Bellicosity

I've always been a fan of etymologies. I believe that they give a greater insight into a word's meaning. The title of this post means to be inclined to fight, but comes from the name Bellona, the Roman Goddess of War.

All this is to lead up to Hugo Chavez's recent bellicosity towards Colombia. Boz has been doing yeoman work covering this story in the last week. You can read his accounts in chronological order here, here, here, here and here.

As Boz notes in his most recent post, most Venezuelans are not happy about this. Indeed, one would imagine that they would prefer consistent power and water than a war.

If this reminds me of anything, it reminds me of the Argentine Junta's decision to invade the Falklands (no, I'm not saying Chavez is like Galtieri and Videla); an attempt at using a war to rally the nation against domestic problems.

Comments

[Tambopaxi]

... I don't think Chavez is quite to the stage of disrepute and desperation that the Argentine military were in '82 - but he's getting there. The Colombians are playing it right, playing it cool, for the moment, as they should.

The tricky part is Chavez's unpredictability and volatility (although he's not as volatile as Correa is) and that's problematic...

[Matt Weiner]

To etymology nitpick on a two-week old entry, I'm pretty sure that "bellicosity" doesn't come from the name Bellona; rather its Latin root "bellum" (also found in "belligerent," "antebellum," and Ice Cube's "I don't give a fuck 'cause I just keep bellin'"*) seems to come from older Latin "duellum" (the change was remarked on by Cicero) which in turn may have come from the Indo-European "dwellom," though my initial source on that seems somewhat crackpotty; the consensus on "duellum" seems to be "of dubious origin." Bellona's name was originally Duellona and seems more likely to have come from "duellum" rather than vice versa; Duellona corresponds to the Greek Enyo (in the Mars/Ares sort of way).

Supporting footnote:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/311216 for Cato on the duellum/bellum transition
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/BEC_BER/BELLONA_originally_DUELLONA_.html on Duellona

*The lyrics sites all have "bailin'," which doesn't make any more sense to me. In not very much related news, as an etymology freak I'm sure you'll be glad to know that there is now an urbandictionary entry for "Bailin' like Palin," meaning to quit halfway through with a lame excuse.

[Randy Paul]

Maybe one shouldn't rely on Wikipedia . . .