It should be obvious that this place is intended to be the opposite of a "den of iniquity". No sinning allowed, of any sort! I think it would qualify as a kind of spa, since almost all sins are connected to stress of one sort or another (often the sin involves some method of seeking release from stress --whose idea was it, to call such activities sinful, anyway???). I suppose this place might not have many customers, but those who need it, will need it greatly!
-- Vernon, Nov 26 2010

As long as my neighbour isn't allowed to bring his (rather handsome) ox, or parade it about in the car-park, I can see this working out nicely.
-- zen_tom, Nov 26 2010


are your sins cleansed away? notice *your* not mine.
-- po, Nov 26 2010


It depends on how you define a sin I suppose - you could base your definition on one of the Abrahamic lists, but more generally, I guess a sin might constitute something that you later regret*. Having a clear conscience is very likely what Jesus was talking about when he described "The Kingdom of Heaven", if you ascribe to the view that he was a person gifted with charisma, self-knowledge, clarity of vison, and the means and dedication to bring his message to others. And if you don't, it still amounts to the same thing. These days, for those in a wealthy modern democracy, proper sin is probably a lot harder to come by than in the disease-ridden, famine stricken, riotous medieval near-chaos that was Palestine under Roman occupation - and probably for the same reasons Vernon mentions - stress, and its general releif.

*short memory-spans aside.
-- zen_tom, Nov 26 2010


sp. Equity. The original "ae" (becoming English "e") became an "i" in the compound form as part of the wider process of vowel-weakening in non-initial syllables, as documented by a certain Professor Niedermann in a periodical which seems not to have made it online yet.

In other words, the virtue of "fairness" or "everyone being treated the same" was so important at the time when the word "iniquity" took on its English usage that it was able to stand in for all the virtues, and iniquity, its opposite, for all the vices. Or something like that.
-- pertinax, Nov 26 2010


Would a church count as a Den of Equity or a Den of Iniquity? Seeing as only god fearing people go to church, I'm assuming they have a reason to fear him.
-- iaoth, Nov 26 2010


Monastic retreats, anyone?
-- pertinax, Nov 26 2010


Den of Yakety Saxity...
-- zen_tom, Nov 26 2010


Failing would result in complaints, or the "Din of inequity..."
-- csea, Nov 26 2010


Wasn't "Den of Iquity" a character in "Monty Python and the Haddock of Doom"?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 26 2010


You're confusing him with Doug and Dinsdale Piranha.
-- 8th of 7, Nov 26 2010


[pertinax], based on what you wrote, a "den of inequity" would be a place where just one type of sin would be getting performed by its occupants. But a den of iniquity is a place where all sins get performed (if you wait long enough, murder will be included). Therefore since I've defined a "den of iquity" as the opposite of a den of iniquity, it must be a different thing from the idea of a "den of equity".
-- Vernon, Nov 27 2010


There are many fixed expressions that are negatives of a positive that is never used or never existed to begin with. Some people call this phenomenon "lost positives"--you'll find some examples online if you search for that. Eg, "gruntled employees". My recent favorite instance of a lost positive retroformation is the recombobulation area that's been created behind the security checkpoint at a local airport.
-- jutta, Nov 28 2010


+ for //recombobulation//
-- csea, Nov 28 2010


[jutta], yes, English is notorious for its inconsistencies. In this case, the particular inconsistency involves the prefix "in" which usually (but not always) means "not", and sometimes means "negative". So, a word like "inappropriate" means "not appropriate", and a word like "infamous" means "famous in negative way". But of course there are plenty of words that don't cooperate with that "rule", consider "formation" and "information", for example. Or even "flammable" and "inflammable", where the latter means "extra flammable" instead of "not flammable"!

And then, of course, there are words that are completely outside the prefix-thing altogether, such as "inferior, inert, iniquity, invade", ... --I simply took one of them and sort-of created a new word using the "rule", heh!
-- Vernon, Nov 28 2010


And when you're out, you're not inin.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 28 2010



random, halfbakery