austraLasia #2464

Is it Keats, Cricket or Caskets we are talking about, or did you just want a cup of tea?

ROME: 26th July 2009 -- "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" wrote John Keats, "That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know".  Two of the most celebrated and discussed lines of poetry, that one finds in his Ode on a Grecian Urn.
    The lines are wonderful, as indeed is the poem, but I'd like to take the occasion to point out that it teaches us something very important about the English language, or at least one of its words.  Mention 'urn' and most English speakers would think of three possibilities (in descending order of importance, I suspect!), but all touching the English soul:
    - something one boils water in to get a cup of tea;
    - a certain receptacle contained the ashes of - was it a leather cover or the bails? - English cricket on the day it died, that is to say the day, long ago when the then colonial Australia 'beat the Poms', as the Australian is proud to say;
    - and of course, Keat's famous poem.
    Now before I quite get to the point, a serious point indeed, it is worth reminding readers that there is some evidence and certainly a lot of Salesian credence given to the fact that the famous game referred to above, when Australia solidly beat England at cricket, took place on what is now Salesian holy ground too: Salesian College 'Rupertswood', Sunbury, Victoria, Australia.
    Which brings me to the Salesian bit about this term 'urn'.  More than once, in the past month, I have heard reference to 'Don Bosco's Urn'.  Now, people, that is just not on!  The rather large reliquary in which Don Bosco's earthly remains, at least some of them, are on pilgrimage is not an urn.  He was not cremated.  To be honest, it is, properly speaking, what we have just called it - a Reliquary.  But probably 'Casket' is just as acceptable this time too.
    The problem comes from a well-established phenomenon of transliterating certain terms from one language to the other. The French call it 'faux amis' or 'false friends', the linguist calls them 'false cognates' but it all means the same thing: words which look alike in two languages may have entirely different meanings.  Unfortunately it is a phenomenon that happens all too often in Salesian discourse which is heavily weighted towards Italian originals; we have done it with 'economo' and now we look like doing it with 'urna'. Please!
    As for that other delicate subject of cricket, well, let it all play out before any of us come to premature conclusions!

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Title: australasia 2464
Subject and key words: SDB General terminology 'urna'
Date (year): 2009
ID: 2000-2099|2464