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Day: August 16, 2016

Why do you love linguistics?

By: | Post date: 2016-08-16 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

Here is an utterly left-field video I saw today, in the context of my day job (because my CTO is awesome). It’s knowledge management consultancy stuff, but I think it goes some of the way to explaining why I love linguistics: Cynefin Framework: Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or […]

What are the precise meanings of the Greek words hyperēphanos and hyperphroneō?

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Posted in categories: Ancient Greek, Linguistics

Well, I’ve gone to LSJ. The definitions I find there are: ὑπερφρονέω Group I to be over-proud, have high thoughts (Aeschylus) to be proud in or of something (Herodotus) overlook, look down upon, despise (Aeschylus) (passive) to be despised (Thucydides) think slightly of (Eurypides) Group II surpass in knowledge (Aeschines); excel in wisdom (Hippocrates) ὑπερήφανος […]

In the English language, why is remuneration pronounced renumeration?

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Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

People do mispronounce remuneration as renumeration all the time, contra some people’s denial of it here. God knows I’ve done it, and I should know better. Why do people do it? Because: The stems muner– and numer– are confusable through the oldest confusion in the historical linguistics book: Metathesis (linguistics). People are familiar with the […]

Did Greeks in the Ottoman age feel Greek or Roman? Why was Greek identity chosen and not Roman when fighting for independence?

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Posted in categories: Culture, Modern Greek

Go to Names of the Greeks: much good information there. On the eve of the Greek War of Independence, the prevalent term for Greeks was Roman (Romioi). That was what the simple folk used, and they used it to refer to Greek Orthodox Christians (the Rum Millet), as the folk of the East Roman (Byzantine) […]