Author: Gareth McCaughan
Date: 08:55:16 12/02/01
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On December 01, 2001 at 18:49:33, Benny Antonsson wrote: [I observed that "Deamon" is a mis-spelling...] > We know... we first selected the word Deamon and thought it was > the right spelling. After a while we realized that it was wrong, > and ever since then we have argued about changing the name or not... > we haven't really decided yet... any suggestion of a new name ? > Or should we just spell it right ? I think it would be quite amusing to use the very obscure spelling "daimon". Most of the very few times I've seen that word used, it's been with reference to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. He claimed that he received guidance from some kind of divine being which he called his "daimon". (Of course, back then it wasn't an obscure literary word; it was an ordinary word in the language he spoke.) In general, a "daimon" in Greek mythology was sort of half way between a human and a god. There were allegedly good ones (like Socrates's) and bad ones. One English word that's almost equivalent to "daimon" in some of its uses is "genius". Not in the sense of "really clever person" but in the sense -- much less common these days -- in which, e.g., it was used by Shakespeare: "And under him my genius is rebuk'd, As, 'tis said, Mark Antony's was by Caesar". The meaning is, as with Socrates, something like "guiding spirit". It would, as I say, be quite amusing to have a program whose name will be understood, by the 1% of people who understand it at all, as being equivalent to "genius". :-) The word "demon" comes from the same place, but because it was generally used as the translation for "daimon" in the New Testament (where it always refers to evil spirits) it's always had that connotation of evil. That may or may not be part of what you want, of course. There's one association that "demon" has and "daimon" lacks, which might be a shame. There are phrases like "speed demon", meaning "very very fast person or thing". I think they come from the idea that the devil and his servants are beings of great power as well as great evil, but I'm not sure. So if you were hoping for resonances of "speed demon" then "daimon" won't do so well. Anyway, you asked a fairly concrete question, and I've responded by blathering at grossly excessive length. I'll return to the actual issue. I think calling the program "Deamon" is probably a bad idea unless you can find some explanation that doesn't involve it being a mis-spelling of "demon" or "daemon". You could just use one of the correct spellings. If you want to look for something different, what you're looking for probably depends on why you liked the original name. Was it the implication of evil? supernatural-ness? mystery? power? possession? Or something to do with phrases like "speed demon", "Maxwell's demon", "demon driver", etc? The chances are that "demon" will reflect your intentions perfectly well. It's time I shut up. Sorry for boring you. :-) -- g
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