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  • From: "J. Raymond Kelley" <jraykelley AT prodigy.net>
  • To: Elaine Keown <elaine_keown AT yahoo.com>, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Retting -- was Other languages in the Tanakh
  • Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 16:03:14 -0800



Elaine Keown wrote:

Elaine Keown
still in Texas

Dear Mr. Randolph:

Thank you for your response. I would say I am a
partially-trained Hebraist--I came to Hebrew really
late in life.

For example, even a document as short as the Gezer
calendar has at least one lexeme not found in
Tanakh, (CD ['atsad] which I think may have meant
"to ret", a common term in those days of making
linen out of flax.
What does "to ret" mean in English--I'm afraid
flax-processing is not familiar to me--this is cotton
country.

Retting ... in English ...

refers to a "rotting" process involving water (in the case of flax, an intentional process to soften the stems of flax so that the fibers can be separated from the residue of the plant stems -- or in the case of, say, hay refers to the rotting of the plant material due to the presence of water such as outdoors in the presence of heavy dew or after rainfall).

Given the time and effort of the process of breaking down the stalk material so as to leave the fibers for use in weaving compared to the cotten gin's quick separation of dross from the fiber of cotton, it is quite easy to understand why the whole process involving flax has been reduced to crossword puzzle references in English .... and why cotton became known as King Cotton

For some additional background on flax, see, e.g.,

http://www.rootsweb.com/~belghist/Flanders/Pages/flaxLinen.htm

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/flax.html

Ray







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