[Mad Dawg]

MD, you're drifting away here.

Actually, I think,no offense, that you are drifting.

I said that "co-" meant "with," and was roundly attacked for the usual things. Since then I have been working on the sense of "co-".

I think we have showwn that in some cases the prefix carries a sense of equality while in the case of co-pilot it carries a sense of inferiority. The SIGN of the difference is that BOTH are co-authors, but one of the pilots is not "co-"anything. (Okay,maybe co-dependent.) So in once case, equal status, in another, unequal status. And the sense that survives in both uses is the sense of "with," the very thing which was disputed.

I donot claim to have shown that Mary is rightly called coredemptrix, so saying Ihave failed or that the word is applies wrongly is not relevant to this tiny section of the field.

HERE the accusation was that by use of the word we necessarily were implying equality, and that to claim that 'co-' had any sense other than equality was specious and disingenuous or ignorant.

Now that we have shown that that is not true,we can go back to other questions. But let's not confuse the issue.

The issue was,whether "co-" could carry a sense of inferiority. Your objection WAS that I had dug the trench in the wrong place. We found I had dug it correctly and your saying the first objection was right because I haven't laid the pipe.

So I have to go to all this tedious length to remind you that the installation of the pipe has nothing to do with whether the trench is good.

[count-your-change]

“roundly attacked”??? MD, you've been handled as gently as if you were a new born babe, as gently as if you were new born twins even!

When you said:

“Even among co-authors usually one takes the lead”,

I agreed and gave a supporting example of pilot and co-pilot. To others I commented that co didn't demand equality since the term was imprecise.

Roundly attacked? A fly on boiler plate would cut deeper.

“HERE the accusation was that by use of the word we necessarily were implying equality, and that to claim that ‘co-’ had any sense other than equality was specious and disingenuous or ignorant.”

Having established that you are neither specious or disingenuous nor ignorant (maybe a little) we can indeed go on to the question of what role Mary played, co or not.

What can I say? The logic fails. Elizabeth was not co with John the Baptist or the “certain daughter of Levi”, Moses’ mother anything co to Moses by virtue of carrying him.

If Elizabeth and the others weren't co anything why would Mary be termed such? That is the gist of the question.

Pipe? Trench? What?