Talk:Hythloth

Just a quick note, that Hythloth is a very old English word meaning Pride. This being the case, it technically is the opposing Dungeon to Humility, although it can potentially also oppose Spirituality.

However, Spirituality should technically be opposed by Doom, as the word doom means an unescapable destiny or fate, while spirituality is the one thing (at least on Britannia) that allows for an individual to ignore Fate and make their own path.

Although this could be argued against (and there are a plethora of good points to say it is wrong), there is no Dungeon named Pride (which technically there should be if every Virtue has an opposite), and as Hythloth is what it is, then it must oppose Humiliy.

This is issue is further confused by the Shrine of Humility being situated on the Isle of the Avatar, although this is also the entrance the original Stygian Abyss, a dungeon which more than likely connected to Doom when they were both still open.

However, the point is still up for debate, as Ultima IV seems to have complicated matters with its description of Humility versus Pride.

"Hythloth" is not a "very old English word". Not. Wrong. You might be confusing Anglo-Saxon (sometimes called Old English) with a version of English which is old, but Anglo-Saxon is not English. Second, as far as I can tell, it's not even an Anglo-Saxon word at all. If you can provide a dictionary which contains it, that would be great. I've consulted several Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, and it appears in zero of them. I can't even imagine a possible etymology for it. "Hyht" however would mean "hope", "hyt" would mean "heat", "hyð" would mean "harbor", "lot" would mean "fraud", and I can't find entries for anything like "loth" or "loð" or "loþ". The word "hythloth" it seems to me was just made up out of Garriott's imagination, perhaps based on some half-remembered childhood lesson in Anglo-Saxon etymologies, but more likely he just randomly pieced together syllables that sounded Saxony. --76.202.225.205 23:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

PS -- the above definition of "pride" is totally unlikely also on the premise that "pride" itself derives from Anglo-Saxon "prȳde". There are several poetical ways to say "pride" in the language of course, but they tend to begin with the prefix of "ofer", which means "over" or "excessively". I.e., "oferhoga" proud man, "oferhygd" pride, "ofermede" pride, "oferprut" excessively proud, etc. --76.202.225.205 23:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Up until this point, I had thought that hythloth had meant sloth, one of the seven deadly sins that means laziness and/or apathy, which certainly sounds like some kind of anti-spirituality. But I figured I'd do some searching around the 'net to see what I could find.

I cannot find any other use of the word "hythloth" outside Ultima, but it does seem, in fact, that it's syllables have a basis in Middle English. Some googling shows that there is an old english word "hythe", meaning "haven" (also a ME word), after which a town in Kent was named. The article indicates it has an alternate spelling, "hithe", which does shows up in U Michigan's ME dictionary here and reinforces the same meaning.

"Loth", however, shows up here with several meanings that vary by context. But I think the most important one is on line 2 which defines "haven loth" (aka "hythe loth") as meaning "to be unwilling". Honestly, to me it doesn't sound very different from sloth after all and could well represent anti-spirituality. And I also think it's safe to say it doesn't mean "pride". Thoughts? Voyd 14:44, October 1, 2009 (UTC)

Actually, looking around a bit more on dictionary.com, it seems "loth" is related to the English word "loath", which reinforces "unwillingness" as a meaning of "hythloth". On a side note, "sloth" has a different origin (from slow/slowth or slaw/slawth) and therefore not related to "loth". While they are similar enough in appearance and meaning that they might share a common root, I cannot find any evidence of it. But I do think given the data that "unwillingness" or "loathing" makes sense as an interpretation of "hythloth". Voyd 15:38, October 1, 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hylotheism

The misspelling of "Hythloth"

If anyone knows why "Hylothe" (the original spelling) is the misspelling and not "Hythloth" I'd love to hear it. This would also imply proving that the discrepancy is due to a misspelling at all.

I concur. Unless a reliable source is found saying it is a misspelling we shouldn't assume it is. So I went ahead and changed it so the trivia is merely pointing out the discrepancy. -- Fenyx4 03:44, September 19, 2009 (UTC)