Can you read the writing on the wall? What do you think it might mene?

No, that’s not a misspelling. In fact, the last word of the second sentence is directly related to the first sentence. When you’re a crossword puzzle fan, like Gary and I are, you learn many rarely-used words that puzzle constructors rely on to complete their grids. But when we came across mene last week, neither one of us had heard of it before. And, between us, I’m sure we’ve done thousands of puzzles. So, of course, we had to find out what this new word, um, means.

I should mention that the clue was “word on a wall”. And the search for what mene means uncovered the origins of the phrase, “the writing on the wall.” If you’re familiar with the word, then there won’t be much more for you to learn from this blog. If not, join me in discovering something new.

The origin of the phrase is Biblical. Here’s what Wikipedia tells us: “The writing on the wall (or sometimes ‘handwriting on the wall’) is an expression which suggests a portent of doom or misfortune. It originates in the Biblical book of Daniel—where supernatural writing fortells the demise of the Babylonian Empire, but it has come to have a wide usage in language and literature.”

“Mene” is one of four words written on the wall supernaturally. Let me refer you to the Wikipedia page so that you can read the entire story. I think it’s worth a few minutes. And then you’ll have learned something new today.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.