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One of those things that rattle around my brain regarding Buffy is, why is the Slayer's title Slayer or Vampire Slayer?
So, I finaly realized what I needed to figure this out wasn't a regular dictionary, but an etymology. And now light dawns.
O.E. slean "to smite," also "to kill with a weapon" (class VI strong verb; past tense sloh, slog, pp. slagen), from P.Gmc. *slakhanan, from base *slog- "to hit" (cf. O.N., O.Fris. sla, Dan. slaa, M.Du. slaen, Du. slaan, O.H.G. slahan, Ger. schlagen, Goth. slahan "to strike"), from PIE base from base *slak- "to strike" (cf. M.Ir. pp. slactha "struck," slacc "sword"). Modern Ger. cognate schlagen maintains the original sense of "to strike." Meaning "overwhelm with delight" (1340) preserves some of the wider rangeof meanings that the word once had, including also "to strike a spark" (O.E.).
Why is this awesome? First, the closest cousin is Old English, which makes sense as the Council's "modern" form is English based (or British, I'm not sure what's better here). Though I'm wondering if before it was British it was Roman and a host of other places inbetween with the prominant branch and headquarters located wherever the strongest world power or recently strongest power was. (which makes the fact that the New Council is half the time located in the US in fics, but I digress).
Moving on to the second cool thing about Slayer is that the closest cousin is both "to kill with a weapon" as the Slayer kills with tools (with what humanity is always associated with tools) and the various demons usually killing with teeth or claws or brute strength.
Third cool thing? "To smite" which does work well as the Slayer is pitted against the vampires and other forces of supernatural evil that stalk the Earth. One uses the word smite to indicate something like killing a demon than killing a bank robber.
So, I finaly realized what I needed to figure this out wasn't a regular dictionary, but an etymology. And now light dawns.
O.E. slean "to smite," also "to kill with a weapon" (class VI strong verb; past tense sloh, slog, pp. slagen), from P.Gmc. *slakhanan, from base *slog- "to hit" (cf. O.N., O.Fris. sla, Dan. slaa, M.Du. slaen, Du. slaan, O.H.G. slahan, Ger. schlagen, Goth. slahan "to strike"), from PIE base from base *slak- "to strike" (cf. M.Ir. pp. slactha "struck," slacc "sword"). Modern Ger. cognate schlagen maintains the original sense of "to strike." Meaning "overwhelm with delight" (1340) preserves some of the wider rangeof meanings that the word once had, including also "to strike a spark" (O.E.).
Why is this awesome? First, the closest cousin is Old English, which makes sense as the Council's "modern" form is English based (or British, I'm not sure what's better here). Though I'm wondering if before it was British it was Roman and a host of other places inbetween with the prominant branch and headquarters located wherever the strongest world power or recently strongest power was. (which makes the fact that the New Council is half the time located in the US in fics, but I digress).
Moving on to the second cool thing about Slayer is that the closest cousin is both "to kill with a weapon" as the Slayer kills with tools (with what humanity is always associated with tools) and the various demons usually killing with teeth or claws or brute strength.
Third cool thing? "To smite" which does work well as the Slayer is pitted against the vampires and other forces of supernatural evil that stalk the Earth. One uses the word smite to indicate something like killing a demon than killing a bank robber.
