Vote #1 Audrey Ackerman: Audrey Ackerman’s answer to What is the closest masculine equivalent of “temptress” and “seductress”? A comprehensive answer I will not hope to top. Audrey has missed one term. She would reject it as a culture specific, literary reference. But hands up; who knew that Lothario was a character in Don Quixote? […]
My answer is more a gut-feel from Modern Greek practice, but I suspect it applies to antiquity as well. Dimitris Almyrantis perceptively identifies the (or at least an) underlying reason: avoidance of retribution. Cernowain Greenman identifies the surface reason: code of honour. The modern Greek code of honour (How do I translate the Greek word […]
Oh, fuck. Let’s put it this way. And for the purposes of this answer, I’m going to assert that there is indeed a distinct Makedonski minority in Greece, rather than refer to FYROM overtly. If you were an ethnic Macedonian living in Florina/Lerin or Kastoria/Kostur, you had the option of embracing a Greek identity and […]
Zeibura S. Kathau has a rather more perceptive and fine breakdown on this than I’d hope for; vote #1 Zeibura S. Kathau’s answer to Are linguists more likely to have a musical background? I’ll just add two observations. Of my fellow PhD students in linguistics, one was a composer and pianist, one a bassist, one […]
Explicit predicate structure of arguments. Which throws natural language notions of case out the window (although prepositions are included as well): it really is a matter of argument #1, argument #2, rather than accusative, dative, etc. Very explicit, computer-parsable syntax, with spoken brackets for syntactic structures. Logical, rather than natural language, notions of negation. (Again, […]
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-the-worst-translations/answer/Zeibura-S-Kathau OP, but I’m answering a question raised elsewhere by Zeibura S. Kathau. Luke 2:14? The source of the confusion is a manuscript variant. Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία[ς]. The version I as a Greek grew up with has “good will” in the nominative, εὐδοκία. “Peace on earth, among […]
Vote #1 David Caune. Excellent and wide-ranging answer. David Caune’s answer to Why do we use number 5, in some Greek words: “You left me in 5 streets or in 5 winds”, “You are 5 (times?) orphan”, “5 t. beautiful”? I’ll add some Greek-specific details. Modern Greek uses a few numbers to mean “lots”; they […]
In my last lecture of Historical Linguistics, I brought in a guest lecturer, a fellow PhD student, who was an ardent Nostraticist. I hadn’t discussed Nostratic with him for years. To my astonishment, I watched him recant Nostratic right before my eyes. And the way he did it was by making fun of Starostin et […]
My bio for Esperanto says Kabeinta Esperantisto, lingvisto: “Esperantist who has done a Kabe, linguist” (for explanation on Kabe, see question details). So I guess I qualify to answer. I have been corresponding with Clarissa Lohr a fair bit in Esperanto recently. I don’t think that means I’ve un-Kabe’d though; Clarissa is hardly a verda […]
Vote #1 Colin Jensen and Joe Fessenden, who have nailed it. To add a bit. It is the height of arrogance to fast forward to Modern Greek. But I’ll do so anyway. In Modern Greek, the adjective askhimos < askhēmōn means ‘ugly’. The etymology of askhēmōn is ‘un-shape-ish’. So unshapely, not with a nice shape. […]