Hey my excellent followers, just came across this tumblr, and thought I’d spread it around!
Enjoy!
~Q
First comes Horace,
Then comes Homer,
Then comes a quickly written Classics paper.
~Q
Edit: Should have used just “B” or maybe “3” to fit the metrical scheme more precisely (original is 7 beats and mine is 8)
The Croc says: Again, not exactly Classics Croc, but still relevant (and someone submitted it! woo!) And true. The worst is translating a shit ton of Greek. Definitely the worst.
So in Greek the other day, when we were translating a passage that would be on the test, a kid in my class thought that γενου was a genative singular noun. However, we have not learned how to make verbs nouns yet, but we did just learn imperatives (γενου is the aorist 2nd person singlular middle imperative meaning “become”). So when he asked about this in class, my teacher laughed and said it sounded like a strangle little animal, something like an emu.
So in my Greek class, we’re translating part of Aristophanes’ The Birds, and this is the name for the “utopia” some of the characters are trying to get to. I kid you not, the literal translation of this is “Cloud-cuckooland.”
The book is called Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. I was browsing through the Ancient Greek sections that I had stumbled upon during work one day, and saw this, and was like “MUST READ NOW!” So I’m reading the interesting stuff, like about drinking and prostitutes.
I’m now using final sigmas and deltas in Latin, and sometimes mix Latin vocab with Greek vocab, although not to the same extent of two of my friends who are both Classics majors in the came classes with me.
I used “ακρασια” which is a weakness of the will when talking about Plato and Aristotle. I love taking notes in the source language.
This and a psychology test tomorrow. I have the same teacher for Greek and Latin. She knows how much we have to do. Thankfully Dr. M is awesome, so as long as I look at everything and do a little bit of what’s required, I’ll be golden.
I’m looking at a full Greek noun chart…and it’s broken up into 1st declension feminine, 1st declension masculine, etc. and some have multiple options for endings…
This is a Greek thing. I was doing my grammatical exercises, and I move on to the next set, and I look at the instructions and the lesson fro the questions, and am like, “WHAT THE FUCK IS A CONTRACT VERB???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN A VERB’S STEM CAN ‘CONTRACT’?????”
Naturally, I gave up do to brain explosions, pulled up Tumblr, and will figure it out when Dr. M explains it.
