History of the family focus groups, and quantitative surveys. In most cultures of the world, the beginning of family history is set in creation myths. In "Works and Days", the ancient Greek poet Hesiod describes the epic destruction of four previous Ages of Man. The utopia that was the Golden Age was eventually replaced by the current Iron Age; a time when gods made man live in "hopeless misery and toil." Hesiod's second poem Theogony, described the Greek gods' relationships and family ties. Ancient Greeks believed that among them, were descendants of gods who qualified for priesthood or other privileged social status. The Judeo-Christian
Meaning (philosophy of language) individual speaker in a particular context wants to refer to. The word "dog" is an example of a meaning, but pointing at a nearby dog and shouting "This dog smells foul!" is an example of usage. From this distinction between usage and meaning arose the divide between the fields of Pragmatics and Semantics. Yet another distinction is of some utility in discussing language: "mentioning". "Mention" is when an expression refers to itself as a linguistic item, usually surrounded by quotation marks. For instance, in the expression "'Opopanax' is hard to spell", what is referred to is the word itself ("opopanax")