The Greeks Had a Word For It

Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 147352637X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
Do you ever search in vain for exactly the right word? Perhaps you want to articulate the vague desire to be far away. Or you can’t quite convey that odd urge to go outside and check to see if anyone is coming. Maybe you’re struggling to express there being just the right amount of something – not too much, but not too little. While the English may not have a word for it, the good news is that the Greeks, the Norwegians, the Dutch or possibly the Inuits probably do. Whether it’s the Norwegian forelsket (that feeling of euphoria at the start of a love affair) or the Indonesian jayus (a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that you can’t help but laugh), this delightful smörgåsbord of wonderful words from around the world will come to the rescue when the English language fails. Part glossary, part amusing musings, but wholly enlightening and entertaining, The Greeks Had a Word For It means you’ll never again be lost for just the right word.

The Greeks Have a Word for it

Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393321487
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Two men traveling from England disembark in Greece from the same boat. How their lives will accidentally and frighteningly intersect is the subject of this novel. Kennedy, an Englishman of no fixed address, is looking for a teaching job in what he hopes will be a Greek paradise. An opportunist who finds himself falling in love - or at least lust - he orchestrates a scam that will have some intended - and some thoroughly unintended - consequences. Mitsos is returning to Greece after many years away. An unresolved family tragedy awakens again, from the ghosts of his parents' deaths and the brutal wartime politics of Greek against Greek.

It's All Greek

Author: Alexander Tulloch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781851245055
Category : REFERENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Most of us are aware that words such as geometry, mathematics, phobia and hypochondria derive from ancient Greek, but did you know that marmalade, pirate, sketch and purse can also trace their linguistic origins back to the Athens of 500 BCE? This book offers a word-by-word look at the influence of Greek on everyday words in English, telling the stories behind the etymological developments of each example and tracing their routes into modern English via Latin and European languages. It also explains connections with ancient Greek culture, in particular mythology, politics and warfare, and includes proverbs and quotations from Greek literature. Taken together, these words show how we are deeply indebted to the language spoken in Athens 2,500 years ago for the everyday vocabulary we use when conducting our daily business.

Nonsense and Meaning in Ancient Greek Comedy

Author: Stephen E. Kidd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107050154
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
This book employs the concept of 'nonsense' to explore those parts of Greek comedy perceived as 'just silly' and therefore 'not meaningful'.

Through the Language Glass

Author: Guy Deutscher
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780434016907
Category : Comparative linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Generalisations about language and culture are at best amusing and meaningless, but is there anything sensible left to be said about the relation between language, culture and thought? *Does language reflect the culture of a society? *I

Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen

Author: Mary Norris
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324001283
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
“One of the most satisfying accounts of a great passion that I have ever read.” —Vivian Gornick, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris, The New Yorker’s Comma Queen and best-selling author of Between You & Me, has had a lifelong love affair with words. In Greek to Me, she delivers a delightful paean to the art of self-expression through accounts of her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo. Along the way, Norris explains how the alphabet originated in Greece, makes the case for Athena as a feminist icon, and reveals the surprising ways in which Greek helped form English. Greek to Me is filled with Norris’s memorable encounters with Greek words, Greek gods, Greek wine—and more than a few Greek men.

Lovers' Legends

Author: Andrew Calimach
Publisher: Haiduk Press
ISBN: 0971468605
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Lovers' Legends is a collection of homoerotic Greek myths restored from their primary sources. The collection also includes a new rendition of Lucian's Erotes. The volume is illustrated with ancient art.

Ancient Greek I

Author: Philip S. Peek
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800642571
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 606

Book Description
In this elementary textbook, Philip S. Peek draws on his twenty-five years of teaching experience to present the ancient Greek language in an imaginative and accessible way that promotes creativity, deep learning, and diversity. The course is built on three pillars: memory, analysis, and logic. Readers memorize the top 250 most frequently occurring ancient Greek words, the essential word endings, the eight parts of speech, and the grammatical concepts they will most frequently encounter when reading authentic ancient texts. Analysis and logic exercises enable the translation and parsing of genuine ancient Greek sentences, with compelling reading selections in English and in Greek offering starting points for contemplation, debate, and reflection. A series of embedded Learning Tips help teachers and students to think in practical and imaginative ways about how they learn. This combination of memory-based learning and concept- and skill-based learning gradually builds the confidence of the reader, teaching them how to learn by guiding them from a familiarity with the basics to proficiency in reading this beautiful language. Ancient Greek I: A 21st-Century Approach is written for high-school and university students, but is an instructive and rewarding text for anyone who wishes to learn ancient Greek.

A Companion to the Etruscans

Author: Sinclair Bell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118352742
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Book Description
This new collection presents a rich selection of innovative scholarship on the Etruscans, a vibrant, independent people whose distinct civilization flourished in central Italy for most of the first millennium BCE and whose artistic, social and cultural traditions helped shape the ancient Mediterranean, European, and Classical worlds. Includes contributions from an international cast of both established and emerging scholars Offers fresh perspectives on Etruscan art and culture, including analysis of the most up-to-date research and archaeological discoveries Reassesses and evaluates traditional topics like architecture, wall painting, ceramics, and sculpture as well as new ones such as textile archaeology, while also addressing themes that have yet to be thoroughly investigated in the scholarship, such as the obesus etruscus, the function and use of jewelry at different life stages, Greek and Roman topoi about the Etruscans, the Etruscans’ reception of ponderation, and more Counters the claim that the Etruscans were culturally inferior to the Greeks and Romans by emphasizing fields where the Etruscans were either technological or artistic pioneers and by reframing similarities in style and iconography as examples of Etruscan agency and reception rather than as a deficit of local creativity

Contagion

Author: Lawrence I. Conrad
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351949241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Book Description
Contagion - even today the word conjures up fear of disease and plague and has the power to terrify. The nine essays gathered here examine what pre-modern societies thought about the spread of disease and how it could be controlled: to what extent were concepts familiar to modern epidemiology present? What does the pre-modern terminology tell us about the conceptions of those times? How did medical thought relate to religious and social beliefs? The contributors reveal the complexity of ideas on these subjects, from antiquity through to the early modern world, from China to India, the Middle East, and Europe. Particular topics include attitudes to leprosy in the Old Testament and the medieval West, conceptions of smallpox etiology in China, witchcraft and sorcery as disease agents in ancient India, and the influence of classical Greek medical theory. An important conclusion is that non-medical perceptions are as crucial as medical ones in people’s beliefs about disease and the ways in which it can be combatted. Today we may not believe in the power of demons, but the idea that illness is retribution for sin retains great power, as was shown by the popular reaction to the spread of AIDS/HIV, and this is a lesson from the past that the medical profession would do well to heed.