re: #1264 Cato the Elder

Are you an Arabist? My brother is. I’ll run your argument by him and see what he says, but I’m not just gonna buy it. I wonder how “close” the word “shalom” - from the same Semitic root S-L-M - is to other Hebrew words that might mean something similar to “submission” or whatever. I don’t think you can make a lexical case for what you’re saying without running into big semantic-Semitic trouble.

My do-don’t example was indeed weak. A better one might be “restful” and “restive”, which both come from the Latin verb “restare” yet mean opposite things. No one who knows what “restive” means thinks it has anything to do with resting. The common root is immaterial.

In Hebrew, Shalom not only means peace, but wholeness. Someone who is complete, or whole, is at peace with himself; a group of people who are whole are also at peace with each other.