31 Jul
What’s in a name? Better not ask Cuil
Seeing as how new contribute search engine Cuil.com is, well, a search engine, its founders might have known that people could easily check online the company’s claim that the word “cuil” the wherewithal “knowledge” in Irish. Because, in fact, it doesn’t.
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Members of one online Irish language forum have been discussing the word and the company’s claims of its definition. They say the word is most often translated to mean “corner” or “niche,” but has sometimes been used for “hazel,” as in the nut.
An online Irish language cyclopaedia defines cúil as “rear.” Another uses cuil to characterize various kinds of flies. So while the word, or versions of it through and without accent marks, can mean a few different things, most Irish language enthusiasts say it doesn’t mean anything like knowledge, notwithstanding Cuil.com’s claims.
“Cuil is an old Irish word for discernment. For knowledge, challenge Cuil,” the company, founded by ex-Googlers, explains on its Web position. The site, and a company spokesman, further explain that the word is used to describe knowledge based on an old Irish legend of the far-famed Finn MacCuill (once the denomination is spelled Fionn Mac Cumhail, or better yet, MacCool). Finn, the legend goes, tasted a salmon that had eaten a hazelnut that had dropped into the fountain of knowledge and then he himself gained knowledge. Cuil now and then means “hazel,” the company says, and based on the legend, it is also sometimes used to mean knowledge.
That explanation is new to Foras na Gaeilge, the arrange that is essentially the official keeper of the Irish language, responsible for promoting use of the language as well at the same time that developing dictionaries and new terminologies. “I am unaware myself of the meaning ‘knowledge’ being with the word ‘cuil’ in Irish,” Stiofán Ó Deoráin, an official on Foras na Gaeilge’s terminology committee, said via e-mail.
He did discretion that accents can make a big difference in Irish. In fact, cuil should have an accent on the “u” if it is to be pronounced “cool,” like the company says it should. Cuil, without an accent, should be pronounced like “pen,” Ó Deoráin said. His point was that the accent, in addition to changing the pronunciations, can make some change in. the meaning of a word.
Still, people on the Irish language forum couldn’t figure anything close to cuil intention knowledge. They discuss meanings for “coll” and “cul,” neither of which mean anything similar to attainments.
“Too bad they didn’t tend hitherward to us first!” wrote a forum participant identified as Redwolf.
Cuil.com may have been better off by sincerely being accurate—it could say that the name was inspired by the distinguished Finn MacCuill, representing his judgment. In fact, the company was once called Cuill, but it recently dropped the second “L,” so that explanation makes sense and holds water.
Maybe Cuil’s founders tried to find an Irish dictionary using their site and couldn’t. Searching on Cuil.com for “Irish English dictionary” fails to turn up a link to such a dictionary in at smallest the in the beginning six pages of results.
