Στα λεξικά το ένα gnome (= (σπάν.) γνωμικό, αφορισμός) δεν πρέπει να βρίσκεται μαζί με το άλλο, αφού δεν έχουν κοινή προέλευση. Για την προέλευση του gnome του Παράκελσου γράφει στο etymonline (παρόμοια με εκείνα που έχει το OED):
Ο τίτλος του παιδικού βιβλίου μάς θυμίζει και την προφορά, [νόουμ]. Στις λέξεις που αρχίζουν από gn- δεν προφέρεται το g, π.χ. gnash [næʃ], gnarled [nɑːld], gnaw [nɔː].
Έχουμε τις εξής σημασίες (OED) και προτείνω κάποιες αποδόσεις:
1. One of a race of diminutive spirits fabled to inhabit the interior of the earth and to be the guardians of its treasures; a goblin, dwarf. γνώμος, νάνος, καλικάντζαρος, ξωτικό της γης | (μτφ.) ζουμπάς, (κακάσχημος) νάνος.
2. A statue or figure of a gnome, esp. one placed in a garden. νάνος, νανάκι, αγαλματάκι του κήπου.
3. colloq. An international financier or banker, spec. one who is Swiss; esp. in phr. the gnomes of Zurich. οι πανίσχυροι Ελβετοί τραπεζίτες, οι πανίσχυροι τραπεζίτες της Ζυρίχης.
Παρά την υπόθεση των ετυμολόγων για γηνόμο, ο γνώμος είναι η καθιερωμένη απόδοση του χθόνιου ξωτικού εδώ και πολλά χρόνια. Υπάρχει στον Δρανδάκη (ανέβασα εδώ το χορταστικό λήμμα του), στον Δημητράκο (διαφωνούν στη… σύζυγο: γνώμη στον Δρανδάκη, γνώμα στον Δημητράκο), στο Penguin-Hellenews, στο διαδίκτυο.
Για τους τραπεζίτες, ό,τι βρήκα σε Ματζέντα και Βήμα. Ενδιαφέρον έχουν ωστόσο τα σχετικά κείμενα σε Wikipedia και στο λεξικό του Σαφάιρ.
Wikipedia:
Safire:
"dwarf-like earth-dwelling spirit," 1712, from Fr. gnome, from Mod.L. gnomus, used 16c. in a treatise by Paracelsus, who gave the name pigmaei or gnomi to elemental earth beings, possibly from Gk. *γηνόμος "earth-dweller" (cf. θαλασσονόμος "inhabitant of the sea"). A less-likely suggestion is that Paracelsus based it on the homonym that means "intelligence" (preserved in gnomic). Popular in children's literature 19c. as a name for red-capped German and Swiss folklore dwarfs. Garden figurines first imported to England late 1860s from Germany.
Ο τίτλος του παιδικού βιβλίου μάς θυμίζει και την προφορά, [νόουμ]. Στις λέξεις που αρχίζουν από gn- δεν προφέρεται το g, π.χ. gnash [næʃ], gnarled [nɑːld], gnaw [nɔː].
Έχουμε τις εξής σημασίες (OED) και προτείνω κάποιες αποδόσεις:
1. One of a race of diminutive spirits fabled to inhabit the interior of the earth and to be the guardians of its treasures; a goblin, dwarf. γνώμος, νάνος, καλικάντζαρος, ξωτικό της γης | (μτφ.) ζουμπάς, (κακάσχημος) νάνος.
2. A statue or figure of a gnome, esp. one placed in a garden. νάνος, νανάκι, αγαλματάκι του κήπου.
3. colloq. An international financier or banker, spec. one who is Swiss; esp. in phr. the gnomes of Zurich. οι πανίσχυροι Ελβετοί τραπεζίτες, οι πανίσχυροι τραπεζίτες της Ζυρίχης.
Παρά την υπόθεση των ετυμολόγων για γηνόμο, ο γνώμος είναι η καθιερωμένη απόδοση του χθόνιου ξωτικού εδώ και πολλά χρόνια. Υπάρχει στον Δρανδάκη (ανέβασα εδώ το χορταστικό λήμμα του), στον Δημητράκο (διαφωνούν στη… σύζυγο: γνώμη στον Δρανδάκη, γνώμα στον Δημητράκο), στο Penguin-Hellenews, στο διαδίκτυο.
Για τους τραπεζίτες, ό,τι βρήκα σε Ματζέντα και Βήμα. Ενδιαφέρον έχουν ωστόσο τα σχετικά κείμενα σε Wikipedia και στο λεξικό του Σαφάιρ.
Wikipedia:
The term was coined by the British Labour Party politician Harold Wilson, then Shadow Chancellor, in 1956 when he accused Swiss bankers of pushing the pound down on the foreign exchange markets by speculation.
The relevant portion of Wilson's speech in the House of Commons ran as follows:
The relevant portion of Wilson's speech in the House of Commons ran as follows:
Traders and financiers all over the world had listened to the Chancellor. He had said that if he could not stop wage claims the country was facing disaster. Rightly or wrongly, these people believed the Chancellor. On September 5th, when the T.U.C. unanimously rejected wage restraint, it was the end of an era, and all the financiers, all the little gnomes in Zürich and other financial centres, had begun to make their dispensations in regard to sterling.
Safire:
gnomes of Zurich
International bankers.
Popularized by British Foreign Secretary George Brown in 1964, this gnarly trope paints a picture of busy elves in the Swiss financial capital, and was aimed at derogating the speculators who —by questioning Great Britain's credit standing— forced unpopular austerity measures on the government. Brown felt the "gnomes of Zurich" were out to make a killing at the expense of the pound sterling. "The term is a misnomer," wrote reporter Paul Hoffman, "since George Brown was actually referring to the Bank for International Settlements, which is in Basel."
The word gnome was coined (possibly from Greek γηνόμος, "earth dweller") by Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, a sixteenth-century Swiss alchemist and physician, while investigating the mechanics of mining and the diseases of miners, and originally meant a misshapen being who guarded the mines and quarries of the inner earth, able to move through earth as a fish moves through water.
The mining derivation of gnome made Brown's phrase especially apt: in Zurich, the gnomes deal in gold, a metal that was the quest of the alchemists. (Besides, Basel is often pronounced "Bahl," following the French Bâle, which would have made the phrase with the correct city confusing to the reader.)
Unlike malefactors of great wealth and economic royalists, gnomes of Zurich has a manipulative rather than a predatory connotation. By 1968, the phrase had gained the top rank of bogeymen, as in this use in The Wall Street Journal: "Frankly, we had enough to worry about with the military-industrial complex, the establishment, the gnomes of Zurich, the illuminati and the power elite. Now the arbiters of instant demonology have added the jet set."
George J. W. Goodman, using the pseudonym Adam Smith in his 1968 book The Money Game, called one character the Gnome of Zurich. His pessimistic credo: since men cannot long manage their affairs rationally, politicians make costly promises, trade surpluses evaporate, gold reserves trickle away, and a "dollar crisis" periodically results.
James Pinkerton, an adviser to the elder Bush, commented in 1993 on President Clinton's earliest days in office: "The gnomes of Zurich and Tokyo are all tuned in, and they react in ways that clearly are catching Clinton by surprise."
The expression was used jocularly in 2007 to express one of the three historic achievements of the three-languaged Alpine nation: "Switzerland is what was left over when the Europeans founded their nation-states," wrote the Norwegian journalist Kjetil Wiedswang in a commentary for the BBC. "Italian, French and German ultra-conservatives escaped to the mountains, joined forces and created 500 years of peace, the cuckoo clock and the gnomes of Zurich." This was an updating of a line in Orson Welles' movie The Third Man: "In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
International bankers.
Popularized by British Foreign Secretary George Brown in 1964, this gnarly trope paints a picture of busy elves in the Swiss financial capital, and was aimed at derogating the speculators who —by questioning Great Britain's credit standing— forced unpopular austerity measures on the government. Brown felt the "gnomes of Zurich" were out to make a killing at the expense of the pound sterling. "The term is a misnomer," wrote reporter Paul Hoffman, "since George Brown was actually referring to the Bank for International Settlements, which is in Basel."
The word gnome was coined (possibly from Greek γηνόμος, "earth dweller") by Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, a sixteenth-century Swiss alchemist and physician, while investigating the mechanics of mining and the diseases of miners, and originally meant a misshapen being who guarded the mines and quarries of the inner earth, able to move through earth as a fish moves through water.
The mining derivation of gnome made Brown's phrase especially apt: in Zurich, the gnomes deal in gold, a metal that was the quest of the alchemists. (Besides, Basel is often pronounced "Bahl," following the French Bâle, which would have made the phrase with the correct city confusing to the reader.)
Unlike malefactors of great wealth and economic royalists, gnomes of Zurich has a manipulative rather than a predatory connotation. By 1968, the phrase had gained the top rank of bogeymen, as in this use in The Wall Street Journal: "Frankly, we had enough to worry about with the military-industrial complex, the establishment, the gnomes of Zurich, the illuminati and the power elite. Now the arbiters of instant demonology have added the jet set."
George J. W. Goodman, using the pseudonym Adam Smith in his 1968 book The Money Game, called one character the Gnome of Zurich. His pessimistic credo: since men cannot long manage their affairs rationally, politicians make costly promises, trade surpluses evaporate, gold reserves trickle away, and a "dollar crisis" periodically results.
James Pinkerton, an adviser to the elder Bush, commented in 1993 on President Clinton's earliest days in office: "The gnomes of Zurich and Tokyo are all tuned in, and they react in ways that clearly are catching Clinton by surprise."
The expression was used jocularly in 2007 to express one of the three historic achievements of the three-languaged Alpine nation: "Switzerland is what was left over when the Europeans founded their nation-states," wrote the Norwegian journalist Kjetil Wiedswang in a commentary for the BBC. "Italian, French and German ultra-conservatives escaped to the mountains, joined forces and created 500 years of peace, the cuckoo clock and the gnomes of Zurich." This was an updating of a line in Orson Welles' movie The Third Man: "In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
