mysterious greek word

That sounds close to ICHTHUS.

IXΘUΣ

Could it be?

FISH?

Sorry, meant to say:
ICHTHYS
ΙΧΘΥΣ

I am reminded of an incident from a few years back. A friend of mine was expanding his remodeling business and planned on making up some business cards. He wanted a catchy phrase to go beneath his company name.

I told him to try "Materiam superabat opus"

"What the hell does that mean, Gus?", he asked, and I informed him that it meant, to the best of my knowledge anyway, something to the effect of the workmanship surpassing the material.

He really like the sounds of it and decided to go with it. A week later he yelled for me as I was crossing the street. I ambled over to his truck where he was reaching into a box on the seat.

"Here", he said, "Have one of my cards. It was your idea."

I looked at the card. It read:

David Whitestone
Carpenter
Maperiam superabat opus

I looked at the card and said, "Not Maperiam, Dave, it should read "Materiam". You used a "p" instead of a "t".

He looked at me, shrugged, and said, "Big deal. Who the hell reads latin anyways?"


He distributed all the cards and his business is still flourishing to this day.

This is actually a rather common sign. Many people may not recall it, but the "fish decals" which Christians put on their automobiles first began to appear in the late 1970s, and at that time "Ichthus" (i'm not going to bother to change the keyboard setting in order to do the Greek) would appear in Greek letters inside the stylized fish symbol. The point is that it refers to Matthew Chapter 4, verse 19: (in the King James Version)

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

The symbology was obscure and uncommon, but not unknown in Christian art and literary illustration. It has proliferated widely since the creation of the automobile decal.



Although the original post describes something slightly different--placing eta where chi appears in "ichthus," i strongly suspect that this is what the author refers to, and the company to for which she works has a Christian origin--one of the founders or a benefactor of the company.

Those who are called, or who call themselves, secular humanists have parodied this symbol with their "walking fish" symbol:

The described word in the first post would look like this:

"Ι ΗΘΥΣ" - which doesn't have any meaning in Greek. The closest to it is:

"ΗΘΟΣ" - which means character.

Taken into account that the word was written in a fish, it should as a matter of fact be:

"ΙΧΘΥΣ" - however this is a very uncommon, old-Greek form. Nowadays Greek say:

"ΙΧΘΙΟΣ" or "ΨΑΡΙ".

I guess the story of gustavratzenhofer would be applicable in this case as well:D.

The described word in the first post would look like this:

- which doesn't have any meaning in Greek. The closest to it is:

- which means character.

Taken into account that the word was written in a fish, it should as a matter of fact be:

- however this is a very uncommon, old-Greek form. Nowadays Greek say:

or

I guess the story of gustavratzenhofer would be applicable in this case as well:D.

P.S. Sorry for the double post, couldn't edit the first message.

; In ancient greek means fish, but are the initials of:

Iesous Christos Theos Uios Soter

"Jesus Christ, son of god, savior"

So the fish was an ancient symbol for earlier christians

Thanks everyone, this is interesting.

The word in the fish is the first one in Maggies post. She says it doesn't mean anything so I suspect someone made a mistake while trying to spell the word Raphillon mentioned.
I asked the manager about the owners of the company and they turned out to be christians indeed.
A bit of a stupid mistake if you ask me

There's a space between the iota and the eta though. That's a bit weird...

zomg remember teh genitive!!!1!


It's actually

Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter.

I know that's incredibly nit-picky, but in the Greek it makes a pretty big difference.

Reminds me of the time I was in Germany and asked to give a speech to the people of West Berlin, which was a deliteful little enclave of people who dressed in Cowboy outfits and rode horses. Wellsir , I got up there on the podium and after a few opening remarks which were rather of no consequence i made the statement that was technically not quite correct
"Ich bin ein Berliner"
and everyone just laughed .
Well I meant well.

Waitaminute,

so you DIDN'T mean that you were a jelly doughnut? o.O

Re: zomg remember teh genitive!!!1!


Of course you are right sorry for the mispelling.