Thanks to this:

http://www.badreputation.org.uk/2011/02/23/the-alphabet-prints-now-available/

I now have Hodge’s wonderful Amazon picture on my wall, and have been paying some attention to her. I am struck by the similarity between the Amazon’s pose and the letter A. It’s a strong way to stand, similar to the stance people adopt for a tug o’ war. There’s an clichéd simile “as strong as an ox”. The Hellenic alpha, and our A, stem from the aleph of Semitic alphabets — and aleph means “ox”. Our A is perhaps the letter of the alphabet in which its origins as a pictogram are easiest to see. Turn a capital “A” upside down, and it is still an ox’s head. In a lower case “a” the ox head has been turned through ninety degrees, and the horns twisted somewhat out of shape.

Yes. I had assumed ‘pet jeffery’ was a reference to another c18th literary cat: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-i-will-consider-my-cat-jeoffry-excerpt-jubil/
but this is quite possibly because I assume everyone else is as obsessed as I am :)

I assume that your name, Hodge, refers to an 18th century lexicographer’s cat. I quite often say to cats: “You are a very fine cat”.

I’ve just noticed a mistake in what I just posted. John Walker was the captain of the Swallows, of course, not the Amazons.

I, too, much prefer the moon-women etymology to the mastectomy one. (Who wouldn’t?)

I also like the moon-women being Armenian, largely because Armenia brings us to another set of Amazons. I refer the Amazons of Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” books. The books (or the first book in the series, at least, and some of the others) were largely inspired by an Armenian family with the surname Altounyan. In particular, they were inspired by one of the Altounyan girls, Taqui Altounyan. Taqui formed the model for both Nancy Blackett (captain of the Amazons) and John Walker (captain of the Amazons). She was a notable person in her own right, and wrote two books (quoting the titles from memory) “In Aleppo Once” and “Chimes from a Wooden Bell”.

If it’s my name that you like, it isn’t intended as an 18th century reference, or at least not 18th century AD. I am a devotee of Hat-hor, who is the mistress of heaven. And heaven, in Egyptian, is “pet”. (Or, strictly speaking, “pt” into which we interpolate the “e” to render the word pronounceable. The quality and position of the ancient vowels are now unknowable.)

Yeah, I explain some of my reasons for choosing that particular suggested etymology in the comment above (I should perhaps have put some of the others in a Draft Additions section, but I’m not quite that ridiculous yet). The breast thing really is the thing that really floats round the amazons, even though, as you say, the stories are contradictory. Overall though I think it’s quite a nice word gender-wise since they clearly do, as you say, do lots of good Other Things…

what i find really interesting is that the idea that they lopped a breast off is all most people know about the amazons when in fact they did tons of cool stuff that didn’t involve self-mutilation.

incidentally there is an alternatve theory that the word amazon means moon-women in Armenian, and may have come into the greek language as a result of travellers seeing the armed priestesses of the moon in areas around the black sea.

I like your name. That is, I choose to take it as a sly eighteenth-century reference. And thanks for your comment!

It’s an interesting notion, this mastectomy business. The origin of Amazon is by no means clear: I’m quoting from the OED, which alludes to this breast issue as a theory, and since I’m taking the OED as my guideline (and talking about feminism!) I consider myself justified in honing in on this etymology exclusively.

However, it is only one of many suggestions for where the word comes from (which is the first issue) and, the second issue, it could also always be alluding to a sort of metaphorically breast-less state (akin to a male being castrated, perhaps). That said, there’s at least one report that talks about them burning their breasts (pl) off, so it was obviously a prevalent idea in its literal sense too. This last makes me wonder, though, if there’s an element of ritual to this: a sort of ‘burnt offering’ of your femininity on the martial altar. BACK TO THE LITERAL METAPHORICAL CONUNDRUM.