no punctuation we read like romans
NOPUNCTUATIONORLOWERCASEORSPACESWEREADLIKEROMANS
INTER·PVNCTVATION·WE·INSCRIBE·LIKE·ROMANS
words doesn’t classical matter order in greek;
we, in a manner akin to that of a man who once was, in Rome, an orator of significant skill, who was then for his elegance of speech renowned and now for his elaborate structure of sentences cursed by generations of scholars of Latin, the language which he spoke and we now study, Cicero, write, rather than by any efficiency, functionality, or ease of legibility have our words, our honors, the breaths of our hearts, be besmirched.
Tag: language
criminally neglected opportunities
i know i’ve previously expressed indignation over collective academia’s choice to translate “Gallia Bracata” as “trousered Gaul” instead of “pants france”, and today i am similarly incensed by how absolutely none of the scholars of Greek tragedy have called the dragon-drawn chariot that carries Medea off at the end of Euripides’ play the Dragon Wagon
@copperbadge, relevant to your interests.
A certain Welsh archivist and coffeeboy of our acquaintance would approve.
AHAHAHA so true story
Near the end of my program in classics in undergrad (it was a series of semester-long classes aimed at launching a major or completing a minor) I had a course in Greek and Roman Theatre while at the same time taking Latin IV. The six of us who had survived to Latin IV (Latin I started out with 36 students) were basically self-guided at that point, and decided we would translate Seneca’s Medea in Latin class ahead of studying it as a dramatic text in our Theatre course.
So we do in fact get to the ending of Medea, and all of us are just…very tired Latin nerds, it’s the end of the semester, for some of us it’s the end of the program, and Medea is also a really sad story. I mean, yes it’s a tragedy, so of course, but the climax is a mother murdering her children out of desperation, and that’s pretty rough to grapple with as a twenty-year-old.
And we hit the dragons, and we were discussing the best way to translate some of the weird grammar in the passage, and remember Medea has just killed her children. And my friend Beth blurts out,
“She fled the feds in a dragon wagon!”
And that was it. We couldn’t even keep class going. We just all fell apart laughing and decided we’d go get doughnuts instead of finishing class.
if you ever want to have truly delightful time, read the ‘scottish birds’ pages from the scots language wikipedia aloud with your friends
Thanks to Linguist Twitter for finding this example of how some things just don’t change!
Modern historians tend to characterize the time where English borrowed a lot of words from Norman French as a period of richness and innovation, but sure enough, writers at the time were grumbling about how kids these days were speaking absolutely terrible Anglo Saxon.
Full quote, from Bokenham in 1440 (notice how he’s ironically using lots of Latinate words in his complaint, like “corruption” and “familiar” and “augmentation”):
And þis corrupcioun of Englysshe men yn þer modre-tounge, begunne as I
seyde with famylyar commixtion of Danys firste and of Normannys aftir,
toke grete augmentacioun and encrees aftir þe commying of William
conquerour by two thyngis. The firste was: by decre and ordynaunce of þe
seide William conqueror children in gramer-scolis ageyns þe consuetude
and þe custom of all oþer nacyons, here owne modre-tonge lafte and
forsakyn, lernyd here Donet on Frenssh and to construyn yn Frenssh and to
maken here Latyns on þe same wyse. The secounde cause was þat by the
same decre lordis sonys and all nobyll and worthy mennys children were
fyrste set to lyrnyn and speken Frensshe, or þan þey cowde spekyn
Ynglyssh and þat all wrytyngis and endentyngis and all maner plees and
contravercyes in courtis of þe lawe, and all maner reknygnis and countis yn
howsoolde schulle be doon yn the same. And þis seeyinge, þe rurales, þat
þey myghte semyn þe more worschipfull and honorable and þe redliere
comyn to þe famyliarite of þe worthy and þe grete, leftyn hure modre tounge
and labouryd to kunne spekyn Frenssh: and thus by processe of tyme
barbariʒid thei in bothyn and spokyn neythyr good Frenssh nor good
Englyssh.Here’s a translated version if you don’t feel like puzzling through the Middle English:
And this corruption of Englishmen in their mother tongue, begun, as I
have said, in the every-day admixture of first Danish and then Norman,
was greatly augmented and increased after the arrival of William the
Conqueror by two things. The first was by the decree and ordinance of
the aforesaid William the Conqueror that children in the grammar
schools should leave off and forsake their own mother tongue and learn
their Donatus in French and construe it in French and do their Latin in
the same way, which is something which goes against the habit and
custom of all other nations. The second cause was that in the same
decree the sons of the lords and the children of all the nobles and
worthy men were first set to learn and speak French, before they could
speak English and that all writings and indentureships and all manner of
pleas and controversies in courts of law and all manner of calculations
and accounts in households should be done in the same (language).
And seeing this, the rural people [saw] that they might seem to be the
more esteemed and honorable and the more easily open to the
acquaintance of the worthy and the great, abandoned their mother
tongue and labored to be able to speak French: and thus in the course
of time mutilated them both and spoke neither good French nor good
English.The translation is via these course notes (pdf), which also make interesting reading about the history of English in general (see also these pdf exercises for other quotes).
You would think eventually we’d learn to just chill out about how people are talking.
i love seeing professors getting super excited before talking about the only infix in English it’s so funny
#an infix is an affix that happens in the middle of the word#an affix is a prefix or suffix#our only infix is “fucking” lmao#like fan-fucking-tastic#or abso-fucking-lutely#it’s just so funny the profs always get a huge smile#and gets all cheeky
THIS IS SO COOL.
Like I knew that it was a thing, I just didn’t realize it was such a UNIQUE THING.
Words that Survived by Getting Fossilized in Idioms
- wend
You rarely see a “wend” without a “way.” You can wend your way through a crowd or down a hill, but no one wends to bed or to school. However, there was a time when English speakers would wend to all kinds of places. “Wend” was just another word for “go” in Old English. The past tense of “wend” was “went” and the past tense of “go” was “gaed.” People used both until the 15th century, when “go” became the preferred verb, except in the past tense where “went” hung on, leaving us with an outrageously irregular verb.- deserts
The “desert” from the phrase “just deserts” is not the dry and sandy kind, nor the sweet post-dinner kind. It comes from an Old French word for “deserve,” and it was used in English from the 13th century to mean “that which is deserved.” When you get your just deserts, you get your due. In some cases, that may mean you also get dessert, a word that comes from a later French borrowing.- eke
If we see “eke” at all these days, it’s when we “eke out” a living, but it comes from an old verb meaning to add, supplement, or grow. It’s the same word that gave us “eke-name” for “additional name,” which later, through misanalysis of “an eke-name” became “nickname.”- sleight
“Sleight of hand” is one tricky phrase. “Sleight” is often miswritten as “slight” and for good reason. Not only does the expression convey an image of light, nimble fingers, which fits well with the smallness implied by “slight,” but an alternate expression for the concept is “legerdemain,” from the French léger de main,“ literally, “light of hand.” “Sleight” comes from a different source, a Middle English word meaning “cunning” or “trickery.” It’s a wily little word that lives up to its name.- roughshod
Nowadays we see this word in the expression “to run/ride roughshod” over somebody or something, meaning to tyrannize or treat harshly. It came about as a way to describe the 17th century version of snow tires. A “rough-shod” horse had its shoes attached with protruding nail heads in order to get a better grip on slippery roads. It was great for keeping the horse on its feet, but not so great for anyone the horse might step on.- fro
The “fro” in “to and fro” is a fossilized remnant of a Northern English or Scottish way of pronouncing “from.” It was also part of other expressions that didn’t stick around, like “fro and till,” “to do fro” (to remove), and “of or fro” (for or against).- hue
The “hue” of “hue and cry,” the expression for the noisy clamor of a crowd, is not the same “hue” as the term we use for color. The color one comes from the Old English word híew, for “appearance.” This hue comes from the Old French hu or heu, which was basically an onomatopoeia, like “hoot.”- lurch
When you leave someone “in the lurch,” you leave them in a jam, in a difficult position. But while getting left in the lurch may leave you staggering around and feeling off-balance, the “lurch” in this expression has a different origin than the staggery one. The balance-related lurch comes from nautical vocabulary, while the lurch you get left in comes from an old French backgammon-style game called lourche. Lurch became a general term for the situation of beating your opponent by a huge score. By extension it came to stand for the state of getting the better of someone or cheating them.- umbrage
“Umbrage” comes from the Old French ombrage (shade, shadow), and it was once used to talk about actual shade from the sun. It took on various figurative meanings having to do with doubt and suspicion or the giving and taking of offense. To give umbrage was to offend someone, to “throw shade.” However, these days when we see the term “umbrage” at all, it is more likely to be because someone is taking, rather than giving it.- shrift
We might not know what a shrift is anymore, but we know we don’t want to get a short one. “Shrift” was a word for a confession, something it seems we might want to keep short, or a penance imposed by a priest, something we would definitely want to keep short. But the phrase “short shrift” came from the practice of allowing a little time for the condemned to make a confession before being executed. So in that context, shorter was not better.Holy shit, “giving umbrage” literally means “to throw shade”
samtaims ai vonder if inglis spiiking piipöl aar eiböl tu riölais thät ai äm äksöli vraiting in inglish rait nau bat tsast vith veri finnish spelling
sou if juu spiik inglish bat not finnish kän juu pliis reblog änd liiv ö komment on tis post tänk juu veri mats
Sammteims ei wonda iff inglisch schbieking pipel ahr ebel tu rieleis set ei ehm ecktschuli reiting in inglisch reit nauh batt schast wiss währi tschörmen schbelling
So iff ju schbiek inglisch batt nott tschörmen kenn ju plies riplock end lief eh kommänt on dies pust senk ju wäri matsch
samtajms aj łonder if inglisz spiking pipul ar ejbul tu rialajs dat aj em akszuali łrajting in inglisz rajt nał bat dżast łiw wery polisz spelling
soł if ju spik inglisz bat not polisz kan ju plis riblog end liv e koment on dis post fenk ju wery macz
szamtájmz áj vonder if inglis szpíking pípöl ár éböl tu rialájz det áj em ekcsölli rájting in inglis rájt náo bat dzsaszt vit veri hángérien szpelling
szó if ju szpík inglis bat not hángérien ken ju plíz riblog end lív a komment on disz poszt tenk ju veri maccs
Såmtaims ai oånder iff inglisj spiking pipel ar eibel TU rialais dæt ai æmm raiting in inglisj rait nao bøtt djøst vitt verri nårvisjen spelling
Såo iff ju spik inglisj bøtt nått nårvisjen kænn ju plis riblågg ænd liv a kåmment ånn diss påost tænk ju verry møtsj
A Pretty Taste for Paradox 