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Review of "War of the Gods" by Erich von Däniken

9/23/2020

81 Comments

 
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War of the Gods: Alien Skulls, Underground Cities, and Fire from the Sky
Erich von Däniken | New Page Books | Sept. 2020 | 214 pages | ISBN: 1632651718 | $17.95
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Years go by with the inevitable cycle of the seasons repeating their majestic rounds. After winter, summer. After summer, winter. And with the regularity of the season, so too does Erich von Däniken release a new book, and with the same repetition as the seasons. Each book is the same as all the books before, and each one begins with the ritual of pretending otherwise. War of the Gods, originally published in German 2018 but released in English for the first time this month, starts with a letter in which von Däniken (henceforth EVD) proclaims with great excitement news that he imagines will surprise his readers: “In this book, I present new findings!” Unfortunately, there is an ominous note: “But it is only possible by building on previous experiences.” Each winter brings a different snowstorm but you always know it will snow. So, too, do you know that whatever soupçon of new material appears in War of the Gods will be buried in a blizzard of recycling. He frequently refers to his own books, the books of guests on Ancient Aliens, and to claims made on the Ancient Aliens television show itself, recycling in an endless loop of previous claims tracing back to his own earliest efforts to recycle Morning of the Magicians to his own advantage.
Book Cover
The book opens with an utterly bizarre story that (a) I don’t believe is true and (b) is suspiciously timed to the popularity of a certain Netflix series. EVD claims that while on a tour of South America in 1988 a traveling companion died and he was escorted to the home of Pablo Escobar, who showed him an elongated human skull, declared it extraterrestrial, and made a big deal about its lack of sagittal sutures. That last point only became a major talking point among ancient astronaut theorists in the last few years, but—and this is important—scientists as far back as 1863 studied artificial cranial deformation and reported that in those cases there was “obliteration of the sagittal suture in the elongated skull.” It’s literally in the scientific literature, and it is no alien mystery, even if Pablo Escobar got off on thinking it one. EVD claims he turned down a later offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to Colombia on Escobar’s dime after discovering he was a brutal drug kingpin.
 
The first chapter is devoted to elongated skulls, and EVD argues that at least some belong to an alien race of “longheads” who were the descendants of giants, presumably from outer space. He cites as evidence Pedro Cieza de Leon’s yarn about the all-male group of giants who had gay orgies in Peru, omitting the gay orgies, and claims that these giants—who, I remind you, Cieza de Leon claimed had no women and had penises too large to enter human women without killing them—nevertheless fathered the race of human-hybrid elongated-skull humans.  To back this up, he brings in every literary reference to giants he can remember, including the infamous giants of Genesis 6:4, and suggests they were all real. He claims giants were involved in the building of the Great Pyramid (shades of the Akhbar al-zaman), citing a likely hoaxed mummified giant finger supposedly surfacing in 1988 as proof. Gregor Spörri has been circulating it around for a decade and wrote a thriller novel about his “find”—the obvious thing to do with alleged human remains removed from Egypt. It seems at first glance to be an artificial bit of taxidermy or sculpture. I found it amusing, though, that EVD calls 1988 “a few years ago.”
 
The remainder of the chapter goes into the typical evidence for giants, which involves misunderstood ancient texts, a familiar cavalcade of hoaxes and lies like the Father Crespi “gold” plates (including, infamously, a toilet tank float passed off as an ancient wonder), and—for one of the first times in his books—explicit mention of “Nephilim-Watchers Theory.” That last bit confirms that EVD is now openly consorting with creationists in merging his horny aliens reading of Genesis 6:4 with the demon-angels of Evangelical wet dreams. The translator, however, isn’t aware of the terminology involved and has mangled references to the Watchers into “guards” and “watchmen,” having failed to appropriately collate the German terms with the English counterparts. It should probably disturb us a bit that EVD is now speaking of “Nephilim Extraterrestrial Theory.” I’m not fully comfortable with the Nephilim openly colonizing ancient astronaut theory, which previously had only tacitly adopted them as honorary aliens rather than the driving force behind the bluster. EVD is now openly name-checking L. A. Marzulli, the Christianist extremist, as his authority on DNA and alien skulls. A large section of the chapter summarizes Marzulli’s faulty claims from a few years ago about Near Eastern and alien DNA in elongated Peruvian skulls.
 
Eventually, it all breaks down into a racist argument about alien DNA and how the various human races must be genetically distinct, with a side of transphobia thrown in: “To deny this for supposedly racism-related reasons is totally unscientific. The basic characteristics of people in different parts of the world are known. We all remain people, but we are not the same. The genetic patterns are different. No ‘gender mainstreaming’ disputes this scientific fact.” What is the purpose of this argument? The same as it always was: to argue that some races have better genes because the aliens blessed them with better DNA. No prizes for guessing who got the good genes. EVD connects his own DNA, via an ancestry testing service, to Mesopotamia, where Zecharia Sitchin’s space aliens created humanity. EVD, of course, therefore has the purest DNA, closest to the creation.
 
The second chapter recycles much of the Egyptian material previously seen in his book The Eyes of the Sphinx and countless others, bolstered now with references he says explicitly are drawn “on the German Wikipedia.” It’s the usual claptrap about impossibly heavy blocks, no one knowing who built the Great Pyramid, and Herodotus claiming Egypt’s history dated back to the Ice Age. He connects this, bizarrely, to a conspiracy theory that the so-called Third Message of Fatima is a hoax and the real third message involves a new global flood, something that, of course, can’t be a truly Christian prophecy since Christians believe God guaranteed to Noah that there would be no future global floods. Much of the chapter involves complaints that the various lists of Egyptian kings in ancient times don’t match and that the various factions within Egypt lacked a consistent narrative about the building of the Great Pyramid. More than two millenniums had passed between the building of the pyramid and the Classical authors, but EVD complains that the Egyptians who provided them with information did not have “document” listing the pyramid’s creator. He cites Scott Creighton’s ridiculous claims (which I discussed previously in two parts) to argue that the hieroglyphs in the Great Pyramid bearing Khufu’s name are a fraud made by Col. Vyse in the 1830s, a position ancient astronaut types and Atlantis speculators have played with since Zecharia Sitchin invented it. EVD knows Creighton’s work from a 2014 Nexus magazine article, but the translator, ridiculously, has re-translated EVD’s German translation of Creighton’s English-language material back into English rather than quoting the actual original words.
 
Under the influence of 1960s ideas and medieval Arabic pyramid legends, EVD argues that a “pole shift” flooded Egypt during the Ice Age, washed away all of the people who built the pyramids, and left only the structures themselves, which the new Egyptians colonized. The pole shift idea he bases on Herodotus (Histories 2.142), where the Egyptians claimed that the sun had four times risen and set in the opposite direction. Funny how that massive pole-shift and flood left so many remains around the pyramids, like the workers’ village, the assorted temples, etc. EVD returns to his lifelong love affair with quoting Al-Maqrizi’s Al-Khitat, something he has done (correctly, or, sometimes, under wrong names) since Chariots of the Gods. He repeats a lengthy argument from Eyes of the Sphinx, History Is Wrong, and other books that al-Maqrizi claimed King Surid had built the pyramids before the Flood under orders from the “Guardians of the Sky” (EVD’s mistranslation of the Watchers, who don’t appear in al-Maqrizi) and that Surid was Enoch from the Bible. As I have pointed out so many times, he is misreading a number of summaries, and al-Maqrizi, following much earlier sources, identified Enoch with Hermes Trismegistus. Both Hermes and Surid are offered as builders of the pyramids in legends collected by al-Maqrizi, but he does not identify them with one another. Indeed, that would be ridiculous since al-Maqrizi’s direct source, Ibn Wasif Shah (a.k.a. al-Wasifi), placed Hermes many generations back in time before Surid. The whole story was originally told about the Temple of Akhmim, not the pyramid, anyway, as the fragments of Abu Ma’shar testify, so the point is largely moot. You don’t need to take my word for it. I’ve translated al-Maqrizi for you. You’ll see that the specific quotation EVD gives is purposely truncated to tell a lie, omitting wording that blatantly contradicts EVD’s assertions:

EVD VERSION
[…] it is the one whom the Hebrews call Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam . . . He had the pyramids built and treasures stored in them learned scriptures and everything he worried about that it might be lost and disappear, in order to protect and preserve things. (ellipses in original)
FULL PASSAGE IN AL-MAQRIZI
Some believe that the first Hermes, whom they call the Thrice Great because of the three gifts he possessed: prophecy, kingship and wisdom, is the same as him the Hebrews call Enoch ben Jared ben Mahalalel ben Fatian (Kenan) ben Enos ben Seth ben Adam, who is also the same as Idris. He foresaw, from the position of the planets, the arrival of a Flood that would submerge the whole earth; therefore, he built a large number of pyramids in which were deposited treasures, science books, and everything he feared would be destroyed and disappear from view. He wanted to ensure their safety from destruction. It is also said that the builder was a king named Surid bin Shaluq bin Siriaq. According to others, the character who raised the pyramids located facing Fustat was Shaddad bin 'Ad who built them following a dream. (Al-Khitat 1.40, my trans.)
Granted, unless one had read hundreds of pages of al-Maqrizi, the average reader would never be able to find the passage, let alone recognize the deception.
 
Anyway, he lies a lot like that. Similarly, he falsely claims that the same story is told by al-Masudi in Meadows of Gold. It is not. He attributes to that book the parallel text to al-Maqrizi from the early medieval Akhbar al-zaman, which the nineteenth century work of Col. Vyse was wrongly ascribed to al-Masudi based on medieval scribal confusion between the surviving Akhbar and a lost text of al-Masudi with the same name. There is irony that EVD claims Vyse committed fraud in the pyramids but accepts an actual error in Vyse’s report on the pyramids as a fact. He also claims that there is no evidence whatsoever of any worker ever referencing building materials for the pyramids, though we possess papyrus documentation of exactly that. He claims the pyramid is full of all the mystical technologies al-Maqrizi described. “Obviously, a small group of people want to prevent others from obtaining this knowledge,” he said.
 
He includes a strange aside that shows the depth of his ignorance: “The fact remains: Christians do not believe in the ‘scriptures’ of Jews or Muslims, the Jews do not believe in those of Muslims or Christians, and Muslims do not believe those of other groups. At least two of the groups with billions or millions of people were misled.” I needn’t point out that the Christians incorporate the Hebrew Bible in their own, or that Islam presupposes an understanding of Jewish and Christian scriptures, which it claims to supersede, correct, and complete.
 
The next chapter is more recycled nonsense, this time dipping into the well of Immanuel Velokovsky and the longstanding hypothesis that the asteroid belt in our solar system is the remains of an exploded planet. You’ve heard it all before. The same myths and legends Ignatius Donnelly and Graham Hancock used to argue that an asteroid hit the ancient Earth are pressed into service here to claim the asteroid as the remnants of an exploded planet, destroyed in a Sitchin-style alien space war. He does manage to take the story in a weird direction, however, by going off on a long tangent about the only actual theme that matters to ancient astronaut theorists, the question of humanity’s relationship to the divine. He tries to argue against God, in the Judeo-Christian sense, in a bit of complex and tortured reasoning designed to overcome the problem of theodicy by ascribing all of the nasty parts of the Christian godhead to space aliens and reserving to a real deity the peace, love, and immortality he has long desired. As evidence, he accepts Helena Blavatsky’s hoax Book of Dzyan as a genuine ancient Sanskrit text, just as he has done for five decades. It is not even worth my words to discuss his use of nineteenth and twentieth century “translations” of Maya texts, from the period before Maya hieroglyphs had been deciphered.
 
After this comes a discussion of underground temples, caverns, and other monuments, mostly repeated from his earlier books, evidenced by fifty-year-old photos, with a few random ideas from Ancient Aliens added for flavoring. He imagines them to be fallout shelters and bunkers to protect against asteroids and alien invasions. Citations in this chapter include references to Wikipedia, with some pages of lists pasted in from Wikipedia.
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The "alien" mummy.
The final chapter attempts to argue for extraterrestrial skeletons on Earth, beginning with a crude sculpture of a Grey alien so laughably bad that it could only fool an author like EVD. “Smart alecks will refer to the whole thing as fake, and others will try to ‘unmask’ it as a fraud,” he writes. But EVD’s credulity doesn’t extend as far as his pocketbook. He refused to pay the demanded $100,000 for the supposed remains. He also discusses Gaia-TV’s funding of “research” into hoax alien mummies later found to be composed of artificially altered human remains. He doesn’t talk about that part of the story and instead praises the “generosity” of Gaia in paying tens of thousands to access the remains and in providing research assistance to promote their TV shows in EVD’s works. He claims, preposterously, that not only were these hoax mummies space aliens but that they were the Dropa, the fake aliens that carved the hoax Dropa Stones in China, which he also believes are real ET artifacts. He alleges that the media are intentionally hiding these facts because of “powerful and greedy forces, who are opposed to uncovering true history and human evolution.”
 
In his old age, EVD is getting earthy and a little gross. He ends the book rather lustily: “The message of aliens is also in our genes and was passed down from generation to generation with the ineradicable pleasure of sexuality.” Anyway, the book is 80% recycled content and 20% other people’s hoaxes. The whole thing is made worse by a poor translation, which often obscures original sources and far too often uses German titles for English books and Classical and medieval texts, as though the translator had no idea what any of it was. Somehow, that’s just about the best encapsulation of an Erich von Däniken book you could ask for.
81 Comments
1977
9/23/2020 04:31:22 pm

Daniken was conclusively debunked in 1977 not only for his ancient astronaut theories but also for peddling outright fakes relating to Central or South America in his books.

The Case of the Ancient Astronauts
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4081498/

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1977
9/24/2020 06:15:21 am

The fakes that Von Daniken was peddling were the Ica stones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ica_stones

Basilio Uschuya,, the Peruvian farmer responsible for faking these stones, also duped Dr Javier Cabrera Darquea (1924-2001), who put a collection of them into a museum. Daniken used this material in his 1977 book "Beweise Lokaltermin in funf Kontinenten", that does not seem to have been translated into English.

The BBC version of the documentary "The Case of the Ancient Astronauts" was slightly longer than the American Nova version - containing more snippets of interviews and a different ending - that was snipped out by Nova - of a British Astronomer who transmitted a radio signal to the star Sirius - which, if intelligent beings did inhabit that area of the universe - would have responded by now.

Here is a good downloadable copy of the Nova version of the documentary;

https://archive.org/details/NOVATheCaseOfTheAncientAstronauts


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Kent
9/23/2020 07:52:36 pm

What a long review! But thank you, much better than reading the book.

It should be noted that "the various human races must be genetically distinct" is straight out of the Talmud and is currently taught by some Orthodox rabbis in the U.S. and Israel. Karaites are apparently a minority.

But I will partially side with EVDD on one thing: Jews not accepting the New Testament and Qur`an makes sense, and Christians certainly don't accept the Qur`an. At the end of the day Muslims are ironically the most ecumenical.

It would be nice to see a direct-to-English translation of al-Maqrizi's work rather than going through a French intermediary; always nice to run a second set of eyes over such things. Also nice to see would be A. R. Guest's "A List of Writers, Books and other Authorities mentioned by El Maqrizi in his Khitat," in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1902, pp. 103–125. What's that India based "Trust" that has so many obscure books and journals available online?

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Jews and New Testament
9/24/2020 12:28:20 am

Jews don't accept the New Testament because it's all a fake. It's one big historical fake that grew into a life of its own that evolved, changed and developed with each succeeding generation of Christians. The New Testament lacks all historical provenance. The religion changed many times in a very short space of time during its first three centuries.

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Charles Verrastro link
9/29/2020 05:19:42 pm

I believe you are referring to the Hathi Trust. And, yes, it is available there. Mind you, it is only a partial list of al-Maqrizi's own citations, not a scholarly look at possible unmentioned sources.

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Kent
9/30/2020 05:39:08 pm

Thank you. I don't care about unnamed sources.

Rock Knocker
9/23/2020 10:58:51 pm

Thanks Jason.

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T. Franke link
9/24/2020 05:14:17 am

Looking forward to your book on Egyptian legends which will clear up the sky for all these questions once and for all.

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Martin Stower
9/24/2020 11:40:16 am

I see that the German-language original is Neue Erkenntnisse.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/3864456142

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Jim Davis
9/24/2020 12:22:49 pm

Is there any particular reason you don't post your (maybe somewhat abridged) review on Amazon?

I suspect more people would read it and it would probably do more good there.

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T. Franke link
9/25/2020 04:52:49 am

This is indeed an interesting question. I try to post my reviews on Amazon. But there are disadvantages. One is, you cannot post longer reviews. Another is that your review may not be suitable for quick readers browsing all available Amazon reviews.

See my reviews on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHU52XKWQTUPKR5ZDXG3Z24UTYNA

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T. Franke link
9/26/2020 05:20:15 am

And some time ago, Amazon cancelled the possibility to post reviews on Amazon.com if you only buy books on Amazon.de. Really annoying.

Cesar
9/24/2020 03:49:40 pm

In February 1988 a rival cartel detonated 700 tons of dynamite at the entrance of Escobar's family building. He lived in strict secrecy until he died five years later. But it seems he made an exception for Däniken.

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Kent
9/24/2020 05:48:40 pm

Three out of three things wrong there.

700 tons of dynamite? Think that through. I'll wait.

It was an apartment building he owned.

If you call being in police custody "living in strict secrecy" and being shot in the head by police after escaping "dying", yeah well maybe.

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Martin Stower
9/25/2020 05:37:33 am

A little checking tells me that (a) estimates of the amount of dynamite used (in a car bomb in 1988) include 700 kg and (b) the Edificio Mónaco was Escobar’s family residence at the time.

Erich von Däniken may be accounted lucky in his visit having been earlier that year. Also that no one is now in a position to refute his story—not that he has ever made anything up about his adventures in South America.

Escobar surrendered to authorities in 1991, was sentenced to imprisonment, escaped in 1992 and was shot in 1993. Did he not die?

The Edificio Mónaco was demolished in 2019.

El commandante obvioso
9/25/2020 10:57:54 am

Yes, when one is shot and their heart stops beating and they assume body temperature they have died.

Yes, Escobar owned the building and his family lived there so it it was Escobar's family building in both the literal and figurative sense.

Yes, an apartment building is a building. A building built to look like an apartment building and used as a family stronghold is also a building.

No, 700 tons of dynamite wasn't used.

Let me know if I can help with anything else.

Martin Stower
9/25/2020 05:20:20 pm

The relevance of this to the credibility of von Däniken’s story—my point and (I take it) Cesar’s—appears however to have escaped you, Comandante Obvio.

I am fairly sure there is nothing you can help with.

Jefe obvioso
9/25/2020 08:01:50 pm

Flash poll: anyone other than Martin who failed to grasp that my comments were actually in agreement with his comments to Kent? Anybody, anybody, Ferris, anybody?

Captain Oblivioso
9/25/2020 09:37:55 pm

"body temperature"

Martin Stower
9/26/2020 11:15:45 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_pecL2yk8

Martin Stower
9/26/2020 11:25:07 am

Querido Comandante Obvio,

So much is posted in a register of sarcasm that I thought it was that.

Von Däniken’s (lack of) credibility remains the point of mentioning any of this.

Teniente Obvioso
9/26/2020 11:36:58 am

Yes, bodies have temperatures.

Captain What the Heck is Wrong with You?
9/26/2020 05:33:18 pm

Yes, the expression is "room temperature".

Hilda Hilpert
9/28/2020 11:10:06 am

Believe it or not, the tv show Paranormal caught on Camera on the Travel channel, shows the demolition of Escobar's apartment building. Some woman took video of it.What was interesting , is you saw this white colored figure walking around in the building, then the whole thing crashes down. On the show they wondered if this was the ghost of Pablo escobar.

Martin Stower
9/24/2020 05:43:40 pm

I notice that the translator has used the nonexistent word “unequivocably” in “British researcher Scott Creighton was able to prove unequivocably that Colonel Howard Vyse, who claimed to have discovered the red inscription, had applied it himself.”

A nonexistent word is at home here.

Von Däniken’s invocation of Creighton is pure ipse dixit—an endorsement which some might regard as the kiss of death.

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Maurice Carthon
9/25/2020 12:08:26 pm

Various sources identify unequivocably as a nonstandard variation of unequivocally and the former has been attested in numerous published sources for some time now. Unless you elect to drastically change the definition of nonexistent then unequivocably is most certainly an existing word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unequivocably

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Martin Stower
9/25/2020 06:02:36 pm

Various other sources identify it as nonexistent.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=unequivocably+unequivocally

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22unequivocable+does+not+exist%22

For a word “nonstandard” is near enough to “nonexistent”.

There being no such thing as “the” definition of anything, I would not elect to try to change one. Members of the empty set I leave to their own devices.

Maurice Carthon
9/26/2020 11:34:57 am

Very "interesting" sources that you cite. But no thanks, I will stick with an actual dictionary. And it only takes one in this context to win the argument. Speaking of dictionary definitions:

Nonstandard: Not of the form that is accepted as standard.

Nonexistent: Not existing or not real or present.

If the word was nonexistent then I wouldn't be able to document said existence with a link to the Merriam friggin Webster dictionary. If the word is not found or used everywhere then that would make it, say it with me, nonstandard. Not nonexistent.

Please tell me that you aren't homeschooling young children.

Thanks for the Trivia
9/26/2020 08:28:03 pm

Unequivocably is also listed in the Collins English Dictionary. It also appears in The Free Dictionary as well as Wiktionary.

This isn't really a discussion that I care to get caught up in. My only interest being that I occasionally get talked into playing scrabble.The little debate here sparked my curiosity enough to spend ten minutes on a computer search. In addition to the sources above, it also turns out that unequivocably is recognized as a legitimate word in the game Scrabble and is worth 32 points according to the official game site.

Thank all of you for giving me an edge in my next game.



Martin Stower
9/26/2020 08:59:50 pm

No, Maurice, I am not “homeschooling young children”. Let’s hope you aren’t, after that remark.

We see that for you, it’s about “winning” an argument, however pointless and nitpicking.

I grant you it. The usage exists, however much a product of malapropism. For example, Collins lists “unequivocable” as “another word for unequivocal” (while clearly treating the latter as the standard form):

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/unequivocable

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/unequivocal

Now try finding “equivocable” or “unequivocable” in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary. I am sure that with your deep concern for schooling young children, you will consider it a suitable source.

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/unequivocal

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/unequivocal

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/equivocable

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/equivocable

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/unequivocable

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/unequivocable

In the intuitions of this native speaker, “nonstandard” applied to words is close in meaning to “nonexistent”—close enough to make your nitpicking silly.

Martin Stower
9/26/2020 10:32:34 pm

More trivia.

Wiktionary lists “unequivocably” as a “(proscribed) [n]onstandard form of unequivocally”:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unequivocably

The Free Dictionary lists “unequivocable (redirected from unequivocably)” as “another word for unequivocal”:

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/unequivocably

I am not sure what kind of existence one can properly grant to nonstandard words. One could fairly take “nonstandard” in this context to mean “nonexistent in standard English”.

My vague recollection of Scrabble is that it brings forth “words” which no one uses. Also that it excludes words (often loan words) which I know very well are used. Why is “judoka” there, but “budoka” and “karateka” not? It makes no linguistic sense.

Murton mot
9/30/2020 09:13:50 pm

Has anyone ever seen so many words used to argue about a nonexistent word?

Martin Stower
10/1/2020 04:56:45 pm

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=différance

Kent
10/1/2020 06:48:51 pm

"unequivocal" not equal
"unequivocable" not able to be made equal

Under the New Dispensation I am not able to say what I really think.

Patrick Leary
10/1/2020 10:42:09 pm

A word that is not supposed to be a word but is identified in dictionaries as a word for another word, but is nonexistent because it is described in the dictionaries that identify it as a word as a nonstandard word or alternative word that is used for another word. That would seem to make it a w-o-r-d.

In the future maybe Mr. Stower could use better judgement in choosing the right hill to die on or lobby Mr. Colavito to add an edit function to the site so that when he makes a poor word choice he can quickly correct things. This just isn't a good look for him.

Kent
10/2/2020 01:50:50 am

"Karateka" is a valid Scrabble word. Budoka is not. Budoka is not even a word in Japanese. The word is Bushi.

Under the New Dispensation I am not able to say what I really think.

Martin Stower
10/2/2020 07:48:51 am

On the important question of Scabble: “karateka” is recognised here:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/scrabble/scrabble-word-finder/

—but not here:

https://scrabble.hasbro.com/en-us/tools

So much for Hasbro.

As for “budoka” (武道家) not being a word in Japanese:

http://webhiden.jp/learn/category2/special/post_133.php

http://webhiden.jp/archive/dtail/post_55.php

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4062178869

Were it so, it would be a word in English and not in Japanese and so an even better example of a word excluded for no good reason.

Martin Stower
10/2/2020 08:03:24 am

Has Mr Leary shown good judgement in adding to this digression his original thoughts on the ontology of language?

Mr ain't
10/2/2020 08:07:31 pm

Never has one struggled so greatly to argue that a word is not a word .

Martin Stower
10/3/2020 01:15:18 pm

“Never has one struggled so greatly to argue that a word is not a word.”

Your assurance is surely of value. Doubtless you can dispel my puzzlement by specifying just what it is exists when we say that a word exists.

Corn pop
10/6/2020 11:34:41 am

Presence in multiple dictionaries that identify it as a word and define it is a major clue. You lost on this issue long ago. To continue would just be cruel.

I and others will be available to help you with any other problems that you experience with English in the future. But this case is closed even if you want to post more Ask Quora style links to dispute the obvious.

Make it a blessed day.



Martin Stower
10/6/2020 01:12:03 pm

“Duh! It’s in the dictionary!”

All questions of linguistics and ontology being settled by “looking it up in the dictionary”.

I don’t take instruction from those whose “understanding” remains at the plodders’s level. Sorry. I suggest you look up “Dunning-Kruger” when next you feel the urge to patronise.

Martin Stower
10/6/2020 06:11:53 pm

I would just point out to our sub-sophomoric pundits that talk of a supposed word “not existing” or there being “no such word” is itself common usage—and that in trying to proscribe it they are doing what they noisily condemn.

I concede that it takes more acumen to grasp this than they could muster collectively.

This is not a pipe
10/7/2020 11:12:27 am

In the future it may be a better use of time for people to point out the few occasions that Martin is right and just leave it as taken for granted that everything else is BS and ignore it. He obviously has all the time in the world to troll.

Martin Stower
10/8/2020 01:24:45 pm

“In the future it may be a better use of time for people to point out the few occasions that Martin is right and just leave it as taken for granted that everything else is BS and ignore it. He obviously has all the time in the world to troll.”

Readers brighter than the writer will not need my “pointing it out” that the above is, precisely, trolling.

Nor that the person who took time to write it is no judge of a good use of time.

Kent
10/9/2020 08:03:58 am

Tedium incarnate.

Martin Stower
10/9/2020 05:11:37 pm

“Tedium incarnate.”

It took you this long to notice?

Cesar
9/25/2020 04:49:56 pm

Martin

I appreciate the polite way you made the necessary corrections. The point is that Escobar would not welcome to his home an unknown foreigner (FBI?).

Thank you

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Kent
10/2/2020 09:42:22 pm

"Escobar would not welcome to his home an unknown foreigner"

SMFH. What part of "billionaire cocaine trafficker" do you not understand?

Bob Jase
9/24/2020 07:16:57 pm

EVD hasn't had a bew idea since he first thought of plagiarizing MotM.

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Martin Stower
9/25/2020 07:32:44 am

He had this idea:

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/father-crespi-and-the-toilet-tank-float-of-the-gods#:~:text=he%20fabricated%20his%20account%20of%20his%20visit%20to%20this%20cave

But of course he did not fabricate his account of his visit to Escobar.

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Martin Stower
9/25/2020 07:34:53 am

“EVD claims he turned down a later offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to Colombia on Escobar’s dime after discovering he was a brutal drug kingpin.”

Escobar was busy with other matters after 1988.

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max
9/25/2020 12:55:14 am

“ He alleges that the media are intentionally hiding these facts because of “powerful and greedy forces, who are opposed to uncovering true history and human evolution.””

Yes, nothing says greedy media like burying the biggest click-bait headline, newsworthy scoop of all time 🙄 That right there tells you it’s not true.

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Jim
9/25/2020 09:59:37 am

" who are opposed to uncovering true history and human evolution.”

Because people insist on clinging to a proud heritage of being evolved from the lower order of the ancestors of monkeys.

Maybe we don't want to admit we are also evolved from aliens that came to our planet because they wanted to impregnate monkey like critters.
Those aliens are some sick puppies, it sounds like no species in the universe are safe from their depraved attentions.

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Martin Stower
9/25/2020 08:05:11 am

“EVD claims he turned down a later offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to Colombia on Escobar’s dime after discovering he was a brutal drug kingpin.”

Escobar was busy with other matters after 1988.

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Who is MotM ?
9/25/2020 09:37:21 am

>>>EVD hasn't had a bew idea since he first thought of plagiarizing MotM.<<<

Who is MotM - or at least what do those letters stand for?

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Murgatroyd
9/25/2020 11:02:36 am

@WHO IS MOTM ?

"Morning of the Magicians," Pauwels, L., & Bergier, J. (1960 and subseq. edns.)

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Martin Stower
9/25/2020 12:04:50 pm

The Morning of the Magicians, by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. Original title: Le matin des magiciens. Title of some editions in English is The Dawn of Magic.

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Nerd11135
9/25/2020 01:39:30 pm

He probably means "Morning of the Magicians," which was a French ancient alien book that preceded VonDaniken's stuff.

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A soupçon of common sense
9/25/2020 11:23:49 pm

Thanks for clarifying, I thought it was a reference to the “Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Shane Sullivan
9/25/2020 12:07:08 pm

"A large section of the chapter summarizes Marzulli’s faulty claims from a few years ago about Near Eastern and alien DNA in elongated Peruvian skulls."

I had no idea Marzulli was making those claims in 1988!

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Extraterrestrial Taters
9/26/2020 09:59:58 am

I can't decide if that alien is made from a dried watermelon and mashed potatoes, or some form of cocaine paste. Some people I know would try to snort those fingers. Speaking of the fingers, there are only three. This means it has to be a fake. Colonel Corso's book said they had four fingers. The book then switched to six fingers before switching back to four fingers once again.

If that's a real mummy the mummifiers did a horrible job. You'd think one might wish to keep his man tool for the afterlife. I guess someone could have kept it as a cult object. I've heard a similar rumor regarding John Dillinger and a few other people.

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Kent
9/26/2020 08:46:32 pm

Two things that are totes adorbs:
You miss the Osiris reference, and
you use Corso for fact-checking of an obvious fraud.

If you were being sarcastic it's only one thing.

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Captain Hugh Moreless
9/26/2020 10:05:52 pm

Joking about everything except Dillinger's Blunderbuss. There is an urban legend that Dillinger's penis was so large someone at the Smithsonian decided to hold on to it. This story is almost as famous as Richard Gere gerbils. If the story of Dillinger's rocket launcher is untrue, it makes one wonder who would come up with something like that. Nevermind. I forgot to whom I'm speaking.

E.P. Grondine
9/27/2020 11:15:45 am

Hi Jason

For all of your ancient aliens shopping needs:
https://www.adventuresunlimitedpress.com/index.php

Note carefully that Kempton is right next door to Stelle.
Feel free to differ, but IMO, ancient aliens is a real step up from Theosophy.

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Hilda Hilpert
9/28/2020 11:22:03 am

You mentioned the Third Secret of Fatima. As a Roman Catholic, i and every other member of the Church has heard of this. The Virgin Mary told the children at Fatima that the present war (ww1) was ending, but if people didn't repent, there would even be a worse war (WW2) Said Russia was in error and a danger to the rest of the world.Now you can add communist China to this list.
There was mention of a third secret which was to be revealed only to the pope. What ever it is, has never been released, and Rome always hems and haws, and comes up with excuses as to what it could be.Does it deal with the so called Sons of God, who came down and mated with human women, have no clue. Is this why it has never truly been revealed, because of aliens? Who can say.

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Kent
9/29/2020 11:26:42 pm

I can say.

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Lyn McConchie
9/29/2020 01:36:46 am

I read this and was mildly surprised that Erich Von Daniken was still alive. I'd assumed he had died some time ago since I first read some of his work in the late '60s. Considering what he has been writing I can only wonder that he has not been swept up in a firey chariot anyhow.

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Joe Scales
9/30/2020 09:55:13 am

Yes, he has lived so long. Could it be... ALIENS???

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Kent
10/5/2020 12:27:56 am

It took a while but I'm finally done laughing about "700 tons of dynamite".

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Martin Stower
10/5/2020 01:38:16 pm

Really?

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Kent
10/5/2020 07:47:45 pm

Jokes are never as funny when you have to explain them but I'll try.

Three million sticks of dynamite.

Martin Stower
10/6/2020 01:28:06 pm

I was asking if you were really done laughing, on the model of “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Were you really laughing, at so weak a “joke”?

I doubt it will suprise or upset you if I say that I find your “humour” deeply humourless.

Martin Stower
10/6/2020 06:48:23 pm

Spot the typo. It’s a hoot.

Martin Stower
7/24/2021 03:00:30 pm

The German of von Däniken’s citation of Creighton (p. 79):

Inzwischen wissen wir es besser. Der britische Forscher Scott Creighton konnte klipp und klar beweisen, dass Oberst Howard Vyse, der die rote Inschrift entdeckt haben will, sie selbst angebracht hatte. Dies geschah im Jahre 1835 und mit Hieroglyphen, die es zu Chufus (Cheops) Zeiten gar nicht gab. Scott Creighton formulierte es in der Zeitschrift Nexus so [44]:

»Es gibt einen eindeutigen Beweis - er stammt von Vyse persönlich und bestätigt zweifellos, dass er in der Cheops-Pyramide betrogen hat.«

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Martin Stower
7/24/2021 03:08:35 pm

Von Däniken’s citation of Creighton put into something like English for publication by New Page Books:

Now, we know better. British researcher Scott Creighton was able to prove unequivocably that Colonel Howard Vyse, who claimed to have discovered the red inscription, had applied it himself. It was written in 1835 with hieroglyphs that did not exist at Chufu’s (Cheops) times. Scott Creighton formulated it in the journal Nexus: “There’s clear evidence—it’s from Vyse himself and undoubtedly confirms he lied about the Cheops Pyramid.”

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Charles Verrastro link
7/24/2021 03:54:53 pm

At the time Von Daniken first wrote the Vyse inscription was still a subject of debate among scholars. The whole question of which pharaoh commissioned the Great Pyramid has been put to bed with new manuscript, inscriptions, and understanding of how the actual engineering and transport of the stones was accomplished.
Whether Cheops lived long enough to see it's completion or was laid to rest in the chamber tomb is another matter, But the dating of both the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid are more clearly known.
It always struck me how the subject has always been structured around the Great Pyramid in isolation from other Egyptian works. The other two pyramids at Giza have always been admitted to have followed soon after, and are no less wonders of engineering. Yet I can't recall any great effort to invoke magical incantations, alchemically generated molten blocks, or aliens for them, let alone the maiden efforts of the earlier pyramids. If technologically advanced wisdom, either from ancient vanished civilization like Atlantis or from 'Outer Space Gods' laid the blueprints and expertise of how to construct them why did the first efforts fail on such simple engineering errors?

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Martin Stower
7/24/2021 05:55:39 pm

The wording which actually appears in NEXUS (Vol. 21, No. 4, June–July 2014):

“However, the most damning evidence of all comes from Vyse’s own hand, and it shows beyond reasonable doubt that he did perpetrate a deception within the Great Pyramid.”

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Martin Stower
8/2/2021 07:20:19 pm

I thought this one had slipped through the cracks. Hence repetition.

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Martin Stower
7/28/2021 08:32:13 am

Consulting the article cited (“The Great Pyramid Fraud Revisited”: NEXUS, Vol. 21, No. 4, June–July 2014), the nearest I can find to the attributed wording is this:

“However, the most damning evidence of all comes from Vyse's own hand, and it shows beyond reasonable doubt that he did perpetrate a deception within the Great Pyramid.”

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Martin Stower
8/2/2021 07:42:22 pm

So: the translation into German was loose in the first place and the translation of “er in der Cheops-Pyramide betrogen hat” as “he lied about the Cheops Pyramid” is wrong. The result is only distantly related to what Creighton actually wrote. Material of this kind is rarely accorded the dignity of careful recovery of quotes. Here we have an example.

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