#imperialistic

It's not just Silicon Valley: Here's the history behind imperialistic technology that's permeated the Bay Area for 500 years

Excerpted from “A People’s History of Silicon Valley: How the Tech Industry Exploits Workers, Erodes Privacy and Undermines Democracy ,” by Keith A. Spencer, on sale now  from major booksellers. © 2018 Eyewear Publishing. Reprinted with permission.

Though Silicon Valley is regarded as one of the most affluent, productive economic centers on the planet, it is hard to imagine a more generic land…

Looking up the etymology of Elephant in different languages.... and I discovered something interesting.

English

elephant (n.) c. 1300, olyfaunt, from Old French olifant (12c., Modern French éléphant), from Latin elephantus, from Greek elephas (genitive elephantos) "elephant; ivory," probably from a non-Indo-European language, likely via Phoenician (compare Hamitic elu "elephant," source of the word for it in many Semitic languages, or possibly from Sanskrit ibhah "elephant"). Re-spelled after 1550 on Latin model. Cognate with the common term for the animal in Romanic and Germanic; Slavic words (for example Polish slon', Russian slonu are from a different word. Old English had it as elpend, and compare elpendban, elpentoð "ivory," but a confusion of exotic animals led to olfend "camel." As an emblem of the Republican Party in U.S. politics, 1860. To see the elephant "be acquainted with life, gain knowledge by experience" is an American English colloquialism from 1835. The elephant joke was popular 1960s-70s.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=elephant&allowed_in_frame=0

Korean:

Elephant is Kokirri. It means “long nose” literally.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EC%BD%94%EB%81%BC%EB%A6%AC

Sanskrit:

Elephant is Gaja or Kunjara.

I had to ask someone about the Sanskrit for Elephant, who asked a friend that specialized in it. Sanskrit for Elephant is: Gaja. Which loosely means “Supremely powerful,” lt also refers to its size. Loosely paraphrased from the person. "Gaja also is a measure of length and also means a mound of earth on can construct a house on. Kunjara is another word for elephant which literally means ‘moving mountain’”

Conclusion:

Indians thought, “Oh, hey, we can put it to work.” Koreans thought, “What an unusual nose it has.” and people who spoke English, Greek, French, German, Russians all thought, “Oh hey! Let’s kill it for profit.” Ah, those weird white people.

Ahhh... Says a ton about those cultures, doesn’t it?

BTW, another linguistic joke i that English uses “to be” to conjugate most verbs.

Korean use “hada” meaning “to do.” showing that Koreans like hard work... Are English speakers lazy, then?

To do or not to do, that is the question.