Linguistic Origins of "Hermeneutic of Continuity"
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    When I first came across the phrase "a hermeneutic of continuity," it made no sense to me because the word "hermeneutic" is an adjective, at least in English. Do we know the actual origin of its usage as a noun? The Oxford English Dictionary had nothing.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,175
    Are you sure? Merriam-Webster gives hermeneutic as a noun (plural, but singular or plural in const.), hermeneutical as the associated adjective.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    I dunno, Doug, I remember first hearing the term back in undergrad, 70's. For being a thesaurus shill, I also remember thinking it to be a bogus word that'd gained cred, like "copasetic," a jive term that Cab Calloway rapped at the Cotton Club but ended up in the MW and other tomes. Wha' do I know, dat's jus' how things roll, word.
    H of continuity, H of rupture, H of sinus congestion, H of Hermoine Gingold....
    I need an Atavan.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,175
    Apparently the word was used as early as 1737.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    And over-used in 2012~ ;-)
    Thanked by 2Gavin CHGiffen
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    I am very familiar with the term "hermeneutics" as a branch or practice of literary and biblical criticism, but not "hermeneutic" as a singular thing.

    Here is the earliest entry in OED for the singular form:

    "1967 J. Macquarrie God-talk vii. 148 We could say that history is the hermeneutic of historical existence, or even that physics..is the hermeneutic of nature."
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    (Which makes Charles C's timeline about right!)
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