Serf's Up!
David Denby’s review of WALL-E (The New Yorker, July 21, 2008) contains this description: “. . . squadrons of square-shouldered helots who try to squash the slightest sign of free will.” Let’s hear it for sibilance.
Helos was a town in Laconia. Some of its inhabitants were bound in a permanent condition of serfdom. They were suspended between outright slavery and free citizenship. They were permanently inferior, and they were called helots.
Plutarch referred to an odd practice. On certain occasions, helots were compelled to get drunk in public. The idea was that this would instill repugnance towards drunkenness in Spartan youths. I don’t know about the success of the maneuver. Today, given the Krazy Kollegians on Kegs videos, I suspect that it might backfire.
In 19th century biology, helotism was “a form of symbiosis in which one organism makes use of another as if it were a slave, by causing it to function to its own advantage; used esp. of the relationship of the fungus and alga in a lichen by those who regard it as neither mutualism nor parasitism.” [Oxford English Dictionary]
SIDEBAR: helots
Now available from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition
Listen to Mike’s program in real time every Tuesday morning, 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. EST, by going to wtcmradio.com and clicking on Listen Now. There is no archive.
Visit the Senior Corner at http://seniors.tcnet.org
Helos was a town in Laconia. Some of its inhabitants were bound in a permanent condition of serfdom. They were suspended between outright slavery and free citizenship. They were permanently inferior, and they were called helots.
Plutarch referred to an odd practice. On certain occasions, helots were compelled to get drunk in public. The idea was that this would instill repugnance towards drunkenness in Spartan youths. I don’t know about the success of the maneuver. Today, given the Krazy Kollegians on Kegs videos, I suspect that it might backfire.
In 19th century biology, helotism was “a form of symbiosis in which one organism makes use of another as if it were a slave, by causing it to function to its own advantage; used esp. of the relationship of the fungus and alga in a lichen by those who regard it as neither mutualism nor parasitism.” [Oxford English Dictionary]
SIDEBAR: helots
Now available from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition
Listen to Mike’s program in real time every Tuesday morning, 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. EST, by going to wtcmradio.com and clicking on Listen Now. There is no archive.
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Arbutus Press
http://arbutuspress.com/store_ling.html
or at Amazon.com
Visit the Senior Corner at http://seniors.tcnet.org
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