker [who would be] able to read [and] would interpret [LEFOV] as LE FOU <<.

That LEFOV indeed could >> signify << something >> else << I have proofed extensively with links - sources - "speculations" and very specific replies.

That it is not >> the most unlikely possibility << I pointed out several times in writing.
From an unprejudiced POV it should at least been looked at as an EQUAL possibility.

From the POV of a person who wants answers to long unanswered questions it should be an enlightening possibility to widen her/his (event-) horizon.

In science (that you mentioned 1st above) it would be the custom to look at the "new" evidence - that was "overlooked" so far because nobody cared to LOOK that way - whether the "new" model could cover MORE unanswered questions than the old one.
That is why CERN was built for BILLONS.
NOT because SCIENCE likes to stay with the old paradigm (of course it DOES - but with time the new evidence becomes unbearable for the OLD paradigm - so it collapses) but because the TRUTH - how the universe functions - is the cause.

If that was not the case we would still live in the dark ages with scientists like Giordano Bruno burning for the sake of The Church Of The Right Faith at the stake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

>> What do we gain from searching... ? << you asked and you post in a thread that searches for input on LEFOV > LE MAT.

Perhaps jmd as the OP could answer THAT question better than I as a newbie around here?

Adrian

gregory

jmd said:
In terms of the meaning of 'Le Mat', I personally am not aware of its definite etymology. Also, as mentioned in an earlier thread in Talking Tarot: 'Name that card! part 1: Trump 0/22' , my personal favourite title for this card remains Le Fov (Le Fou - the 'v' being the same as a 'u' in mediaeval texts)

.....

Adrian Goldwetter

THANK you gregory!

the 'v' being the same as a 'u'

Completely my argument!

Tx for the back-up and making my point with jmd's words!

Impeccable!

And I'm glad that jmd's problem:

In terms of the meaning of 'Le Mat', I personally am not aware of its definite etymology.'

is NOW solved too because firemaiden as a (natural/native?) French speaker stated that:

It is true that le mat is consonant with mât/mast

(Although I don't understand what "consonant" is supposed to mean in that context - I reckon she refers to something like "the same" - but I simply love her straight forward clarity. From a person who lives in France with her biography and wide array of interests [her profile] this is golden. If I would have known that it was that simple... it would have saved me a lot of time. But as they say: The JOURNEY is the destination - and I conver(ted) a bunch of interesting coins for my own sake while walking The PATH - ask LEFOV and don't take MY word for it!)

We found both already in the same Wikipedia file about MAT (please see above somewhere).

Let me summarize:

"V" and "U" are the same.
So - following logic: LEFOV is the same as LEFOU.

Le Mat is the same as Le Mât (see above please).

Are we d'accord like they say in France?

Adrian

Adrian Goldwetter

Since you didn't deny or reply or comment while being "green" a long time in between dear gregory I take that I can count you in on my team now with the "V" on the most honorable coat of arms I know - but I have a tightly knitted schedule to honor too for personal reasons and so must continue with this lesson for I may not be around here for ever and a day.

Most possibly less.

One part of your enlightening post about jmd's POV on the world of Tarot I left without a reply so far but will make up for that now.

Because you posted the quote from his words without context and personal comment you surely think that the quote can very well stand on it's own feet as an "all around statement" in all it's details - correct?

You didn't include a personal comment in your post that was (I suppose - because you didn't address me or anything I wrote here specifically)... ...what brings me to the next possible conclusion by deduction (Sherlock Holmes you know - and who can escape his sharp mind when HE is rooolllling?): could I have been wrong with you replying to me all along? Silly ME!

It could be that you REPLIED to another post in this thread - maybe to jmd himself to make him aware of his change of mind?

Well - NOW I'm curious! The only part of your (his) post I left out until now was The LOCATION of the card on topic and in question here!

I quoted him (as proof for being on MY team for the CORRECT location of LEFOV > LE MAT between XX ( ) XXI) just summarizing his many words to a logical conclusion.

It should be in this thread here somewhere and I remember that he noted that he did despise in fact the ZERO AEW put in the correctly to be EMPTY box.

On another occasion in another thread Huck assured me that there are search-machines for such a purpose or person in need to find a quote or whatever - so those who do not know jmd's diverted (or improved? From his POV of course!) statements about his convictions (I said before that I really do not like this word in your language because it gives such a double-edged impression of the nominee!) but what shall I do?

I'll quote here that part of your quote of jmd's mindset again that you posted here to make a point for my "V"-Team:

Trump 0/22

That in fact was a part of a link that I hope you didn't hope I would click on to read it to get the context for your post you made here in my favor myself without a say-so from you in your free-riding reply (perhaps to jmd himself as the OP in err - what would make sense the more I think about it!)

You surely could not have been of that opinion I deduct further because you being on my team and being you yourself would expect that I have been there all along!

So thank YOU again gregory ((May I call you greg or even Greg in the future when we should meet again here or else? It would be an honor and a pleasure for me all the more that you assured me of yourself being a woman - or like you said a lady-person if I remember correctly (but I wouldn't vouch for that - the memory of course - because you know: men!). I like and need the womanly sensitivity and that clear and sharp "right-to-point-let's-cut-to-the-chase-mind" on my team - all the more we are so small in numbers yet... but who cares when fighting for The TRUTH - right? Pythagoras proofed from his POV though that 1 is the most great number above ALL others there are in existence because 2 for example is The ONEness divided in 2 equal parts being now each a NEW 1 but SMALLER and so on in really short... ...he couldn't make much sense of our modern IRrational numbers though we use all the time now. In fact it is said that his children killed a former family member by drowning for using them to PROOF in a mathematically CORRECT sense that The DIVINE PENTAGRAM was NOT what his words told - that he meant of course in another LIVELY sense - because when you do REALLY divide a whole small 1 into PARTS you smash the LIFE out of it and KILL it at the spot!))

Adrina

gregory

Adrian Goldwetter said:
It could be that you REPLIED to another post in this thread - maybe to jmd himself to make him aware of his change of mind?

jmd is no longer on AT, sadly - but his book is brilliant. I quoted him as you clearly hadn't read the whole thread or you'd have done so yourself.

May I call you greg or even Greg in the future when we should meet again here or else?

No, you may not.