Comments on: Ur

By: Lee

Lee — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:58:03 +0000

Spaten Oktoberfest, Ur-Marzen

By: Barry Breen

Barry Breen — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 06:31:33 +0000

I’m reading a book by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Le Ton Beau de Marot, about language, translation and anything else he could think of, in which he uses ur to denote the original – as in ur-dog and ur-joke. So there can be an ur-anything. You can use the little critter in front of just about anything if you are trying to impress people who will be impressed by such things.

By: Yael

Yael — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:33:52 +0000

Better late than never, I suppose.
As far as I remember, ‘ur’ or ‘uru’ simply means ‘city’ – in Sumerian, I believe (yes, I’m on the internet and can easily check, but eh, it’s late). For example, the name of ‘Jerusalem’ is probably ultimately detived from Uru Shalem, ‘city of Shalem’ (said Shalem was one of the local gods).

By: Linda H.

Linda H. — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:54:26 +0000

And two years after you, I just looked up “the meaning of the prefix ‘ur’ ” in Google because I am reading Thomas Covenant and came across the prefix!

By: Cal

Cal — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:00:10 +0000

I’m running about a year late here but it’s worth noting that in addition to pedants, science fiction fans would have run across ur- in the Thomas Covenant series (where I picked up the word as a child).

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:24:04 +0000

Nice article, but giving us the emaning of “Ur”, as in the one in Iraq, would have been nice.
Hint, hint.