Dear Klaus,

This is a quick reply to note that I did not post my list, but the entry on the word “thing” from the Oxford English Dictionary. I posted it to demonstrate that the etymology of the word “thing” does not suggest an assembly of objects. And I posted it so that those who wish to do so may assess for themselves what the word meant and means, and how it descended.

I agree with you. As I wrote in my own comments, there is a difference between the thing [ting], an assembly of human beings, and the thing [ding, sache, zaak] about which human beings might make a decision.

The human thing [ting] may be legislative or judicial. The nature of the early assembly was such that the thing [ting] might sometimes fill both functions. In some nations, the parliament or a subcommittee of parliament served both functions. Until the UK established its Supreme Court, the a group of people from the House of Lords served as the highest court of appeal.      

In either case, the thing [ting] is a democratic assembly of peers, equals. The meaning of what it was to be a “peer” changed significantly since the feudal regime that followed the Norman conquest of the Anglo-Saxons and British descendants of the Scandinavians inhabiting the Danelaw. England that was once governed by the wapentake, an Anglo-Saxon thing [ting] that elected English kings. The Magna Carta brought trial by a jury of peers to the feudal Anglo-Normans, and it’s been a slow evolution back to democracy ever since. At different times, elders, nobility, prelates, men of property, men only, and now all men and women exercised the vote for representation in the assembly or sat in the assembly as representatives.

I like your analysis and I agree with you.

Warm wishes,
 
Ken

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—snip—

ken listed an overwhelming set of historical definitions of "thing".  i cannot possibly comment on that list, but i have looked through some of its entries to discover a pattern of distinctions among the many uses of thing, ting, ding etc.  let me clarify their distinction in german: 
 
a "ting" refers to an ancient germanic form of a meeting. kens lists judicial purposes at several places. they are always arranged in a circle. it probably is the oldest form of local democracy, but were perhaps reserved for elders. the circular arrangements of tings suggests that there was no single authority. i have seen such meeting places preserved in scandinavia, on gotland for example 
 
prototypically, a "ding" refers to an inanimate object without reference to its categorization. it probably is closest to the english thing and has nothing to do with meetings. 
 
ken's list includes several uses of ding in conjunction with humans, always negative. this is due to a consistent use of dual vocabularies for humans and other creatures or objects in german. for example drinking, humans "trinken," animals "saufen" but when humans are uncivilized or drunk they "saufen." examples are numerous humans "essen" while animals "fressen" while in english both are eating. similarly, when humans are referred to as a "ding" then their human qualities are denied in favor of their subhuman or material properties. and owner's object, not worth talking with, mindless. you would not easily see this when listing only the uses of the word "ding" 
 
in any case, in german "ting" and "ding" are unrelated. 

—snip—


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