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"Maybe ... Webster defines ..." Not around here it doesn't (says {!US})! You don't need to define "literature", it largely defines itself but not in a formal m

"Maybe ... Webster defines ..." Not around here it doesn't (says {!US})! You don't need to define "literature", it largely defines itself but not in a formal mathematical way (derived from axioms) but in a linguistic way which is rather closer to legal reasoning and quite open to interpretation. So, we might have litera tura as an initial path to the to past to explore for literature. Latin for something like learning from letters (characters). I've searched quite a lot and I see litera being turned into a book which I think is wrong - a book is librum in Latin. Litera are individual letters or characters but many "letters" starts to take on a new meaning. They become words (verbum) initially, and as you deploy more verbum you get paginae and then liberae. I've probably really mashed up the singulars and plurals - soz. So I think we have literae tura. This gives us some latitude for interpretation. For starters, literature need not be confined to books - that might be liberature and get jolly confused with notions of freedom. Right, now we have modern language sorted out, let's worry about how old an ancient text is or are or something.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> I've probably really mashed up the singulars and plurals - soz. Indeed, and you're also putting a space in the middle of litteratura. It's not multiple words. What effect were you trying to create here? > a book is librum in Latin Close, though you'd usually cite the nominative form liber. But as you note, there is no e present in the root - liberae would mean "free women".
msla 4y ago
Reasoning from etymology can lead you down some pretty misleading trails, especially since a lot of the most popular etymologies are nonsense and words are not obligated to change with our understanding. For example, "atom" comes from a Greek term meaning something which cannot be cut, as in something indivisible, but we apply the term to physical objects we now know are quite divisible indeed. Computer programmers still use atomic in the old sense, certainly. Also, reasoning from an etymology hardly anyone knows is not going to get you any insight into what others mean.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> I've probably really mashed up the singulars and plurals - soz. Indeed, and you're also putting a space in the middle of litteratura. It's not multiple words. What effect were you trying to create here? > a book is librum in Latin Close, though you'd usually cite the nominative form liber. But as you note, there is no e present in the root - liberae would mean "free women".

msla 4y ago

Reasoning from etymology can lead you down some pretty misleading trails, especially since a lot of the most popular etymologies are nonsense and words are not obligated to change with our understanding. For example, "atom" comes from a Greek term meaning something which cannot be cut, as in something indivisible, but we apply the term to physical objects we now know are quite divisible indeed. Computer programmers still use atomic in the old sense, certainly. Also, reasoning from an etymology hardly anyone knows is not going to get you any insight into what others mean.