VV(19) Surd

[Dave Monroe]

"Howie Surd the drunken yeoman ..." (V., Ch. 16, Sec.
i, p. 424)

Hoping that Sam doesn't mind, just a quick note on a
name here ...

Main Entry: surd
Pronunciation: 's&rd
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin surdus deaf, silent, stupid
Date: 1551
1 : lacking sense : IRRATIONAL
2 : VOICELESS -- used of speech sounds 

Main Entry: surd
Function: noun
Date: 1557
1 a : an irrational root (as <sqroot>3) b : IRRATIONAL
NUMBER
2 : a surd speech sound

Main Entry: ab·surd  
Pronunciation: &b-'s&rd, -'z&rd
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French absurde, from Latin absurdus,
from ab- + surdus deaf, stupid
Date: 1557
1 : ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous
2 : having no rational or orderly relationship to
human life : MEANINGLESS; also : lacking order or
value
3 : dealing with the absurd or with absurdism
- ab·surd·ly adverb
- ab·surd·ness noun 

Main Entry: absurd
Function: noun
Date: 1946
: the state or condition in which human beings exist
in an irrational and meaningless universe and in which
human life has no ultimate meaning -- usually used
with "the"

Main Entry: theater of the absurd
Date: 1961
: theater that seeks to represent the absurdity of
human existence in a meaningless universe by bizarre
or fantastic means

http://m-w.com/


surd
  
PRONUNCIATION: sûrd
NOUN: 1. Mathematics An irrational number, such as
[the square root of] 2. 2. Linguistics A voiceless
sound in speech.
ADJECTIVE: Linguistics Voiceless, as a sound.
ETYMOLOGY: Medieval Latin surdus, speechless, surd
(translation of Arabic (jar) ’aamm, deaf (root), surd,
translation of Greek alogos, speechless, surd), from
Latin.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/22/S0912200.html

Of course, here see ...

Esslin, Martin.  The Theater of the Absurd.
   New York: Doubleday, 1961.  Rev. ed.

But also ...

Holquist, Michael. "The Surd Heard: Bakhtin and
   Derrida." Literature and History: Theoretical
   Problems and Russian Case Studies. Ed. Gary Saul
   Morson. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1986.  137-156.

And, what the hell ...

http://www.emi.u-bordeaux.fr/mim/setsy.html

www.notakid.com/humour/surd/html/surd5.html

Howie Surd, Howard Surd, how absurd ... but while I
can't find--not quickly and/or easily here, at any
rate--Samuel Beckett's use of the word, do note that
it shows up in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (New York:
Penguin, 1939), in the Mutt and Jute dialogue ...

"Mutt.--Aput the buttle, surd." (p. 16)

I believe it might serve as a legal and maybe even a
theological term as well, as well as one of
linguistics and mathematics, but ...


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