“Gnomon” (Gnomon Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com) is a rich word, made richer by Joyce in Dubliners and subsequent works, and has engendered all sorts of lit essays depending on the various meanings that can be ascribed to him or are the stimulating (one hopes) fancy of the critic.
Be that as it may, I read a new one in etymonline, under “mule” (mule | Search Online Etymology Dictionary),
“vertical shaft that tells time by the shadow it casts” (especially the triangular plate on a sundial), 1540s, from Latin gnomon, from Greek gnomon “indicator (of a sundial), carpenter’s rule,” also, in plural, “the teeth that mark the age of a horse or mule,” literally “one that discerns or examines,” from gignoskein “to come to know” (see gnostic (adj.)). In geometry from 1560s, from a use in Greek. In early use in English sometimes folk-etymologized as knowman. Related: Gnomonic [ital added]
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Anyone of the equine persuasion ever heard of this?
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I’ve heard the expression “long in the tooth,” although I’m not sure if it comes from the horse world. Does this (“gnomons”) then mean “certain teeth the growth of which shoe particularly clearly” an time-length relationship? (Wow, space-time enters…)
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Or is it a case of whether certain teeth are present or absent after a certain age? I think human molars are like that, roughly but not necessarily.
Sub query 1), also a fun fact:
Etymonline tells us (cite as above) “jarhead” was slang for “mule” way before the Marines. Doesn’t mean that modern users of the term associated it with that; the visual haircut always seemed to me to be the source…Maybe I’m wrong?
Fun fact 2, because of the domain name in the URL above:
At one essential level Finnegans Wake is predicated on what Joyce tells us, right there in the book, the “abnihilization of the Etym”: results already known in physics (FW was published in 1939) as powerful as his were in language.