Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill <wrschmidt2 AT comcast.net>]

At 01:13 AM 4/17/2012, K Randolph wrote :

> PTH to allure, entice, PTY gullible, gullibility. In other words, 
the verb refers to taking advantage of others gullibility. It has 
nothing to do with opening. . . . .  . But in these cases, the 
meanings are so different that no etymological connection can be made.


I don't want to come off as being an argumentative know-it-all, 
especially because Biblical Hebrew is not my forte. However, the 
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) has in its entry for 
PTH and PTY: "The basic verb idea is 'be open, wide, spacious."

Moreover, I think we can deduce that the concept of gullibility --as 
well as the concepts of enticing, deceiving, and persuading -- that 
existed in PTH was indeed a melioration of the concept of openness 
that had theretofore lied inchoate a) in the mouth, b) the logogram 
that Hebrew scribes used to represent the mouth, c) the root peh that 
referred to the mouth, and d) many of peh's derivatives, if we 
recognize the following facts and forced deductions.

First, Roget's Thesaurus lists 1) "susceptible" as a synonym for 
"gullible," and 2) "open" as a synonym for  "susceptible." Hence 
"open" and "gullible" must also be considered synonyms.

Second, Greek "anastomow" 'to open up' was derived from Gk "stoma" 
'mouth' evidently to identify the relatively abstract notion of 
opening with the physical act of opening the mouth

Third, "gullible" can be traced back through Middle English "golen" 
'to swallow' and Middle English "gull" 'mouth' to Old French "goule", 
opening', and further back to Latin "gula" 'throat', evidently 
because "gullible" was coined to figuratively identify gullibility as 
the tendency to open the mouth and swallow anything anyone said. 
Hence, the development of PTH 'gullible' from "PEH" 'mouth' perfectly 
parallels the development of "gullible" from "gull" 'mouth, opening', 
and Greek "anastomow" 'open' from "stoma" 'mouth'.

I think the development of PTY 'foolish, simple' from PTH can then be 
understood by recognizing that 1) Roget's lists "empty-headed" and 
"vacuous" as a synonyms for "foolish," and "simple," and 2) "vacuous" 
was derived from Latin "vacuum" 'empty, open'. We can thus go on to 
deduce that PTY was coined to identify people who were foolish and 
simple as people who were vacuous, empty and thus, open to being 
persuaded or deceived.

This analysis therefore strongly suggests, if not clearly reveals, 
that PTCH and PTH are as cognate as they clearly reveal because PTCH 
was coined to associate creating a vacuous, open or empty condition 
with opening the mouth, and 2) PTH  to refer to the corresponding 
psychological condition.

I think we can then go even deeper into this linguistic gestalt by 
recognizing, as Isaac Fried did,  that "The root PTX is apparently a 
variant of . . . PSG, PSX, PCX, P$X, P$Q, (PSQ), PTX with acts 
connoting 'spread'.

OTOH, Isaac concluded that  "PISEAX, as in 2S9:13 appears to mean 
'spread-legged'  where the spread is due to a limpness of the legs. 
However, I'd conclude , as the TWOT does in its entry for PSQ 'open 
wide', that the above-mentioned words were coined to identify 
spreading as opening up; for instance, in Eze 16:25 which the KJV 
translates PSQ and RGL as "opened thy feet."

The relationship between the aforementioned words are far more 
complex and interesting than this, but I'm afraid I've already 
over-stepped the limits that regulars usually place on visitors.


Bill