Not related to תלפיות, but to another word in the same verse, שלטי:

You've followed Rashi (here and elsewhere, such as II Shmuel 8:7) in translating it as "quivers" for holding arrows or other weapons. Ibn Ezra, Radak, and others translate it instead as some kind of shield (parallel to מגן), and I guess that's why in modern Hebrew שלט means "signboard."

It would be interesting to see a post about that, and also about its relation (if any) to the other meaning of שלט, "to dominate."
Alex | 04.18.07 - 4:09 pm | #

Good idea - I'll put it in the queue.
Dave (Balashon) | Homepage | 04.18.07 - 4:22 pm | #

I have read your wide-ranging discussion of the word "talpiyot" and learned a lot from it. It started me thinking about Jerusalem. Ruth and I live far from Jerusalem but we love the city. I have visited the Talpiyot neighborhood several times and have asked residents about the name. No one could tell me for sure why the name was chosen. It must be related to one of the several interpretations in the article.

By the way, as an aside, I was fascinated by your mention of Yiddish in connection with "far-fetched". I admit that it sounds like Yiddish and would be written in German as vervetscht, the apparent past-participle of the verb vervetschn. But I have checked my Yiddish and German dictionaries and there is no mention. So I returned to my book of etymologies and favor the view that far-fetched is something that is fetched from afar. That is, it is so unlikely and improbable that it is not available at hand and must be looked for and taken from far-out ideas. The prefix of "far-" is surely from the tendency in German to create words out of the prefix "fern-" For example. ein Fernsprecher is a telephone and ein Fernseher is a television set. English has some more similar words, such as far-sighted, far-removed, faraway and so on. I cannot know if anyone is interested in all this but if we were in conversation I would surely bring it up as an interesting point.
Shlomo
Mr. Shlomo Sokol | 04.18.07 - 5:59 pm | #

English words which sound like Yiddish:
http://biurchametz.blogspot.com/...ishe- vorts.html
Zman Biur | Homepage | 04.18.07 - 7:37 pm | #

I'm guessing the neighborhood got its name from the midrashic understanding of Jerusalem as "the hill that all mouths point to".
Dave (Balashon) | Homepage | 04.21.07 - 9:53 pm | #

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal...ki/ Talipot_palm

Talipot, Talpiot --- Hmmmmm....
phil | 04.22.07 - 11:32 am | #

"words are used as symbols, and can have different connotations for each reader"

How profoundly postmodern of you!
Joel Nothman | Homepage | 04.26.07 - 2:06 am | #