Linguā anglicā: “Key to renowned Quorans”

I have taken to cartooning Quorans I like and banter with. Both the cartoons and the banter feature jocular references that may not be immediately obvious to outsiders, who can only judge from the Quorans’ profile pic. (Often enough, the profile pic is all I have to go on to.)

Herewith, a key to my in-joke references, which gives me a good excuse to link-love Quorans some more. Depictions drawn from profile pics are not further explained.

I love youse guys #2

To Jeremy M. Thompson (too tall to fit the frame; and I can’t draw someone sitting cross-legged); Mohammed Khateeb Kamran (Hansolophontes); Michael J. McFadden (I miss passive smoking); Alberto Yagos (whose third job is correcting my Latin conjugation); Habib Fanny (Habib le toubib qui rit); Curtis Lindsay (who has dragged me kicking and screaming to Chopin); Gareth Jones (the metricist of the North West); Steven de Guzman (the first of many Lazaruses); Scott Welch (my True Quora Master); Miguel Paraz (my next door neighbour); Edward Conway (the most polite Quoran conceivable); Steve Theodore (the Classical prestidigitator); Uri Granta (the Zarphatic mathemagician); Vladimir Menkov (Slavicist of Champions); Adam Mathias Bittlingmayer (expert in Four Homelands):

Jeremy Markeith Thompson: several things going on. He’s 6 foot lots, so he’s tall (and his profile pic is not very detailed); he’s wearing sunglasses, because apparently that’s how he shields his Male Gaze; he meditates, hence the hand position (but not the cross legged); he’s wearing a tux, because he’s a conservative (though likely not Nation Of Islam), and a Class Act.

Mohammed Khateeb Kamran: Khateeb complained that I hadn’t come up with a nickname for him, and undertook to perform a Perseid deed worthy of a nickname. Well, if he’s going to undertake a deed worthy of Perseus, how about Medusa-Slayer? Medusophontes in Homeric Greek. And Khateeb gets to carry Medusa’s head around.

Except, when I told him how I admired Robert Frost for coming up with Adam DiCaprio (when complaining about the lack of spoiler blocking), Khateeb admitted that he may have accidentally triggered Robert’s indignation, by blurting out a recent Star Wars film spoiler as a question. Hence, Hansolophontes, and updated head.

… It was only a day after posting this sketch that I realised: Oh shit. Decapitation. And Khateeb is Muslim.

But you know what? Fuck ISIS. I’m drawing Khateeb as Perseus, I know it, he knows it, and now you know it. The throwbacks of Raqqa may have blown up Palmyra, but they don’t get to own my country’s motherfucking mythology. And Khateeb is welcome to enjoy my country’s mythology too.

So. Having said that.

Michael J. McFadden: Smoking, of course.

Alberto Yagos: he teaches Latin in high school. Of course he’s wearing a toga. Don’t all Latin teachers?

Habib Fanny: Francophone. Habib le toubib qui rit: Habib, the laughing medico.

Gareth Jones: I first noticed him because he was posting about poetical metres. Proud Canadian, in that understated way Canadians are.

Steven de Guzman: First Quoran I know to have been banned, then unbanned: brought back from the dead, like Lazarus. (He has it on his bio; I think I came up with it.) That is meant to be Steven emerging from a coffin in a shroud, like icons depict Lazarus.

Scott Welch: Long term Quora critic, whom I have learned much from. Depicted throwing darts at Quora. NOT at Miguel Paraz wearing a Top Writer T-shirt.

Miguel Paraz: Works two blocks from my workplace.

Uri Granta: His bachelor name (i.e. pre-marriage) is Zarphaty. Zarphatic is the Hebrew word for French (originally the Biblical name of Sarepta in Lebanon). I don’t think Uri is French, but he is a mathemagician.

Adam Mathias Bittlingmayer: Knows an inordinate amount about the homelands of both himself (Germany, Serbia) and his wife (Armenia, Turkey).

Did anyone notice a slightly… male bias to I love youse guys #2?

Yes?

That’s because I was saving up the female Quorans I have come to admire and appreciate and learn from since I love youse guys for a second post.

So, to: Sierra Spaulding (wield the sword); Jordan Yates (holding Yorick the Skull); Gigi J Wolf (La Gigi!); McKayla Kennedy (McDoodles!); Clarissa Lohr (estimegata malsamideano); Tracey Bryan (Traaaace!); Pegah Esmaili (canım! PUT DOWN THE POTATO CHIP!); Laura Hale (more Numbers please); Kelley Spartiatis (the Virgin-Voiced Scouse); Irene Colthurst (Doctor of Americana); Audrey Ackerman (Jane Marr!); Josephine Stefani (Spirit Sister! Prost!); Sophia de Tricht (*please don’t hurt me*); Jae Alexis Lee (I hate it when she’s right, which is all the fricking time); Mary C. Gignilliat (Lady X[XX]),

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

I love youse chicks.

Er, babes.

Er, ladies.

Er, women. That’s it. I love youse women.

From what I gather as an outsider, it depends on the community. Khomeini made a fatwa accepting transgender women, FWIW, while other Muslim countries do not:

Pegah Esmaili’s answer to Does economic, social and political progress lead to reform in Islam or does reform in Islam lead to economic, social and political progress?

See also:

• What does Islam say about transsexuality, their rights, social status etc.? How does it feel to be a Muslim transsexual, what issues do they face?
• What does it feel like to be a Muslim and transgender?

Good luck in all your journeys.

Originally Answered:

What was your “15 minutes of fame”?

Oh, that’s easy.

Hamlet – Klingon Language Wiki

translators: Nick Nicholas and Andrew Strader

Good to know someone read the footnotes: Klingon <i>Hamlet</i> Revisited

Until I googled the pic, I had no idea about the 2015 German edition. Which looks way cooler:

Hope it’s the Schlegel & Tieck translation. Eh, I mean Crude Federation Parody. Of course.

For a few years afterwards, I’d get these vague filtered distortions of me coming through the Interwebs. “Did you hear about some nutjob linguist who translated the whole Bible into Klingon? And all of Shakespeare? And he taught his kid to speak Klingon? And then he demanded that the government provide him a Klingon translator? What a loser! What a legend! What a loser!”

The pinnacle was when Michael Dorn himself, visiting Australia, muttered, “Some guy has even translated Shakespeare. I don’t know why these guys aren’t curing cancer instead or something.”

That job, Mr wI’orv, I leave to Habib Fanny.

(All medical researchers, and for that matter all doctors, are working on curing cancer. Aren’t they?)

Originally Answered:

Can you mention an upbeat and happy-sounding song that has a sad/depressing meaning?

Australian anthems: Cold Chisel – Khe Sanh

Rollicking strophic, jolly country rock song—about a Vietnam Vet adrift and addicted back home. A song dear to the heart of all Australians my age and up.

A2A Hansolophontes. (Sorry, Khateeb, but you walked into that one.) (Ἁνσολοφόντης. Looks nice…)

I’ll say what I think they feel, but I’ll go a roundabout way about it.

What do Greeks of my upbringing and circumstances feel about ethnic Greek converts to Islam?

Well, if they were pre-population exchange, they’re not around any more, and folklore just called them Turks anyway; so Greeks are blissfully unaware that any ethnic Greek could be anything but Greek Orthodox. Greeks of my upbringing and circumstances are also taught that Muslims are the Other. Not sure whether all of them were also taught that they eat babies.

So, what do they make of Yusuf Islam?

Four sentiments.

• Who? Not sure he was ever big in Greece to begin with.
• Betrayal. I think this will be more pronounced among Greek Cypriots, since they have an ongoing cold war with Turkish Cypriots, and Yusuf embraced the religion of the enemy.
• Unease, and/or embarrassment. Embracing Islam is not Something that Greeks Do. I read the local Greek paper yesterday, and there was the big front cover article about John Podesta’s wikileak, which was an excuse for “did you know John Podesta’s mother is Greek?” I don’t think you’ll get as many of those about Cat Stevens, let alone Yusuf Islam.
• “Screw him, he’s a half-Greek diasporan anyway.” Well, actually, that’s just the same as “Unease, and/or embarrassment”. They don’t say that about John Podesta.
• Well, they do say that about John Podesta; but not as the first thing they say.

I’m not proud of this, Khateeb, but for my generation, I think the unease will be pretty common.

I went to a Muslim wedding once, and there was a Greek convert there, skullcap and all. He was delighted to find a Greek there to talk to; I’m sure that, given how conservative the diaspora is, he wouldn’t find that many. I remember that I chatted to him, but I did feel uneasy. Again, not proud that I did, but there’s a long history of being brought up to think of Muslims as the Other; and finding “one of your own” joining the Other is uncomfortable.

I’m sorry if this answer made you uncomfortable. But I suspect you understand all too well how people can feel that way about Othering…

Dimitris Almyrantis will have a better informed and more up to date answer.

I’ve seen other such expressions, such as cod-Latin, and cod-Spanish. Cod-Latin is a synonym of Dog Latin, a fake Latin used playfully to imitate real Latin. The Wikipedia example is

Stormum surgebat et boatum oversetebat
The storm rose up and overturned the boat

Illegitimis non carborundum is another such instance. (“Don’t let the bastards get you down.”)

Cod-Greek would similarly be fake Ancient Greek, made up with English words and vaguely Greek-looking endings.

Got any references, OP?

Nick. From Greek Nikolaos, Victory of the People. The name shows up in antiquity, in its Attic variant Nikoleōs, and got enshrined among Greeks via Saint Nicholas. Too vernacular for the late Byzantine historian Chalkokondyles, who flipped his first name around to Laonikos.

Nicolaus in Latin, Nicolas in French and Middle English, as featured in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale. When the Renaissance came, English scribes realised French had taken out a few Greek h’s. So they put h’s in everywhere. Including Nicholas.

Uri Granta informs me that the Hebrew equivalent is Amichai: If you were to Hebraize your surname, what would you choose? A blessing upon his house: it’s certainly a cooler name than Victor.

Nick Nicholas. See Nick Nicholas’ answer to How did your parents decide on your name? for the story there.

For an added bonus, the surnames of my four grandparents.

Father’s Father: Hadjimarcou. Of Mark the Pilgrim

FM: Haralambous. Of Haralambos, “Shining with Joy” (a saint’s name)

MF: Lykakis. Wolf-son. -akis is the now obligatory Cretan patronymic suffix.

MM: Sfendourakis. Slingshot-son.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, tuning up. From the best seats I’ve ever had in a concert: choir stalls.

This was the performance of Mahler’s 6th during which my wife, somehow, fell asleep. Much to Victoria Weaver’s merriment.

Not seeing why the question should be restricted to Spanish. Counterexamples not mentioned so far:

• Bulgarian: Varna, not Sofia.
• Macedonian: Ohrid, not Skopje.
• Germany: Saxony, not Berlin or Vienna. (And in the Middle Ages, Swabia, not Saxony.)
• Greek: Koine, but basically Peloponnesian, not Old Athenian.