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Origins of Appetite, Pizzazz and Ball

Origins of Appetite, Pizzazz and Ball

 

It’s just like Jewish words to come from huge, close-knit families. But these words are not truly Jewish or even Hebrew. You see how basic and universal these words really are — which is why I prefer to call them Edenic. Let’s see how the families of Edenic/or Ancient Hebrew words work within themselves as well as within “foreign” languages like English. My first example is rather simple: I call it “The Appetite Family.” To get at the root of APPETITE, we need only jump hungrily from Latin petere (to go forward, seek) and the theoretical Indo-European root *pet (to rush, fly) . I think you’ll all agree that the Hebrew HeFeTZ (to desire, object of desire) is a far better etymon than the Latin and IE (Indo-European) for APPETITE and its PT cognates like COMPETE, IMPETUS and PETITION.

 

Talk about competition, Israel is called a land of HeFeTZ (desired; that will be competed for). The “rush, fly” sense from the invented root is right, as words of desire should be linked to words of rushing after our desires. Just as RoTZeH (will, desire) leads us to RaTZ (run; source of ROTATE) and even to ReTZaKH (murder; that which makes us run with mad, superhuman will), so is HeFeTZ (desire) linked to HePaZoN (haste) and even to KaFaTZ (jump) and PeZaZ (dance or jump around with PIZZAZZ). If we leave our Pey-Zayin root we will find relevant second cousins like KHePaS (search) and PeSaKH (skip), but let’s be conservative iconoclasts here. As logical as these versatile, universal two-letter roots are, their existence has been vehemently denied since the Middle Ages.

 

The oldest etymological text in the world, one never debunked and the basis of this column, is found in Genesis 11. There it is stated that the word’s languages were not created wholesale but were BALLED UP or mixed up versions of a single, original one (Biblical Hebrew). The key words used by the text are BaLaH, Bet-Lamed-Hay, BLH, (confuse) and BaLaL, Bet-Lamed-Lamed, BLL,(confound) and even the locale of Bavel (Babelonia) is linked to the BiLBuL (confusion) that went on in the Valley of Shinar. BalooL is a word for mixture we encounter in Leviticus, so the BL two-letter root of the BALL FAMILY is well established. Despite this, even the word BABBLE (confused speech) is not linked to BABEL by the Oxford English Dictionary. They would prefer we be confused with nice, white, Indo-European etymons like Sanskrit balbuthah (stammerer). The readers of this column are more informed and less prejudiced than the writers of the O.E.D., so they can see the relationship to our hundred BL[L] terms like BALL, BALLET, BALLOON, BALLOT, BOWL or BULLET whether they link it to etymons above or to BooL (formless lump, later stamp in both Hebrew and Akkadian).

 

Longtime readers of this column will know that it doesn’t matter whether a given source is French baler or Greek ballzein , the ultimate source will be our BL root, or one of her cousins like ‘[he]PeeL PooR” (“threw the lots” –Esther 3:7) which allow us to include words like: eVoLve, LuBricate, PeLLot, PeLota (ball in Spanish), PiLL, , PouR or even VoLVo. If it rolls or can be LoBBed, or sits there like a LiP, it’s likely related to the Bet-Lamed BALL FAMILY.

 

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