Today I learned +

[Bohandas]

As for W, It really does make a sound like two "u"s except for the absence of a slight waver. Imagine taking a word with a 'w' in it, such as 'word' 'news' 'west' or 'knew' with 'uu'. It's more or less the same. Or imagine replacing the 'u' in 'queen' with 'w'. It still works

 

[trappedslider]

TIL: In 2005, a psychologist and an economist taught a group of monkeys the concept of money - Soon, the monkeys began to engage in prostitution.

 

[Staffan]

TIL: In 2005, a psychologist and an economist taught a group of monkeys the concept of money - Soon, the monkeys began to engage in prostitution.

Oldest profession and so on.

 

[MoonSong]

Oldest profession and so on.

I was about to say that...

 

[CleverNickName]

Oldest profession and so on.

I hear this all the time and I don't disagree, but I keep wondering: why isn't Hunter considered the oldest profession? or Fisherman?

In order to trade things for, um, "special attention," you would first need to have those things on hand, yes? You can't really trade a bag of apples for something unless you first foraged up a bag of apples...so technically the first profession would have been "apple forager," right?

 

[billd91]

I hear this all the time and I don't disagree, but I keep wondering: why isn't Hunter considered the oldest profession? or Fisherman?

Maybe because there's a semantic difference between a profession and a role or job within a community. Profession generally connotes a more specialized calling - the kind of thing that might not strictly be based on community subsistence or basic necessities.

 

[MoonSong]

I hear this all the time and I don't disagree, but I keep wondering: why isn't Hunter considered the oldest profession? or Fisherman?

When these jobs appeared, communities lived by gift economies. There was no trade(commerce) except for long distance exchanges. Once money was actually a thing, then these jobs evolved into professions.

 

[Staffan]

I hear this all the time and I don't disagree, but I keep wondering: why isn't Hunter considered the oldest profession? or Fisherman?

In order to trade things for, um, "special attention," you would first need to have those things on hand, yes? You can't really trade a bag of apples for something unless you first foraged up a bag of apples...so technically the first profession would have been "apple forager," right?

I'm thinking it's because hunting or foraging is something you primarily do for yourself, and then expanded to your family and/or tribe. You go off, throw a spear at a deer, and then you have a dead deer to eat. A profession is doing something for someone else and then getting something in return.

 

[jian]

Yes, profession often means "something you pay someone to do", like lawyer, doctor, accountant, soldier, or sex worker. We probably didn't pay each other to do hunting and farming initially because we didn't have money.

Profession can also mean "group of people whom you pay to do something, who may form organisations for mutual protection, quality control, or price fixing" and again that's not really a hunting/farming thing, at least initially.

Edit: realised I’d got a phrase wrong in the second paragraph.

 

[Koloth]

Saw this topic: I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism
and looked up the word 'bioessentialism'. And now I have yet another use for that 10' pole so popular in early editions.