[Buddha-l] Big is beautiful (was: Review of a review)

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Dan,


> I believe the French word grand(e) plays a similar game.


Not really. Grand is more vertical (lofty) whereas I see big mostly as
horizontal (expansive). Un grand homme, un grand monsieur, un grand geste,
un grand pays (generous and with lofty ideals)... Although a big spender
(like our current president) would indeed be translated as a grand dépenseur
(or dépensier). And Grand pays doesn't have the same ring as grand empire,
but I guess that is due to empire.

Joy


> And, if Zhuangzi
> (Chuang Tzu) is to be believed, the Chinese term da (big, great, grand,
> etc.) similarly was bigger than merely a size descriptor, and served as the
> foundation for evaluative hierarchies. (See Zhuangzi ch. 17 and my
> "Zhuangzi's Aporetic Ethics" in _Hiding the World in the World: Uneven
> Discourses on the Zhuangzi_, ed. by Scott Cook).
>
> Dan
>
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