In the English language, why is remuneration pronounced renumeration?

People do mispronounce remuneration as renumeration all the time, contra some people’s denial of it here.

God knows I’ve done it, and I should know better.

Why do people do it? Because:

  • The stems muner– and numer– are confusable through the oldest confusion in the historical linguistics book: Metathesis (linguistics).
  • People are familiar with the numer– stem, from numerical.
  • A mention of numerical in a word for how much money you get is entirely plausible, since you get an amount of money.
  • People are unfamiliar with the muner– stem, for “gift”. It doesn’t show up anywhere else in English, the way numer– does.
    • The stem is buried away in muni-ficent “gift-making”, without the –er-. Did you make the correlation?

How does Persian sound for non-Persian speakers?

I agree with Joachim Pense: the feature of Persian that has always stuck out for me is the back /ɑ/. That, in combination with the velars and palatoalveolars, make it sound… how do I come up with an impressionistic description? Passionate, actually. Kinda like German, which I love for its crunchiness, but with an extra /ɑ/, which makes it sound impassioned and earnest.

Did Greeks in the Ottoman age feel Greek or Roman? Why was Greek identity chosen and not Roman when fighting for independence?

Go to Names of the Greeks: much good information there.

On the eve of the Greek War of Independence, the prevalent term for Greeks was Roman (Romioi). That was what the simple folk used, and they used it to refer to Greek Orthodox Christians (the Rum Millet), as the folk of the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

The Westernising elite was starting to revive the notion of Hellenes, as heirs of the glories of Ancient Greece, rather than the shame of Ottoman rule—and Byzantium (not much more popular in the West than the Ottomans). From the Wikipedia article, the independence fighters themselves bought into the notion that they were fighting to become Hellenes: the Wikipedia article mentions that

General Makrygiannis tells of a priest who performed his duty in front of the “Romans” (civilians) but secretly spied on the “Hellenes” (fighters)

Makrygiannis—a barely literate peasant, but a gifted storyteller in his Memoirs—embraced his Hellenic identity; and once the Modern Greek State was established, the Hellenic identity was what Greeks were supposed to aspire to, and their Roman identity denigrated. The most touching instance of Makrygiannis’ embrace of a Hellenic identity was his account of how he came to own two ancient statues:

Νέα σελίδα 1

I had two fine statues, a woman and a prince, intact—you could see the veins on them, that’s how perfect they were. Some soldiers had taken them and they were going to sell them to some Europeans, for a thousand thalers. I went over, I took the soldiers aside, and spoke to them. “These statues, even if they give you ten thousand thalers, don’t you stoop to letting them be taken out of our country. These are what we fought for. (I took 350 thalers out and handed it to them.) And when I reconcile with the Governor [Ioannis Kapodistrias], I’ll hand them over to him, and he’ll give you whatever you ask for, so they can stay in our country.” And I’d hidden the statues away. Then, with my report, I offered them to the King [Otto of Greece], so they might be of use to the country.

But in those same memoirs, Makrygiannis recounts that, on the very eve of the War, a Greek excitedly said, “What do you think? We’ll go to bed in Turkey, and wake up in Greece!” But he didn’t call Greece Hellas. He called it Romeiko, the Roman State.

There was a third word, Graikos, that is, of course, just Greek. Modern intellectuals have occasionally used it to differentiate Greek Orthodox Christians (including Slavs, Arvanites and Vlachs) from ethnic Greeks. But it was not used that often.

Will Quora ever support emoji?

Originally Answered:

When will Quora support emojis?

If you’ve ever tried to type Gothic or Linear B in Quora, you’ll know that it’s not just emoji that the Quora editor does not support; it’s anything beyond Plane 0 Unicode.

https://got.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

(.: Γότθοι) . .

U00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343 U00010343U00010330U00010339U00010343U0001033aU00010330U00010339U00010333U0001033fU0001033d U00010339U0001033d U00010330U0001033fU00010343U00010344U00010342U00010330U00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343 U0001033eU00010330U00010337 U00010345U00010339U00010343U0001033fU00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343.

(For an added bonus, the 300 character limit turns out to be 300 bytes: The two Gothic sentences above blew up the 300 character limit.)

It’s felicitous for Quora that they don’t support emojis. But don’t underestimate the technical debt of Quora “Product” “Management”.

EDIT: as Uri Granta has discovered, Plane 1 (including emoji) work in comments, but not the question editor.

What can I do with a humanities PhD?

What do all those physics PhDs end up doing?

A whole lot of running computer systems. An incidental skill they picked up during their apprenticeships.

What incidental skill have you picked up during your apprenticeship?

Critical thinking. Analysis and synthesis of disparate information. Communication skills. Research skills. Project management.

Where can you apply those skills, once exiled like Adam from academe?

Anyone who’ll pay you to think for a living. They do exist, though the pathways to those gigs are often happenstance. Consider:

  • Government. Policy development, research, communications.
  • Consultancies and corporate. Business analysis, process analysis, business architecture.
  • And the old humanities standbys: publishing, marketing, editing.

I don’t know that your PhD will always be considered an asset in such gigs. But at least it won’t be a hindrance.

Good luck!

Is it possible to write English in Greek script? Would it look better?

This could go one of two ways, neither pretty.

You could phonetically transcribe English into Greek, Ancient or Modern, using the phonetics of the Greek alphabet unchanged. As Konstantinos Konstantinides says, that would sound horrible, because it really would be English with Greek vowels and consonants.

In fact, when Greeklish ( Greek in ASCII) was a going concern online, a popular party trick was to drop in some English, transliterated into Greek, but in Roman characters. That should give you a flavor of the ugliness.

Ιφ γιου φάιντ δις βέρι χάρντ του ριντ, δεν γιου γουΐλλ αντερστάντ δατ περχάψ τρανζλίτερεϊτεντ Ίγκλις ιν Γκρικ κάρακτερζ ιζ νοτ α λάικλι άουτκαμ.

If giou fai”nt dis beri xarnt tou rint, den giou gouill anterstant dat perxay tranzliterei”tent Igklis in Gkrik karakterz iz not a lai”kli aoutkam.

Looks a bit like Tok Pisin, only with velar fricatives. An Attic transliteration would not fare much better.

Ἰφ ἰοὺ φαίνδ δὶς οὐέρι ἃρδ τοὺ ρίδ, δὲν ἰοὺ οὐὶλλ ἀνδερστάνδ δὰτ περὰψ τρανσλίτερητεδ Ἴγκλις ἰν Γρὶκ κήρακτερς ἰς νὸτ ἀ λαίκλι αὔτκαμ.

The other alternative would be to use the Roman alphabet as a transcription, one to one, as José A. Ugalde σuggests. There is precedent for this; in fact, the Greeklish I use does this (which is why I had <y> for psi and <d> for delta above). But it would be even sillier.

Some of you will have seen this before too, in the 90s: it would be merely English text typed in Symbol font.

Ιφ υοθ φινδ τηισ ωερι ηαρδ το ρεαδ, τηεν υοθ ςιλλ θνδερστανδ τηατ περηαπσ τρανσλιτερατεδ Ενγλιση ιν Γρεεκ ψηαραψτερσ ισ νοτ α λικελυ οθτψομε.

Is Bach’s music predictable?

There are underlying harmonic patterns that keep recurring in Bach, and that are his convention for moving music forward. The Circle of fifths is particularly prominent in Bach. It’s the kind of thing that writers, to be more complimentary about it, call “inevitable”. (And of course, recurring harmonic patterns make it predictable, at least for certain passages, in the positive sense; they don’t necessarily make it boring!)

How do I get started using Quora?

A2A on a question with 96 excellent responses already?

I’ll answer, but I’m not going to read through them all beforehand.

  1. As with all online fora: start by lurking. A month, maybe. Observe the community norms at play; see what people object to, and how they frame their questions.
  2. Follow topics you’re interested in, and (though it’s less critical) people you’re interested in. Upvote the stuff you want to see more of in your feed. Downvote the stuff you want to see less of.
  3. If you want to be a widely read writer, pick topics that get lots of views. You have an unfair advantage if that involves anything Indians, or US politics.
  4. If you want to be a well-regarded writer, pick a niche topic that you know lots about.
  5. If you want to be a sociable Quora user (which will improve your experience, though some here don’t care for it), comment on posts you like, and build up relationships with other Quorans.
  6. Avoid getting bogged down in arguments in comments. It’s not what Quora is designed for, and can end badly. If a poster is a bonehead, post your own answer saying how (civilly).
  7. Work out the no-nos of posting, to avoid the banhammer. Summarised by Tracey: Tracey Bryan’s answer to How do I get started using Quora?
  8. EDIT: Topics in your questions. Always edit them.
  9. Write what you’re interested in.
  10. Rinse and repeat.

Has there ever been an attempt to “purify” English by removing Latin/French words and reintroucing the old Germanic words (like many languages did)?

Thanks to Loren Peter Lugosch for posting the Wikipedia link. The most serious recent attempt to purify English was William Barnes.

He called for the purification of English by removal of Greek, Latin and foreign influences so that it might be better understood by those without a classical education. For example, the word “photograph” (from Greek light+writing) would become “sun-print” (from Saxon). Other terms include “wortlore” (botany), “welkinfire” (meteor) and “nipperlings” (forceps).

Enjoy Barnes’ grammar of English, written in purified English:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4…

It’s very reminiscent of the linguistic and grammar works written in Demotic Greek by Ioannis Psycharis and his school.

The other attempts in the past two centuries were either thought experiments, jokes, or in Orwell’s case calls for Plain English.

I find the “that would be horrible” protests here unconvincing. English-speakers are only saying that because English didn’t travel down that path; and English didn’t travel down that path by accident, not by design. (Mike Richmond’s answer captures why.) Is Icelandic (or Modern Greek or German or Chinese) less of a language, because they did choose to travel down that path more than English did? Really?

Does Quora support Plane 1 U00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343?

(.: Γότθοι)     .   .

U00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343 U00010343U00010330U00010339U00010343U0001033aU00010330U00010339U00010333U0001033fU0001033d U00010339U0001033d U00010330U0001033fU00010343U00010344U00010342U00010330U00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343 U0001033eU00010330U00010337 U00010345U00010339U00010343U0001033fU00010332U0001033fU00010344U00010330U0001033dU00010343.