Go for it, TiTANA!

In the sporting world, and in particular in mountaineering circles, TiTANA is used to encourage female climbers to work the route and to push on in those stretches which are tougher or which demand better performance. Come on, TiTANA! Go for it, TiTANA! Get stuck in, TiTANA!

Titan is also used, in the same sense, for male climbers, rowers and other sportsmen. In reality, TiTANA is an incorrect feminisation of the masculine word titan. The correct female term would be Titaness, but who would think about shouting that out?

In Greek mythology, the Titans and Titanesses were a race of powerful deities who ruled during the legendary Golden Age. Originally the Titans numbered twelve and were related to various primordial concepts:

• Oceanus – The River that encircled the World
• Coeus – Titan of Wisdom
• Crius – God of the Herds and Constellations
• Hyperion – Astral Fire
• Theia – Titaness of Sight and Vision
• Cronos – God of Time
• Themis, Rhea… and so on for all twelve gods

In the beginning of beginnings there were Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth) who created the world and had twelve children. Apparently, Uranus was a terrible father and Gaia, neither slow nor lazy, conspired to get rid of her husband with the help of her sons led by the youngest, Cronus. And so, Cronus became king of the gods.

When the time came for revenge, Zeus served his father a poisoned drink, but instead of dying, Cronus vomited up his five brothers (aren’t you all dead?). Then all hell broke loose and war began between the gods, young pitted against old, the so-called Titanomachy, Battle of the Titans or Titanic War. The young gods and other creatures dug themselves in on Mount Olympus, but the war took place on Mount Otris. The older Titans (Cronus and his brothers) were defeated and subsequently punished: some condemned to live in Tartarus (the underworld) while others suffered different fates, like Atlas, head of Cronus’ army, who was forced to carry the sky on his back. The victors, presided over by the almighty Zeus, ushered in the the dynasty of the Olympians.

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Literary texts and mythology itself relate the war as one of the greatest, most devastating, longest and bloodiest ever. The term “titanic” has come down to us as a synonym for enormous, gigantic, colossal, disproportionate.

Fuentes: Wikipedia; Mitología griega y romana, J. Humbert (GG) 1848; Atlas de Mitos, Thiago de Moraes (Harperkids) 2018; Windows2universe.org. Foto: Celides. Wikimedia Commons.

Our sincere apologies to the learned in the field for the imprecision of our wording.