Cyprus-Forum.com

[denizaksulu]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

GC's refer to them as "forty feet", probably inherited from the Ottomans?

I have found:

σαρανταποδαπουσα (apologies to the purists but I have forgotten how to get the stress mark)

i.e. "one with forty feet" for a centipede/millpede in my dictionary of standard Greek.

Ofcourse, we had the Ayios Saranta Street in Neapolis north of Nicosia, where I lived for two years. I am not sure whether the 40 saints were Christian or Muslim. Any believers that can inform us please?

[Tim Drayton]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

In Turkish/Islam everything revolves around the magic number of '40'.

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, The great flood, 40 days and 40 nights. The soul leaves the body from the nose after '40' days. Never leave a new born baby alone the first 40 days of its life and the list is endless. When I did my Zoology and grudgingly handled my first ever Centipede, I meticulously counted the number of feet.
I reckon the over exagerated attributes of these creatures preceded them. Noone dared to touch them to count their pesky legs. As kids we were toldthat the Centipedes would bit a hole through your body and crawl under your skin. When I saw the 'Mummy' with the Scarabs crawling under the 'undead' Egyptian, you can imagine my feeling. I was nearly sick.

Anyway Tim, I am sure you have come accross the magical '40' many times. Karma is the expert. I think we listed hundreds of these expressions.

Karma, are you there?

One that I commonly come across in translating texts do with shipping is the expression "kırkambar" used in the meaning "mixed cargo". The literal idea is that the ship is carrying forty different things in its hold! It is curious to see this very ancient attachment to the number forty carried through into a very mundane area of modern terminology.

[Oracle]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

GC's refer to them as "forty feet", probably inherited from the Ottomans?

Of course Aristotle was the first to record these creatures, correctly referring to them as Polypods in his classic "On the Gait of Animals" (different species have different numbers of legs). I don't know how many legs had the one he chose to mutilate by removing one leg to see how its gait changed.

[denizaksulu]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

In Turkish/Islam everything revolves around the magic number of '40'.

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, The great flood, 40 days and 40 nights. The soul leaves the body from the nose after '40' days. Never leave a new born baby alone the first 40 days of its life and the list is endless. When I did my Zoology and grudgingly handled my first ever Centipede, I meticulously counted the number of feet.
I reckon the over exagerated attributes of these creatures preceded them. Noone dared to touch them to count their pesky legs. As kids we were toldthat the Centipedes would bit a hole through your body and crawl under your skin. When I saw the 'Mummy' with the Scarabs crawling under the 'undead' Egyptian, you can imagine my feeling. I was nearly sick.

Anyway Tim, I am sure you have come accross the magical '40' many times. Karma is the expert. I think we listed hundreds of these expressions.

Karma, are you there?

One that I commonly come across in translating texts do with shipping is the expression "kırkambar" used in the meaning "mixed cargo". The literal idea is that the ship is carrying forty different things in its hold! It is curious to see this very ancient attachment to the number forty carried through into a very mundane area of modern terminology.

Perhaps the link is to 1001 Nights story and the 40 storage jars (pithoi) in which the Haramis (Ali Baba's thieves) had hid.

[Tim Drayton]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

GC's refer to them as "forty feet", probably inherited from the Ottomans?

Of course Aristotle was the first to record these creatures, correctly referring to them as Polypods in his classic "On the Gait of Animals" (different species have different numbers of legs). I don't know how many legs had the one he chose to mutilate by removing one leg to see how its gait changed.

Polypods? That's a bit of a cop out, isn't it? Care to put a figure on the number of legs?

[denizaksulu]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

GC's refer to them as "forty feet", probably inherited from the Ottomans?

Of course Aristotle was the first to record these creatures, correctly referring to them as Polypods in his classic "On the Gait of Animals" (different species have different numbers of legs). I don't know how many legs had the one he chose to mutilate by removing one leg to see how its gait changed.

I hope the poor creature was dead before Aristotle began his depodiation.

[denizaksulu]

The longest I have seen in Cyprus would be about 15 cm long.




Oracle can check the gait of this lovely creature.

[Oracle]

O....Yep...Have got all the tools for the job and the wood is on order..Can't decide what colour to paint it..S'pose green is the in colour nowadays.

Bubbles you are right...very rarely see a roach round here. If one shows up I don't think he'd last 5 minutes with this lot roaming around.

Our crapery in Anglissidhes (pre-1963) was full of roaches and centipedes. What have you done to the Cypriot Fauna? And we had a lot of chickens too.

I notice plenty of centipedes on patches of waste ground near where I live. This means that they are capable of thriving in Cypriot suburbia, provided they are left with some pieces of open ground.

I have always been fascinated by the way standard Turkish refers to these creatures as "kırkayak", i.e. "forty feet", whereas the etymology of the English word implies that they have 100 legs. What is the TC word for this insect, as a matter of interest?

GC's refer to them as "forty feet", probably inherited from the Ottomans?

Of course Aristotle was the first to record these creatures, correctly referring to them as Polypods in his classic "On the Gait of Animals" (different species have different numbers of legs). I don't know how many legs had the one he chose to mutilate by removing one leg to see how its gait changed.

Polypods? That's a bit of a cop out, isn't it? Care to put a figure on the number of legs?

Which species are you referring to?

(The term Polypod is generic.)

[Tim Drayton]

The longest I have seen in Cyprus would be about 15 cm long.




Oracle can check the gait of this lovely creature.

I count 38 legs on this one. Allowing for a certain amount of statistical variation, that makes 40 quite a good bet.

[denizaksulu]

The longest I have seen in Cyprus would be about 15 cm long.




Oracle can check the gait of this lovely creature.

I count 38 legs on this one. Allowing for a certain amount of statistical variation, that makes 40 quite a good bet.

Perhaps the people of old, considered the'feelers/antennae' as legs too. Then you have your 40.

But the numbers will vasry from 15 to 150 according to the InterNET, depending on the species.