Re: My name is Benjamin Jowett...and what I don't know isn't knowledge.

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: I had trouble digesting all of that info, so here are a few things I needed to make sense of it all. : NT Greek is the New Testament Greek grammar listserv. They are very prickly that it is 'just' about grammar; no theology, please! (i.e., no evangelizing). : "Ach, wenn der Prometheus nicht von Aischylos ist, dann weiss ICH nicht was Aischylosist." : Oh, if the Prometheus is not from Aischylos, then I do not know what Aischylos is. : nu (the letter n in greek) is stuck in in places : to prevent two vowels in succession : At least that's what I think it is. : : : On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Edward Hobbs wrote: : : > I haven't time for this, but can't resist: : : > : : > "Liddell" indeed pronounced his name "LIDD'l". Why can't Americans get it : : > right? Probably for the same reason we insist on mispronouncing Kittell : : > (KITT'l, not Kit-TELL); when we see a name ending in -ELL, we have this : : > urge to accent the last syllable. : : > More interesting: Henry Liddell had a daughter, Alice Liddell, : : > who utterly fascinated a fellow down at Oxford, a mathematician by the name of : : > Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. When she was 12, and he just over 30, he took : : > her boating and made up stories to tell her. He later wrote them down, as : : > "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Little Alice was Alice LIDDell. He of : : > course turned his middle and first names into Latin, and back to English, : : > to create the pen-name Lewis Carroll. : : > : : > A VERY Greek matter indeed! Next on the docket will be the : : > mispronunciation of the old Oxford master, Benjamin Jowett (most famed for : : > his [mis]translations of Plato). (Anyone know the grafitto about hisname?) : : > : : > Edward Hobbs : : > Wellesley : : > : : > : : I believe the grafitto runs something like: : : My name is Benjamin Jowett. : : I'm master of Baliol College. : : I know everything that there is to know : : and what I don't know isn't knowledge. : : Not NT Greek indeed. But Oxford lore and therefore (tangentally) related. : : Reminds me of a tale I heard in Munich about Werner Jaeger in the days when : : he was young and arrogant (as he certainly was not when I was in his final : : seminar at Harvard). A bright young linguist had just done a statistical : : study of the incidence of Movable Nu in the Prometheus Bound in comparison : : with the other extant whole plays of Aeschylus (it's a known fact that use : : of Movable Nu increased progressively over the course of the 5th century). : : On the basis of this, the young man said he had proved indisputable that : : the Prometheus Bound cannot possibly have been written by Aeschylus.Upon : : being told this, Jaeger scratched his head and said, "Ach, wenn der : : Prometheus nicht von Aischylos ist, dann weiss ICH nicht was Aischylosist." : : Of course, there are two or three people in the world like Jowett and : : Jaeger of whom one might almost believe that they know everything. : : Carl W. Conrad : : Department of Classics, Washington University : : One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130 : : (314) 935-4018 : : cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com : : WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/ : : ---------------------------------------------------------- : : [Hobbs continues: ] : : > : : > Delightful! The version I heard and learned had a different third line, : : > which was in fact emphasized as a major clue to how his name was pronounced : : > at Oxford. It went: : : > : : > My name is Benjamin Jowett; : : > I'm master of Balliol College. : : > If there's ought to know, I know it, : : > And what I don't know isn't knowledge. : : > : : > This was often quoted as a correction to Americans who insisted oncalling : : > him JOWett, rhyming with HOW-it, whereas his name was JOE-ett, longO. : : > But here we are doing FormCriticism, while on the Biblical Greek List. : : > I slap my own fingers for that.

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