More Urbanomancy

[Timothy Toner]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stacy Stroud <sstroud at uky.campuscwix.net>
To: UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu <UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 02, 1999 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: More Urbanomancy
>Delphi was *a* Greek city, yes, but doesn't "adelphos" mean "brother"?  I
>though the "-adelph-" part of "Philadelphia" was the "brotherly" in "City
>of Brotherly Love," not the "city."


My bad.  My real smart sister pointed out the flaw to me.  The city ought to
be called Philadelphiopolis, but no one would want to live there.  Besides,
it would totally ruin the Springsteen song.

>
>Are there other Greek-derived words which use "delphi" as a particle
>meaning "city"?


No, but there's also demos, as in "pandemic", "democracy," etc.  As my
sister explains it, both _can_ mean city (as in 'city-state,' the Greek unit
of political organization), and oftentimes in bad greek scholarship the
words are used interchangeably, but polis means the political structures of
the city, and demos was the physicality -- the people, the region, etc.  So
either polimancy or demomancy.