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> Likewise, if you heard someone had "dysthymia", you might have no idea what it meant, but you would recognize it was some sort of technical term It’s true th

by dahart 4y ago

> Likewise, if you heard someone had "dysthymia", you might have no idea what it meant, but you would recognize it was some sort of technical term It’s true that there’s a downside to using regular words for technical terms, and the problem isn’t the regular words so much as the fact that people, all of us, love making assumptions, and we love demanding that words must meet a single literal interpretation exactly and completely. But something I’ve always thought is fascinating about Latin (edit: or Greek) technical terms is that for Latin speakers, they were regular words. Some of the Latin terms we think of as technical in English are even ridiculously generic in Latin. This using of regular words for jargon has always been there, it’s not something new. It would be interesting to know if Rome had the same issue with these ‘improper nouns’. I love the call to attention though; recognizing that people might be saying something different than what you think is incredibly useful. Realizing that my reactionary incredulity is actually me misunderstanding the words because I know less about the subject than the other person, that keeps me from making an ass of myself often. Not always, but often. :P

Telemakhos 4y ago
Dysthymia is, in fact, Greek, not Latin, but anyone who knows ancient Greek would immediately understand the word. Greek and Latin used to be normal parts of a basic grammar- and high-school education, even at the beginning of the twentieth century; by the end of the century, we were instead teaching remedial English in universities. The consequent narrowing of both vocabulary and roots from which neologism might arise may be responsible for the growth of the unwieldy and confusing noun phrases serving as terms of art: would not "psychotrophium" sound better than Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic? There's another factor at work in lengthy periphrasis, too: people seem to need length these days to lend credibility. For example, my church never calls itself a church now but always a "community of believers" or "faith community." Missionaries report not on tribes but "people groups." Monosyllables have fallen out of favor, because professionals must embrace sesquipedalian verbosity. Many of the ridiculously generic Latinate terms, by the way, especially in anatomy, were imposed in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. The "hippocampus," for example, was a seahorse until 1587, when the term was applied to part of the brain. At the time, surgeons learned entirely in Latin, and they probably had no difficulty differentiating between medical and marine definitions based on context. As far as ancient Rome goes, or ancient Greece for that matter, homonymy (which is really what the author of the article means) and amphiboly were taught and warned against in the schools: clarity is a virtue for rhetoricians and a duty of dialecticians.
- dahart 4y ago
  > Dysthymia is, in fact, Greek, not Latin Ack, of course! Thank you!! > homonymy […] and amphiboly were taught Yeah so maybe the issue is that it’s being taught less. Or maybe this is a symptom of having the internet combined with a huge percent of the population having some advanced schooling. There’s perhaps a lot more exposure today to technical terminology for the average person than there was hundreds or thousands of years ago. Maybe this problem isn’t new but has increased in scale. Using regular English words has advantages though, and I feel like studies in medicine, math, music, and many others that use a lot of Greek, Latin, Italian, etc. for reason of history or in some cases of high-brow convention, might be better, could ease learning and reduce confusion and miscommunication if we stopped speaking in a foreign language.

by dahart 4y ago

Telemakhos 4y ago

Dysthymia is, in fact, Greek, not Latin, but anyone who knows ancient Greek would immediately understand the word. Greek and Latin used to be normal parts of a basic grammar- and high-school education, even at the beginning of the twentieth century; by the end of the century, we were instead teaching remedial English in universities. The consequent narrowing of both vocabulary and roots from which neologism might arise may be responsible for the growth of the unwieldy and confusing noun phrases serving as terms of art: would not "psychotrophium" sound better than Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic? There's another factor at work in lengthy periphrasis, too: people seem to need length these days to lend credibility. For example, my church never calls itself a church now but always a "community of believers" or "faith community." Missionaries report not on tribes but "people groups." Monosyllables have fallen out of favor, because professionals must embrace sesquipedalian verbosity. Many of the ridiculously generic Latinate terms, by the way, especially in anatomy, were imposed in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. The "hippocampus," for example, was a seahorse until 1587, when the term was applied to part of the brain. At the time, surgeons learned entirely in Latin, and they probably had no difficulty differentiating between medical and marine definitions based on context. As far as ancient Rome goes, or ancient Greece for that matter, homonymy (which is really what the author of the article means) and amphiboly were taught and warned against in the schools: clarity is a virtue for rhetoricians and a duty of dialecticians.

dahart 4y ago
> Dysthymia is, in fact, Greek, not Latin Ack, of course! Thank you!! > homonymy […] and amphiboly were taught Yeah so maybe the issue is that it’s being taught less. Or maybe this is a symptom of having the internet combined with a huge percent of the population having some advanced schooling. There’s perhaps a lot more exposure today to technical terminology for the average person than there was hundreds or thousands of years ago. Maybe this problem isn’t new but has increased in scale. Using regular English words has advantages though, and I feel like studies in medicine, math, music, and many others that use a lot of Greek, Latin, Italian, etc. for reason of history or in some cases of high-brow convention, might be better, could ease learning and reduce confusion and miscommunication if we stopped speaking in a foreign language.