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> Autochthon architects Area, above and abase. "Abase" makes sense to me by analogy with its cognates "abaixo" and "abajo" in Portuguese and Spanish, or French
by schoen 4y ago
> Autochthon architects Area, above and abase.
"Abase" makes sense to me by analogy with its cognates "abaixo" and "abajo" in Portuguese and Spanish, or French "à bas", but it's not clear to me that it's ever literally had the meaning of "down(ward)", "below", or "beneath" in English.
Maybe "abased", which apparently has such a literal geometric meaning at least in heraldry?
- Smaug123 4y agoHmm, yes, I think you're right. There's the more prosaic "… above and all around", which gets at something slightly different from "heaven and earth". Douglas Hofstadter was right all along about how hard translation is!