Tag: sherlock holmes

phoenixhowl:

So there is a post floating around Tumblr which I have seen many times, saying that if you translate Moriarty from Latin into English, it would mean ‘to die is an art’. And while it’s clever, it bugged me enormously, because Moriarty isn’t a Latin name. It’s an Irish name, a Gaelic one, so it has absolutely nothing to do with Latin. While they’re both Indo-European languages, Latin is an Italic language, and Gaelic a Celtic one. Seeing the Romans never reached Ireland, they didn’t even spoke Latin there.

Moriarty was probably a personal or perhaps occupational name; ‘Muircheartach’, meaning “The navigator”. It is a developed form of the Olde Gaelic pre-10th century surname O’Muircheartaigh.

One explanation for the many variations is that scribes and church officials frequently spelled the name as it sounded; an imprecise method at best. Understandably then, various spellings of the surname Moriarty can be found. These includes Moriarty, O’Moriarty, Murtagh, Murtag, McMoriarty and many more.

The abbreviations of Mc in front of a name, meaning ‘son of’ is popular in Irish names, although this is no guarantee that the name is Irish. Many Scottish names also prefer Mc instead of Mac. Officially in both countries, the abbreviation is Mac. In Ireland, frequently O’ is also used instead of Mc but the meaning is the same.

And seeing I ship MorMor till death and beyond: Moran is an Anglicized form of two distinct Gaelic names – O’Morain and O’Moghrain of Connacht. The personal byname Morain, from ‘mor’, meaning ‘great’ or ‘large’, which would make Moran’s meaning “descendant of a great one”, or “son of a great one”. With this name you can also find different spellings, such as O’Moran, Murrin, or Murran.

I take things like this way too serious, maybe, but I just really like the origin and meaning of names, okay.

quipxotic:

mystradedoodles:

I always think that the Holmes of canon is really.. quite happy. He laughs and jokes and delights in the ridiculous. He’s almost never austere or rude. He’s described as having an easy manner; good with people, polite, witty, kind.. ‘You’re too kind’ is said so often. 

Why is he always portrayed and played as so austere and cold? 

“Mark adds: “Many people point out the drug use in Sherlock Holmes, but there are more references to Sherlock Holmes laughing than there are to taking cocaine or morphine but, oddly enough, people never think about that…”

bakerstreetbabes:

221cbakerstreet:

a-bagel:

Some Light on a Black Mood -Desktop by ~CurlyStrickland

From artist’s comments:

“I tried to homage all my favorite versions of Sherlock Holmes. Including the Wallpaper and Skull from Sherlock (BBC 2010), Watson and the chemistry set are straight from Granada/Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes TV show (80’s), Queen Victoria’s portrait is a reference to a comedy skit called Holmes’s Mood Swings from the Peter Serafinowicz Show (This is hilarious and on Youtube, go watch it), the bullet holes in the wall from the Robert Downy Jr. Movies, the infamous deer stalker, magnifying glass, and pipe from some of the original portrayals of Holmes, and of course as much as I could find in the stories. I feel like I’ve made a Where’s Waldo! Things to look out for: Watson’s Revolver, The Woman, The Dancing Men, Queen Victoria, The Moroccan Case, Persian Slipper’s, Violin and Bow, a jack knife, a deerstalker, and a Skull (Friend of mine. Well, I say friend).”

I absolutely adore this

This is perfect.