Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in english

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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Sisyphe »

:) Again and again and again

It's about greek into latin translation :
It is to be noted, moreover, that the singular abstract noun remains [sc. in greek source] intractable : it passes muster in a series, or in antithesis to another abstract, but if isolated needs some explanoatory backing, often a genitive
As example of the last phenomenon, the author give the greek sole word 'epstêmê' who becomes 'cognitio rerum', two words, into latin, but the central part of the sentence remains unclear to me.
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Olivier »

More context could be useful, but pass muster "être passé en revue" usually means give satisfaction, so my guess would be that this kind of noun is "intractable" and "in a series" in the sense that they "almost always" satisfy some rule (concerning their translation?)
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Éppen hozzám való vagy! Tu es juste fait(e) pour moi!
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Sisyphe »

In fact, the author look over the ability of latin language, a "peasants' tongue" according to a well-known french latinist, to utter a philosophical content, by likening the two versions of the few greek philosophical works translated into latin during the Antiquity. The focus of this study is the abstract noun ou abstract noun phrase, more common and easier to be created in greek, due to the existence of articles and abstracting suffixes. Cicero did for instance coin the freak-words "qualitas" and "quantitas".
Il faut noter cependant que le nom abstrait singulier demeure souvent impossible <à traduire ?>. Il doit faire partie d'une série, ou bien constituer une antitthèse avec un autre, mais s'il est isolé, il nécessite quelque chose qui vienne l'expliquer, souvent un génitif
Not sure yet...
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Olivier »

I think you are right: "intractable" and "passes muster" are an opposite pair here.
So what it says is, in other words, that an abstract noun in Greek is usually impossible to translate as a single Latin noun: this can be done only when it takes some place in a series, or as the opposite of an existing word, else the background has to be explained with a genitive.
-- Olivier
Se nem kicsi, se nem nagy: Ni trop petit(e), ni trop grand(e):
Éppen hozzám való vagy! Tu es juste fait(e) pour moi!
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Sisyphe »

:) Less philosophical, how would your pronounce the name "Merry" (which appears in Tolkien's works) ? In need it for a grammatical exercise (in french !), some of my pupils have taken it as a female name : how is it marked out from "Mary" ?

I would have say [ˈmɛri] for the first one (as the homonymous adverb ?), and [ˈmeǝri] for the Holy Virgin, should I ?

Thanks in advance.
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Maïwenn »

My English colleague says they're pronounced in the same way : [ˈmɛri]. He has never met or heard of anyone called Merry, boy or girl, but if parents chose that name indeed, he reckons it could be given to both boys and girls.
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

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The standard US pronounciation is [ˈmeri] for both merry (=happy) and Mary, and also for marry. But there is a lot of variation within the US: Mary–marry–merry merger.
The standard British pronounciation (RP / BBC English) makes a distinction: merry [ˈmeri], Mary [ˈmeəri], marry [ˈmæri]. Then of course, there are many different regional accents within the UK which may merge some of these pronounciations.
-- Olivier
Se nem kicsi, se nem nagy: Ni trop petit(e), ni trop grand(e):
Éppen hozzám való vagy! Tu es juste fait(e) pour moi!
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Sisyphe »

:) Hi !

I find by accident the word "apropos" and the complexe preposition "apropos of", not without a certain atonishment, for prepositions, and grammatical words as whole, are seldom loaned in languages.

Questions are :
1) Who How literary do they are ? Did you actually know them ?
2) My dictionaries are unclear about them (apropos of them ?). Do "apropos" as preposition works as "about" and its french etymon and mean the same (my unilingual Collins says "in respect fo", for "apropos of" which seems to be quite different from "about") ?

:jap: Thanks in advance (I always forget to thank thereafter).
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Maïwenn »

What does "who literary do they are" mean?

I knew "apropos" and always thought it had the same meaning as in French. The Oxford dictionary gives "with reference to; concerning:".
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

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:shy: Ups, typo : I meant "how literary do they are?"
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Maïwenn »

"how literary are they?" then? No need for do and be in the same sentence ;)
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Sisyphe »

:gniii: As I said by opening this topic
No one here is unaware of the lacks and weakness of my english, which looks like some porridge of german syntax, old-fashioned and Shakespeare-originated figures, at-school-"my-name-is-Sisyphus-and-my-favorite-colour-is-the-purple"-learnt-basics, scholar buzz-words and phraseology, and thanks-to-Freelang-dictionary-but-alas-here-malapropriate-words.
And therefore :
I cry for help in this new topic. With my humble apologies to the english conjugational system I've never understood anything of...
Some other advice (on the request, not on my teratological use of english auxiliaries :sun: ) ?
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Olivier »

Dictionaries seem to mention
- [prepositional] apropos (of) = related to [what has been said just before]
- [adjectival] apropos to = adequate/acceptable for,
both formal and not everyday speech.
-- Olivier
Se nem kicsi, se nem nagy: Ni trop petit(e), ni trop grand(e):
Éppen hozzám való vagy! Tu es juste fait(e) pour moi!
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Sisyphe »

:hello: Hi...

Reading a scholar paper, yet unsually written in very unscholar way. I understand there is a pun, but I do not understand the pun :
Many people writing on walls nowadays seem to regard themselves as remarkably witty in their message or comebacks, no matter how silly they really are. This tradition of the inscribed witticism surely dates back to ther earliest times. But are we always aware of this fact, when it comes to linguistics analysis of Greek wall inscriptions? An acid test (or rather : jack-acid test), challenging our skills in that respect, can easily be provided : [follows an inscription, possibly to be understood as an homophobic onset]
I quite understand an "acid-test" (a test which destroys our pre- or misconceptions on matters it goes on), how is "jack-acid" to be understood :-o ?

Lot of thanks in advance (for I will forgot thereafter).
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Re: Sisyphus' thread for grammatical and lexical help in eng

Post by Beaumont »

Probably something to do with jackass / jackassed...
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