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Month: February 2017
How and when did you become a Hellenophile?
I have attempted to recuse myself from answering this, being ethnic Greek myself. But Desmond James has importuned me to answer with my Australian hat on, and I do appreciate a challenge. So I will meet this challenge with generalities, reflecting on the hellenophiles and/or philhellenes that I have encountered. Hellenophile is not an established […]
ontic
Another little word that gave me pause. I recognised it just fine, from ontology, I just didn’t know that philosophy had done away with the –ology. Do Greeks even say ontikós? *googles* Phew. Theologians do, at least: Η οντική εκδοχή του Είναι: Αιτιοκρατία και αξιολογία. “The ontic version of Being: Determinism and Axiology.” The Magister […]
limn
I’m an arrogant overeducated effete sumbitch. I’m looking at the contributions so far, and going, ha! I know that word. That word too. But the Magister has tripped yours truly up as well. And not with big words (Greek and Latin are my gig, after all), but with really small ones. The Magister loves limn. […]
irenic
Love this word, because it comes from my sister’s name, Irene. Love this word, because it describes the attitude I aspire to having on the Quoras, and I use it a fair bit myself as a disclaimer. Love this word, because while I had seen it ages back, the Magister reintroduced me to it. Michael […]
ineluctable
Habib Fanny has just included inexorable in A few of my favorite words here, and I wondered to myself: has the Magister used one of my favourite words, which is related to inexorable but is even more emotive? Was there ever any doubt? Michael Masiello’s answer to What is importance of divine intervention in literature? […]
What is the future of Greece?
Gareth Jones asked me this at Nick Nicholas’ answer to Can fascism grow in Greece?, when I said that I don’t think so. I’m not in a good position to judge, and I’m actually answering this to prod some Greeks closer to what’s been happening into an answer. So, if they won’t vote in Golden […]
What does fluency mean in a conlang like Klingon?
https://www.quora.com/How-did-you-learn-Klingon/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5 Oh, it’s a very good question, ’erIq qaDye qaH and raHul chabra qaH. Although it’s a question I did prompt. Let me clarify the question I prompted, because it may not be as obvious from the wording. Klingon is a made up language. Noone has ever spoken it fluently. All the records we have […]
Will swear words become used so much that they will be normal and not rude eventually?
Deadwood (TV series) is celebrated as being one of the most foulmouthed shows on cable TV. This was a conscious decision by the scriptwriters, to convey the impression that 1870s foul language would have had on its contemporaries. Because using actual 1870s foul language (which was blasphemous rather than scatological) would have sounded so anodyne […]
If I want to work in linguistic typology, which linguists should I read?
My top 3: Joseph Greenberg. The founding father. And very useful to get a sense of the kinda functionalist programme he had in mind. Bernard Comrie. Martin Haspelmath. Answered 2017-02-02 · Upvoted by Steve Rapaport and Eric Meinhardt [Originally posted on http://quora.com/If-I-want-to-work-in-linguistic-typology-which-linguists-should-I-read/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Can fascism grow in Greece?
Tolis Malakos of London Metropolitan University wrote a very insightful piece on this in 2013: What does the rise of fascism mean for Greece and for Europe? Above and beyond that, turning to populist, authoritarian solutions when faith is shaken in bourgeois democratic politics is not an idiosyncrasy of Germans or Italians: it is human […]