Talk:Omen

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This article contains some information which is pure psuedoscientific opinion and conjecture. Also some issues with conforming to an encyclopedic npov. Will cleanup later. Entropic 19:05, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

64.12.116.66, please stop replacing the Diana bit. The article could probably use some examples of "real omens", but "x happened on the day of a solar eclipse, and then y happened the day after a lunar eclipse" doesn't qualify. If I get around to it, I'll come back-- but for now, shorter is better. (Sorry- I confess I didn't know how to sign when I first posted this. But now: QuixoticKate 04:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Everyone -- This Diana eclipse thing is just an example of what an omen or portent consists of -- it's just an example, nothing more, so you should leave it. And all of the eclipse dates and data check out, research it yourself here ------------> http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/when_search.shtml (this loads slowly)

I suppose this isn't worth disputing at this point in this articles life-- I understand that these eclipses happened when the article says they did, I just think (as written), it's a poor example--but since I don't currently have any others, and since there's more than one person vouching for the Diana/eclipse thing, leaving it is ok with me. QuixoticKate 04:15, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Black cat

18`12`2006 I have lived in Britain all my life, and ime familiar with the notion 't a black catt crossing one's path is bad luck on the ground 't witches keep black cats. 30odd years back, ie heard 't s0me people maintain the oppozite, but ive never met one. So nu the example should be ditched.
Froggo Zijgeb 04:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

How do you not include Mesopotamia?!

anybody who knows more- just a suggestion, thats the birth place of omen

omen

The omen is a song from the progidy and this why all of us came on to Wikpedia for omen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.101.209.246 (talk) 09:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I am a Latin teacher giving a lesson on Roman religious beliefs. I viewed this article to decide whether it offers anything for my students. I am frankly astounded at the proposed etymology of the word omen, though I understand that the writer said "are possibly". I am confident that it comes from the elemental sound /o/ (long o) that represents speech in several Latin words: os, oris, mouth; oro, orare, speak, and later pray; oraculum, oracle; plus the suffix -men, which converts a verb to a noun, as in acumen and foramen. So it means "a speaking" as of deities to humans. I would not dispute that omentum might come from omen, because entrails were in fact used to determine omens, but I cannot believe the reverse origin proposed in the article. Can anyone with more formal awareness and sources comment or amend this?Ferrarama (talk) 16:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I have decided to save the original text for the etymology of the word omen in this talk stub in the event that a source for it can be found later, but frankly all of the sources I have found contradict the article's current content on the word's meaning.

"The modern word ‘omen’ and its derivatives (e.g., ominous) are derived from the Latin ‘ōmen’, possibly further derived from the Latin word ‘omentum’ which means ‘apron’. An omentum is the apron like anatomical structure made of fatty tissue covering the intestines of most animals’ (or humans’) abdomen. The inspection of an animal's omentum was a practice frequently used for thousands of years (spanning from Classical Greek society to the late Roman era) by priests in order to predict the future. In ancient societies where religious rituals were interweaved with mythological beliefs, the ‘mystic art’ of reading the internal organs of sacrificed animals was deeply respected and very much accepted. The priests would inspect the internal organs of all animals which were sacrificed to the Gods and would deduct important information concerning the future (harvest, wars, politics, weather, city prosper, etc.). One of the most important organs which were inspected or ‘read’ was the ever present abdominal omentum whose diversity in appearance (length, breadth, density, etc.) granted great flexibility to the soothsayers’ ability of interpretation. Thus all deduced prophecies arising from the appearance of the ‘omentum’ were naturally ‘ominous’ in nature."

Travza (talk) 3:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

not encyclopedic

Why are the strange, lengthy lists of auspicious things and people included? This article needs weeded of the weirdness and fleshed out to avoid being a stub. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.9.196.2 (talk) 01:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Merging / New Article For Indian Astrology

I'm thinking it may be prudent to branch off the Indian Astrology section of this article in the hopes of removing unnecessary data. Travza (talk) 22:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)