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Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

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Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#91

Post by kalimanzaro »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #35
adverbly wrote: post #13

I've always liked "akrasia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrasia > Weakness of will to act against one's own better judgement. It's everywhere in modern society, and I'd love to see it called out more.

I think you misquoted. The actual meaning is weakness of will to act according to one's better judgement. From the wiki article ""lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment."

They didn't misquote, that was copy-pasted directly from Wikipedia. Maybe raise the issue with Wikipedia?

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#92

Post by FabHK »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #35
adverbly wrote: post #13

I've always liked "akrasia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrasia > Weakness of will to act against one's own better judgement. It's everywhere in modern society, and I'd love to see it called out more.

I think you misquoted. The actual meaning is weakness of will to act according to one's better judgement. From the wiki article ""lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment."

It's "(weakness of will to act) against one's better judgement", or "weakness of will (to act according to one's better judgment)".

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#93

Post by robocat »

emporas wrote: post #81
rippercushions wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First I'd heard of this, but there is some preliminary evidence that saffron has positive effects on depressive symptoms: https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/77/8/557/5... But if this was really significant, you'd expect saffron-producing/eating countries to stand out. Iran is #1, are they really all 1,000,000x happy geniuses?

Actually it is very expensive. I am talking about consuming a lot of grams every day, 50 to 100 grams, which is not a lot given it is roughly 1/1000 of the weight of a normal human, but it is the luxury of a millionaire for the moment. It is true that we most probably don't see any statistical correlation between saffron consumption and intelligence, especially in a country level, but i would argue, that the dosage m…

> [take 50 to 100 grams of saffron]

The dose is the poison - take care with spices.

My friend died young of liver failure due to eating comfrey as a vegetable.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#94

Post by woodruffw »

pjungwir wrote: post #25

These are great suggestions. Adding these words to your own internal vocabulary is totally worth it for self-reflection. Less seriously, a grammatical construction I wish we had in English is the Latin future passive participle, typically ending in -ndus, -nda, -ndum. It means that something needs/ought to be done. For instance "Amanda" is "she who must be loved." So if someone asks you why your feature isn't in prod…

> These are kind of lame examples, but once you get the idea you can find places where it'd be convenient several times a day.

I, for one, find myself wishing for the destruction of Phoenician cities multiple times a day[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#97

Post by phs318u »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #30
adverbly wrote: post #13

I've always liked "akrasia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrasia > Weakness of will to act against one's own better judgement. It's everywhere in modern society, and I'd love to see it called out more.

It's called out quite a lot, just not literally with the word akrasia . When it is called out, you're being "judgemental" or restricting someone's freedom/autonomy, which is of course sacrosanct to moderns.

Those responding in such a way are not in fact acting against their better judgement - they lack a judgment better than the one they have, therefore the criticism is moot.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#98

Post by HKH2 »

Cpoll wrote: post #86
HKH2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> future passive participle, typically ending in -ndus, -nda, -ndum. ... > It means that something needs/ought to be done. > something needs/ought to be done. > "she who must be loved." All of your examples are in the present tense.

Some of those are contextual, but "ought to be done" is certainly future tense, it's referring to a future activity. It's a pretty apt example for future passive, juxtaposing the future active "will be done." Or at least that's how I reason it. English is rather hard to analyze sometimes.

'something ought to be done' is also contrasted with 'something is done'. It's no different to 'should' in that regard.

"I am having a party next week." That's a present continuous sentence referring to a future activity.

Some argue that English doesn't even have a future tense. For these things it certainly is lacking, along with German it seems.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#99

Post by [deleted] »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #67
AlbertCory wrote: post #18

One of my favorite moments at Oracle was when we were on a business trip and had to get ready at 6:00 am (don't ask why). I said, "Ah, the rosy-fingered dawn!" and one guy actually got the reference. ============= This is Latin, not Greek, but =========== Supposedly "Cicero" was pronounced "KICK-er-oo" I don't care. I'm going to keep saying SISS-er-oh.

The pronunciation of Latin will vary depending on whether you're relying on classical (restored/reconstructed) or ecclesiastical pronunciation. "Cicero" in the former is [ˈkɪkɛroː], whereas in the latter, it is [ˈtʃitʃero] which is close to the English pronunciation. In most European languages, the pronunciation is closer to the latter (e.g., the Polish "Cyceron"), while, e.g., in Greek it is closer to the former (Κι…

[deleted]

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#100

Post by Cpoll »

HKH2 wrote: post #98
Cpoll wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those are contextual, but "ought to be done" is certainly future tense, it's referring to a future activity. It's a pretty apt example for future passive, juxtaposing the future active "will be done." Or at least that's how I reason it. English is rather hard to analyze sometimes.

'something ought to be done' is also contrasted with 'something is done'. It's no different to 'should' in that regard. "I am having a party next week." That's a present continuous sentence referring to a future activity. Some argue that English doesn't even have a future tense. For these things it certainly is lacking, along with German it seems.

> "I am having a party next week." That's a present continuous sentence referring to a future activity.

What about "I will have a party next week" or "there will be a party next week"?

> Some argue that English doesn't even have a future tense.

I learned this as: There's no language feature that denotes future tense (like a suffix), but it's done via grammar (and context).

I have to acknowledge that I'm not the right person to be debating this. Like most native speakers, my grasp of the rules often boils down to whether something "sounds" right.

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