Talk:Scape

The meaning of scape

The word scape is very old indeed. It turns up colloquially in ordinary language:

• e-scape

and of course in art:

• land-scape
• sea-scape

I propose to create a proper encyclopedic article on scape. (MihalOrela (talk) 14:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

"-scape"

Just checked the Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) of Current English (1990). The main result is that e-scape does NOT agree with land-scape, moon-scape, etc. The suffix "-spape" does indeed have the meaning of

• forming nouns denoting a view or a representation of a view

(MihalOrela (talk) 15:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

"scape"

For completeness, the other use of "scape" is exactly as given in the Wikipedia redirections regarding biology.

(MihalOrela (talk) 15:22, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

"e-scape"

Finally, "e-scape" does NOT (according to the COD of Current English 1990) really mean "out of scape" i.e. "out of view" (although it can be reasonably interpreted this way, since the prefix "e-" is indeed like "ex-" meaning "out of").

(MihalOrela (talk) 15:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

Again according to the COD of Current English (1990) "escape" may be traced back to escaper (which suggests a French lookup) and that it in turn comes from the Latin ex+cappa where cappa is a cloak. (MihalOrela (talk) 15:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

"escaper"

Dating from approximately 1080 (Le Robert Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue Française) échapper (to escape) comes from the popular Latin "excappare" == to get out of the "chape"; it is the "chape" which turns out to be full of surprises. The biggest of all for the modern reader is its relation to "le Chapéron Rouge" (Little Red Riding Hood)!

Clearly, the scape of e-scape is chape. However, it is also very surprising that although the etymology differs, it is a fact that e-scape (to get away, i.e. by letting go of one's (hooded) cloak) does have the modern ambiguous meaning to get out of sight.

(MihalOrela (talk) 15:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

Scape page?

Perhaps preserving at least the Talk page will alert others like me to the fact that there is a radical (!) distinction between the scape of e-scape and the sacpe of land-scape, etc. :) In other words, the research has been done and I do wonder how many times... (MihalOrela (talk) 15:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

Further research has led to a big surprise. It appears that the noun échappée (1490, eschappee; 1475 in a Swiss Romande text) (Le Petit Robert) lost its original sense of the "action to escape" and took on a figurative meaning. Concretely, it designated a space which allowed something to be seen, (1629, échappée de vue) with respect to painting, architecture, etc. This undoubtedly brings the modern "-scape" of landscape etc., into existence.

So! The two are indeed joined around the 17th century! Worth an article I think? (MihalOrela (talk) 16:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC))