Addendum: just now finding out that Jackie Chan sucks. Ignore my previous concerns. Go for that Oscar gold!

I promise you Trump is not even half as intelligent as Lrrr, Ruler of the Planet Omicron Persei VIII.

All that aside I have to be clear I’m in no way a RETVRN weirdo, f*** the past I’m not going back there, but I enjoy learning and thinking about it a bunch

And in the eyes of Romans, Germanic women were seen as much more assertive and free-willed than Roman women. But of course Roman society was intensely patriarchal as well.

Like, being accused of being an ergi wasn’t a declaration that a man was bad because of who he f—ed with & how, but an implication that he lacked honor because he was too weak to fight other men to the death, which was a big deal for reasons.

And while women in pre-Christian germanic cultures weren’t exactly swimming in agency and autonomy, they weren’t really much better off after Christianization if we’re keeping it a buck.

A lot of misunderstanding of the norse concept of ‘argr’ in particular has given some folks the idea that early germanic peoples were broadly homophobic etc, but it’s not so simple.

The full picture of gender roles & ‘manhood’ in particular in early germanic cultures is of course more complicated, but not as black & white as some seem to think.

It is remarkable that the pair *bugjaną / *baugaz still exhibits the PIE ablaut, rather than a simple denominal verb like **baugōną or something, which might indicate that the practice of exchanging torcs etc. for goods and services might go back even to pre-Proto-Germanic times.

A general term for such circular/ring-shaped metal accessories was Proto-Germanic *baugaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bhewgh- ‘to bend or bow’. It is not such a stretch to think the word ‘buy’, PG *bugjaną is etymologically ‘to exchange torcs/ wristlets/ *baugōs for sth.’ #dennydoeswords