Category: Uncategorized

So. I’m going to take a scientific approach to this question.

I am going to take my own personal TW awards: people who have featured in my “I love youse all” series:

• I love youse guys by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile
• I love youse guys #2 by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile
• I love youse women by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile
• I love youse guys #4 by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile

I am going to apply rigorous criteria: good Quora citizenship, notability of at least 100 followers (same criterion as for Necrologue), good and expansive contributions as answerer, I’ve seen a reasonable amount of their stuff (which means reasonably large number of answers, at least 500, in feeds I have not muted).

(Yes, there are several omissions following those criteria that have pained me.)

I’ll then prune it subjectively, so it doesn’t end up being 50 users long. I’m having a devil of a time limiting it to 20 users. And I can’t limit it further. Good thing I’m not the one handing these out; it’s a wrenching thing to rank your friends and those you admire.

I come up with:

• Michael Masiello
• Dimitris Almyrantis
• Sam Morningstar
• Lara Novakov
• Zeibura S. Kathau
• Robert Todd
• Gareth Jones
• Habib Fanny
• Jeremy Markeith Thompson
• Mary C. Gignilliat
• Irene Colthurst
• Pegah Esmaili
• Clarissa Lohr
• Gigi J Wolf
• Jordan Yates
• Michaelis Maus
• Heinrich Müller
• Amy Dakin
• John Gragson
• Victoria Weaver

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Since 8 people have already been kind enough on this thread to say I Woz Robbed, let me arrogate the opportunity to say a few words in acknowledgement.

• There’s two more rounds.
• I want nothing to be taken away from those that got the quill. Nothing at all.
• I said a bunch of stuff at Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why do some Quorans reject the Top Writer title?, which I stand by.
• A large part of me would love to get the quill, sure—who doesn’t want acknowledgement?
• But see, I already have acknowledgement. I have the acknowledgement of people in this thread, and a bunch of people in other threads—including people that got the quill and expressed their regret that I didn’t, and people that never had the quill, and people I didn’t even know, and and people that I know well and think the world of.
• And that, itself, is worth more than any quill.

User said the following in a comment elsewhere in this thread. It is bound up in her own narrative and not mine, so I won’t claim it as mine. But it is such a great truth, that it deserves to be seen:

https://www.quora.com/Who-deserv…

[…] …so here I am on Quora and people listen and value what I have to say. Compared to what I had last year I AM A TOP WRITER…and having someone like you Kate tell me you value me enough to be with other people on this list..oh yeah I feel like a TOP WRITER…beleive me..I’m not crying about it..

Or, as I put it on the day to Audrey Ackerman, who has earned her quill, richly—and who was one of those who said they were upset at me not getting a quill:

I won’t lie, I felt a pang, but I have no intent of letting that get to me. You deserve it. I deserve it too, whether I get it next batch or not.

An update in the listing of my favourite people on Quora since November:

To Mehrdad Dəmirçi (keep the A2As coming, whether I know the answer or not), Achilleas Vortselas (too level-headed for a Greek, no wonder he was a mod!), Vadim Berman (if only we’d overlapped both on Quora and in Melbourne!), Victoria Weaver (Gustav Mahler says hello, grazhdanka Viktoriya), John Gragson (lay down the law, John), Amy Dakin (whose own Odyssey I’m honoured to follow), Sofia Mouratidis (Yalla tis!), Susan James (the peer review panel looks forward to more research updates), User (Anya of Lincoln, who shall shine even more than her language does), Neeraj Mathur (the learnèd historical linguist), Steve Rapaport (the learning historical linguist), Heinrich Müller (connoisseur of TV Tropes, as any true sociologist must be), Michaelis Maus (the nihilist terror), Ayse Temmuz (must not freak out about Afyonkarahisar, must not freak out about Afyonkarahisar), Sam Murray (confidant(e) in chief),

I love reading you, I love seeing you, I love bantering with you, and I love learning from you.

I love youse guys.

… Achilleas, why do you ask? What is there for me to add to the foregoing explanations?

Ah, you must be a fan of the IPA!

French: /ɑ̃tʁəpʁəˈnœːʁ/

Or something like that.

Received Pronunciation, per entrepreneur – Wiktionary: /ˌɒntɹəpɹəˈnɜː/

Me: /ɔntɹəpəˈnɜː/

That is what Mark Harrison said, btw 🙂

Souvlaki – Wikipedia lists the variation of Souvlaki within Greece and Cyprus. Gyro (food) – Wikipedia speaks to gyros, which is the Greek evolution of the Doner kebab – Wikipedia.

In Greece, Souvlaki properly is a skewer of meat, typically pork, and often served in pita. Gyros, which involves shaved rotisserie meat (again, typically pork) is distinct from souvlaki. Either are served in small pita bread wraps, with mustard, salad, and fries.

The Cypriot version involves a pita pocket two or three times the size, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage, and often parsley and onion.

The Australian version diverged early, and it’s a gyros, not a skewer: you will see gyros (or yeeros) as a name as well, but souvlaki is the usual name here. (Often enough pronounced souvalaki, and more recently, as would happen with any Australian slang word, souva). Now that there is a new wave of migration of Greeks to Australia, Greek-style souvlakis are popping up as a contrast to Greek-Australian Souvlakis.

The gyros is traditionally lamb, and pork is unheard of. Chicken is the alternative meat in both Greece and Australia. The pita is twice the size. Tzatziki instead of mustard, salad, and no fries.

In What happened next? by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency and My first BNBR warning by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency, I reported an exchange between myself and Carlos Matias La Borde, and invited Quorans to speculate on what happened next. The prize for the most accurate response, and the funniest response, was a cartoon.

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This is Philip Newton’s prize:

By time honoured convention in the Gallery of Awesomery, Philip is not allowed to smile. Because he lives in Germany.

Besides the two Top Writer quills on his mantelpiece (and another in his hand), there is a book apiece on Lojban, Klingon, Esperanto, and Greek. As should be obvious to all of you from the logos.

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This is John Gragson’s prize:

Yes, I know full well that John is not a British barrister. But English barristers are so much cooler to draw!

No, I don’t know who the judge is, complete with gavel. I have a fair idea who the defendant is, though!

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And this is an artist’s rendering of the actual incident:

Well, there’s all the guesses on How can I become a Top Writer on Quora?, and the little hints dropped by Quora Inc, such as in Announcing Top Writers 2017 by Jonathan Brill on The Quora Blog:

As always, selection criteria include: the number, quality, and popularity of contributions, and moderation history.

So, the main criterion applied is being a good member of the community. Although yes, lots of head scratching about the relative weighting of these factors, and opacity that doesn’t do anyone any favours.

That isn’t the only criterion applied though. Two other criteria that have been applied are:

• Being an employee of Quora, regardless of the number, quality, and popularity of contributions (compared to other users). There has been discussion about this in the past (see Why have so many Quora employees awarded themselves Top Writer status?) This has been done presumably for reasons of dogfooding.
• Being a wellknown person outside of Quora, and not really much of a contributor to the community at all. For example, I give you the latest first-time Top Writer for 2017: Hillary Clinton.

I wonder if she’ll be wearing her Top Writer wind-cheater to any events…

Let’s take the Greek State as 1832, when it had fixed boundaries.

I’m also going to use the pre-2010 Prefectures of Greece to break down the area of the new State.

We know that Arvanitika was spoken widely in the new Greek state. We know that many who fought in the War of Independence were monolingual Albanian speakers, who could not understand the instructions of Greek commanders.

15 of the 2010 prefectures were part of the new State. Of these:

• Arvanitika was the most widely spoken in Attica, Boeotia, Corinthia, and the Argolid, and the southern half of Euboea.
• As far as I know, it was all of Boeotia, most of Attica (Greek was limited to Athens, Aegina and Megara), most of Corinthia, and the eastern half of the Argolid.
• Arvanitika was a minority language in Messenia, Achaea, Arcadia, Laconia, and the Cyclades. Per Arvanitika – Wikipedia, not Elis.
• That leaves, by my guess, just 5 prefectures out of 15 where Arvanitika was not spoken: Phthiotis, Phocis, Eurytania, Aetolia & Acarnania, Elis.

Arvanitika and Greek were the major languages of the new State. I’m not aware of any Ladino: Jews in southern Greece spoke Greek. Not aware of any Slavonic spoken there since the Middle Ages. There would have been some Romany and Turkish spoken. There is a pocket of Aromanian spoken in Acarnania, per Aromanian language – Wikipedia.

I don’t have population numbers handy, and I don’t know if anyone does. Going by geography, Arvanitika was not the majority language, but it could easily have been spoken by a quarter of the population.

God Bless New Zealand for maintaining the time-honoured traditions we’re less attached to in Australia! James Barr’s answer to What are the “Burger-ish” foods in your culture or country? I suspect every culture has their own burger/sandwich-like food: hearty, inexpensive, easy to prepare, consistent with meat in between flour/rice/corn-based bread thing. details the venerable Dead Horse.

James Barr doesn’t call it that: rhyming slang is another, time-honoured tradition from London which Australians have now largely abandoned. Rhyme for “pie and sauce”.

There are pies to be had still in Australia, but they don’t have the hegemony they once did. (And even back in the day, say the 60s, they shared space with Cornish pasties.)

What has taken their place? The burger, certainly. McDonalds and Burger King (here branded as Hungry Jacks) had the hegemony beforehand; but the old fashioned fish & chip shop burger was their background:

And the gourmet burger chains like Grill’d Healthy Burgers are doing very well now:

—to the extent that McDonalds is having to make their own to-order gourmet burgers, to stay competitive: CYT Homepage | McDonald’s Australia

The Steak Sandwich is the other venerable legacy of the fish & chip shop, although it’s not as big now as it used to be:

Of course, we now have burritos, and souvlakis (very very different from souvlakis in Greece), and pork rolls, and sushi.

That took… an unnecessarily long time.

For my part, because all the smart kids in my school did two languages, instead of one language and Art. As you can see from Gallery of Awesomery, not doing Art has paid off.

In the eighties, the two main languages being taught in Australia were still French and German, which was a cultural inheritance from Britain. So I learnt French and German. The year after my year, French and Japanese were also offered together. I would have welcomed the challenge of Japanese in my twenties, but not, I think, in my teens.

That’s why I started. Why I continued with it was falling in love with German culture, working in a discipline that depended on German scholarship, and making excellent German-speaking friends. Which I have continued to do here.