From: user5108@newsgrouper.org.invalid   
      
   Ross Clark  posted:   
      
   > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary   
   >   
   > (I can't help remembering this as the weekend we arrived in Rome and the   
   > reason the Sistine Chapel was closed.)   
   >   
   > This is a public holiday in quite a few countries: France, Italy, Spain,   
   > Portugal, Malta, Croatia, Lithuania, according to my list. Also Greece   
   > and Cyprus, under the name "Dormition of the Mother of God". In Costa   
   > Rica it doubles as Mother's Day, and in Poland as Armed Forces Day.   
   >   
   > So what links "assume/assumption" in   
   >   
   > "Assume the cow is a sphere..."   
   > "Assume the position!"   
   >   
   > with the "assumption of Mary, body and soul, into Heaven" (Wiki, citing   
   > Munificentissimus Deus, 1/11/1950)?   
   >   
   > Latin, of course: assūmere 'take' < ad + sūmere.   
   > The IE root of which is ....*em(!).   
   > Because < *sus(e)m, where sus is a variant of sub 'up from under' (per   
   > Watkins). The bare root is in emere 'obtain, buy'.   
   >   
   > Note that in the various everyday senses the subject is doing the   
   > "taking", but in Mary's case she is being "taken" - not making an   
   > assumption, but being assumed.   
   >   
   > Now what about "Dormition"?  In English this is just a rather rare   
   > Latinism for sleeping or falling asleep, but particularly used for the   
   > "death of the righteous" (OED).   
   >   
   > Somewhere long ago I learned that in Russian this is Успение (Uspenie)   
   > -- something like "away-sleeping". The very famous church in Moscow, the   
   > Cathedral of the Dormition, uses the adjectival form: Успенский   
   собор.   
   >   
   > What it's called in Greek took a little longer to find, but it's   
   > κοίμησις (koimēsis) from κοιμαν 'put to sleep'. (Watkins has   
   an IE root   
   > *kei 'to lie; bed,couch; beloved, dear'.) Apparently the only English   
   > word we have from this Greek verb is "cemetery".   
   >   
   > Enough etymology for one day.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)