Why do we use so many Greek and Latin numerals, symbols and words in science and mathematics?

I refer you to the Quora question:

Why are most terminologies in Physics, biology, maths, Chemistry are derived from Latin/Greek languages?

  • The vocabulary of STEM comes from Latin and Greek for the reasons explained under that question: following the tradition of Greek as the pioneers in STEM, and Latin as the intellectual lingua franca.
  • Symbols come from Greek instead of Latin for the same reason of prestige (and because it’s convenient to have symbols in a different script from the text).
  • The numerals, on the other hand, don’t come from Greek or Latin: they’re Arabic/Indian.

Quora collapse bot, you are inane. Your recalcitrance drives me insane.

Updated 2016-01-07 · Upvoted by

Muthu Samy. P, M.Sc. Retired as Head of Department of Physics. Government of Tamilnadu, lndia.

Why is ‘selfie’ use suffix -ie instead of -y?

Selfie is an Australian coinage: No, a Drunken Australian Man Did Not Coin the Word Selfie. (The article disputes only that the particular guy came up with it, not that it was coined in Australia.) The Australian suffix used to coin cutesy abbreviations of words (hypocoristics) is conventionally spelled as –ie, not –y—even when it looks weird (so firie for firefighter).

Do you need to have a car in Crete?

As a tourist? Most villages, you can get to with the KTEL Buses of Greece , but you would be stuck to their timetable, which would likely be just once or twice a day. If you’re not going anywhere obscure, buses and walking will do you. If you are, taxis are not expensive. 

Does the expression “bite off more than you can chew” translate to other languages?

Sure. Modern Greek: Πήγε για μαλλί και βγήκε κουρεμένος: He went in to get wool, and came out shorn.

How did the “Swastika”, which is said to be the symbol of the Aryan race, get its place in Hinduism?

As always, good outline in Wikipedia: Swastika

To summarise:

  • Lots of ancient civilisations used the swastika as a symbol, because it’s an easy shape to draw.
  • Because lots of ancient Indo-European civilisations used it (including Indians, Greeks, Celts, and Armenians), German archaeologists assumed it was a symbol of the original Indo-European people.
    • OTOH the Chinese and the Navajo used it too, so that was not that good a guess.
  • Because Indo-European may have spread through conquest, Germans assumed the original Indo-European people must have been kick-ass warriors, that they would be proud to call their ancestors.
    • There might have been conquest, and there might have been cultural diffusion; who knows.
  • The only name that looks like it might possibly have been a name for the original Indo-European people is Arya, shared between Indians and Persians. Hence, Aryans.
  • Notwithstanding the general swarthiness of Indians and Persians, if the original Indo-European people were such kick-ass warriors. Germans concluded that they must have been blond, blue-eyed Germans.
    • I shit you not.
  • So if you want to extol the racial primacy of Germans, you will rally around the symbol that your glorious ancestors must have used—and by historical accident, that the Jews were one of the few peoples not to have made much use of.

So. Hinduism (and Buddhism, and Paganism, and the Navajo) came first. Then came guesswork about Indo-Europeans. Then came German racialist nationalism.

How do I efficiently compute the pairwise similarity scores among a very large set of n-grams on a huge corpus?

How many forms does a Turkish verb have?

Because Wiktionary does not enumerate all possible affixes on a verb.

Bob Cromwell  for example (following Lewis’ grammar) enumerates the following possible verb modifiers:

  • negative
  • passive
  • causative
  • reflexive
  • reciprocal
  • eight tenses
  • six moods
  • two numbers
  • three persons

Of these, Wiktionary is counting:

  • negative
  • five tenses
  • two numbers
  • three persons

I have an impression that some Aussies are overly ‘patriotic’ or over-loving their country. Is this true?

Other respondents have argued that Australians are not overly patriotic compared to Americans. They are dismissing patriotism as the preserve of bogans. However 20 years ago, bogans did not express patriotism any more overtly than the elite; and wrapping yourself in the flag, particularly during a race riot like the 2005 Cronulla riots, would have been unthinkable. (60 years ago of course patriotism was expressed in terms of the British Empire.)

The Xenophobe’s Guide to Aussies published 20 years ago summarised Australian patriotism as:

Australians already know they live in the best country on Earth and they don’t particularly feel the need to tell anyone about it.

What has changed in the interim is a combination of fear of globalization and reactionary politicking by John Howard. Howard is gone, but as the popularity of the monarchy and pilgrimages to Gallipoli attest (complete with youths wrapping themselves in the flag at dawn), the effects endure. Aussie patriotism is much louder than it used to be.

If hysterisis is “to lag” then what is “to lead” in greek?

The verb ‘to lead” is hegeōmai, but that’s not quite what you’re asking.

hysterisis is a noun, derived from the verb hysterizō “to come after, to come late” (e.g. to lag), which in turn comes from the adjective hysteros “latter, last”. Your question sounds like it’s asking “what’s the opposite of hysteresis?” The opposite noun would have to come from a verb derived from proteros “earlier” or prōtos “earliest, first”.

The verb exists: prōteuō “to be first, hold first place”. The corresponding noun, prōteusis, has been used at least once, in a monastery legal deed from 1012, although its meaning in context is “precedence, foremost position” (that is, holding first place).

In ancient Greece, in place of “Sire” or “Your Grace,” how were people of stature addressed? Is there a gender neutral term?

The relevant monograph is: Greek Forms of Address: From Herodotus to Lucian (Oxford Classical Monographs) (9780198150541): Eleanor Dickey. See review at Bryn Mawr Classical Review 97.11.09 

The male defaults were anax/basileu (king), despota (lord, master), and kyrie (ditto). If you were talking to a king in antiquity, I think you just called them “king”: the familiar circumlocutions of majesties and excellencies are later inventions. LSJ says kyrie is late, and despota is what slaves used. Doing a search on the TLG, up to 2nd century BC, and skipping the Septuagint (which uses kyrie a lot), I find 96 instances of despota, and 9 of kyrie.

Kyrie “Lord” is of course the usual title for Christ in Greek (hence Kyrie eleison, “Lord have mercy”), as well as the usual rendering of Lord in the Septuagint—though despota turns up in Greek hymnography as well. My recollection is that despota was usual for Byzantine emperors.

For feminines, the best default I can think of is despoina, feminine of despota. It is a common title for the Virgin Mary later on.The feminine of kyrios, kyria, also appears to be post-classical.

Abstractions like “majesty” and “excellency” are late, like I said, and certainly in Modern Greek they are not used to address anyone. (Η αυτού μεγαλειότης “his majesty”, but μεγαλειότατε “most majestic one!”.) Which means that, since Greek has always had grammatical gender, there have never been any gender neutral terms.