> 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.