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Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by chaos

chaos — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:36:15 +0000

@Bill C: Yeah. I’m trying for a more poetic than precise equivalence. And after http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/345334.html, I hate to see this sentiment expressed in a way that doesn’t incorporate “arete” as a base.

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by skzb

skzb — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:54:03 +0000

Bill C: If Greek will support it, I want to imply as many of those meanings as possible. If I must chose, then statement of fact is how I’d go.

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by Bill C

Bill C — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:53:28 +0000

Ooops – should be κρείττονεϛ or κρέσσονες

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by Bill C

Bill C — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:49:40 +0000

Wouldn’t that be “It is possible to become excellent”?

How ’bout ὦμεν κρείτονεϛ : “We must/Let us be better/stronger”

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by chaos

chaos — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:28:44 +0000

I’m gonna say “exesti aretoomai”, ἔξεστι ἀρετόομαι.

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by Bill C

Bill C — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:34:18 +0000

First, the antecedent of “we” will be obvious from context or the sentence will open with a vocative, e.g. “O Athenians”.

Next, what do you mean by “can do better”? There are several options:
1) Hortative: Let us do better!
2) conditional: we could/may/might do better if [...]
3) Statement of fact “we are able to do better” or we are able to be better (persons).

In the “do better” case, you’d want to indicate in what regard we are able to do better. E.g. “With regard to defeating the Persians, we are able to do better (than the Athenians).”

If the sense is “we are able”, you’ll begin with the idiomatic ὁιοί τ’ ἐσμὲν (we are able) and then decide on the complementary infinitive and what sense of better you mean – better men, better morally, etc.

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by Jo'din

Jo'din — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:06:39 +0000

I guess I always took it as that’s what the dolphins were saying.

Seriously though, I facebooked (Yeah I verbed it!) it to a friend at the University of Athens (Not that one) who should be able to give you the proper phrase in a few hours.

BTW, you were right on with Scalzi.

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by skzb

skzb — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:53:50 +0000

That is less helpful than you might think.

Comment on Need yet another translation to Ancient Greek by Jo'din

Jo'din — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:35:57 +0000

λεξικό δεν βρήκε καμία λέξη.

“So long, and Thanks for all the fish.”

Comment on Health report by Big Mike

Big Mike — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:57:55 +0000

Just to say best wishes. After the shock of hearing about Terry Pratchett, I couldn’t bear to see you leaving the scene.

A friend of mine whose SIL wants to be a writer said to me a couple weeks ago that writing is not something you could make a living at, although you might make a killing at. I don’t understand, Steve, how you have not done the latter.