From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 15 15:16:16 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1068237B401 for ; Tue, 15 Apr 2003 15:16:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net (swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.123]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DED643F93 for ; Tue, 15 Apr 2003 15:16:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from walterk1@earthlink.net) Received: from user-0cal9lv.cable.mindspring.com ([24.170.166.191] helo=earthlink.net) by swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 195Yim-0000dL-00; Tue, 15 Apr 2003 15:16:08 -0700 Message-ID: <3E9C84A7.6060504@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 17:16:07 -0500 From: Walter User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Gary W. Swearingen" References: <3E9C2965.5080504@potentialtech.com> <37of37bi5i.f37@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: Questions Subject: Re: FreeBSD logo... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 22:16:16 -0000 Gary W. Swearingen wrote: > > My large American Heritage dictionary says that "daemon" means "demon". > (Actually, it says it's a variant of "demon", and that's all it says). > > For "demon", the fourth sense is "An attendant spirit; a genius." and > the fifth sense is "One who is extremely zealous, skillful, or engrossed > in a given activity." > > But it also says it's derived from "Late Latin 'Daemon', evil spirit." > and the first sense is "A devil or evil being;...". Fwiw, a Biblical lexicon has this: From "The Complete Word Study Dictionary - New Testament," page 395 (editted): 1142 daimon: gen. daimonos, masc., fem. noun. Demon ... The Greeks gave the word daimon the same meaning as "god." What they meant, however, by the word is still a conjecture. They may have related a demon with daemon as knowing, experienced in a thing, or they may have derived the word from daiomai, to assign or award one's lot in life. ... So, "daemon" in the Greek meant "knowing, experienced in a thing," a description I'm sure the *BSD crowd would approve for their O/S. (Of course, one could relate it also to that bad tree in the garden, but let's not get into that. )