I do quite enjoy giving you the excuse to drop into teaching mode, Toshenka, even if I am now rather wanting to spend my evening re-reading Parmenides rather than doing my marking. (I've always been rather fond of that bit of Altheia's in Act One where she's trying to figure out exactly what's going on in the world. I went through a period after Alde introduced me to the play of saying the bit that ends "Some small part shall remain of me." over and over to myself when I got frustrated.)
Your explanation helps rather a lot as well and I will see if I can find time for another go at the translation before tomorrow night. Both directions, mind, because the English is imprecise whether one starts or ends with it.
I do find that I'm finding the subtleties of the grammar more and more intriguing, even if they're not actually relevant to my initial goal of reading astronomical texts. (Or of making comments to you in staff meetings, but really, those are generally linguistically simple. And when I mess them up, you can still guess what I was trying to say.)
I'm reminded of something Georg explained to me, once, about Attic Greek, that there's a voice there (I forget the name for it - medium voice? central voice?) that is about saying you're doing something for your own benefit. Never could decide if that meant the language was designed by people who would have been Slytherins had they been born in other times and other places, or whether it was a language designed by people who had to deal with such, but it always seemed rather a useful tool in a language.
As to Cedric, ah, well, he is decidedly useful, and I'm glad he's been such a help to you. Especially as you've been busier and busier again with one thing and another.
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Re: Private message to Tosha
Date: 2014-03-21 12:04 am (UTC)Your explanation helps rather a lot as well and I will see if I can find time for another go at the translation before tomorrow night. Both directions, mind, because the English is imprecise whether one starts or ends with it.
I do find that I'm finding the subtleties of the grammar more and more intriguing, even if they're not actually relevant to my initial goal of reading astronomical texts. (Or of making comments to you in staff meetings, but really, those are generally linguistically simple. And when I mess them up, you can still guess what I was trying to say.)
I'm reminded of something Georg explained to me, once, about Attic Greek, that there's a voice there (I forget the name for it - medium voice? central voice?) that is about saying you're doing something for your own benefit. Never could decide if that meant the language was designed by people who would have been Slytherins had they been born in other times and other places, or whether it was a language designed by people who had to deal with such, but it always seemed rather a useful tool in a language.
As to Cedric, ah, well, he is decidedly useful, and I'm glad he's been such a help to you. Especially as you've been busier and busier again with one thing and another.