Assorted syncs: Damn it Gym, Ace of Hearts, Imlahil

Two of the main characters in the story William Wright is developing are known as Gim Guru and Gim Githil. In "Prince Imrahil and Moses," he proposes a third Gim, Gim Rahil, whom he tentatively identifies with Moses and the Brother of Jared. He also identifies these three characters with the Chipmunks. Gim Guru is Alvin, Gim Githil is Simon, and in "Theodore as Moses and the Brother of Jared," he connects the third Chipmunk, Theodore, with the being he would later dub Gim Rahil.

In the post about Theodore, William spends some time on the Star Trek character Leonard "Bones" McCoy, including a discussion of the name of the actor who played him, DeForest Kelley. I had some syncs about DeForest Kelley here some time ago, and William's post led me to search my blog and reread those posts. One of these, "Working out with Bones, and Colonel West," included this meme:

This is of course a reference to one of McCoy's trademark lines, "Damn it, Jim!" Now that both Kirk and McCoy have been identified with characters bearing the name/title Gim, though, it takes on an additional synchronistic meaning.

This morning, after several weeks of not browsing 4chan, I had a sudden urge to check /x/. One of the picrels jumped out at me:

Of all the images that could have been chosen to represent the abstract concept of "love," this anon went with a simple red heart icon on a white background -- i.e., the Ace of Hearts yet again. The thread is here, but I didn't find anything particularly interesting in it. Just a reminder from the sync fairies not to forget about that Ace of Hearts theme. The first comment was "baby don't hurt me," referencing the Haddaway song, which also includes the line "Give me a sign."

Less than an hour after seeing the Ace, I did a bit of reading, starting with the 22nd chapter of 1 Kings in the Old Testament. Going back for a moment to William Wright's "Prince Imrahil" post, although he will ultimately parse that name as Gim Rahil, he first mentions how others have attempted to analyze it:

It has been guessed by some that Imrahil's name is Adunaic, since he is of Numenorean descent.  At the same time, however, these same people take a very Elvish interpretation or guess as to the last part of his name, which is hil.  Hil would be Sindarin or Quenya for "Heir, son, or child".  Because of this, some have guessed that his name means something like "Heir of Imra", with the identity of who this Imra being unknown.

So Imrahil potentially means "son of Imra."

Here's something I found in 1 Kings 22 -- the very first chapter I read today:

And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him?

And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.

And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah (vv. 7-9).

The /l/ and /r/ sounds are closely related -- classified together by linguists as "liquid" consonants -- and the one often morphs into the other as languages develop.

Note added: Hours after posting the above, I was tutoring a high school student on her English pronunciation. We were going through a list of words with the "short u" sound, and I was having her read them out to me. Although our main focus was on getting the vowel sound right (English makes a lot of fine vowel distinctions that don't exist in most languages), I also checked that she knew the meaning of each word. It went something like this:

"What's the next word?"

"Bahg."

"No, it's bug. Bug."

"Bug."

"And what's a bug?"

"蟲."

"Right. Now read the next word."

"Love."

"What is love?"

I didn't realize until it was out my mouth that I was quoting Haddaway and the anon on /x/. Incredibly, she got the answer wrong!

"Uh . . . 住?"

"No, that's live. Come on, you know this. Love, as in 'I love you.'"

"Oh, 愛!"

Virtually everyone, no matter how rudimentary their English, knows the word love. It's right up there with OK, Coca-Cola, and shit. It's rare to to find a student for whom "What is [the meaning of the English word] love?" is a real question.