Philologos
By Philologos
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News Studying or Learning?
Gil Kulick of New York City writes: “A question that has intrigued and puzzled me for a long time has to do with the use of the world ‘learn’’ in Jewish parlance as a synonym of the word ‘study,’ or, more precisely, the lack of distinction between the two. “In standard English the two terms…
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News Should Vs. Shall
Writing in the Hebrew newspaper Ha’aretz on March 15, columnist Akiva Eldar declares that Israel should take a positive view of the “Saudi initiative.” The Saudi Arabian peace plan, he argues, is worth considering despite its affirmation of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, which speaks of the Palestinian refugees’ returning to their homes. This…
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News In the Desert
Howard Marblestone, Charles Elliot professor of Greek and Latin at Lafayette College, has written me often over the years, generally to correct — always gently and kindly — some Greek or Latin gaffe of mine. Now, in the course of commenting on my February 9 column, “Biblical Discontinuity,” he chides me for referring to the…
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News Yid, Our Epithet
The New York City Council resolution calling on New Yorkers to stop using the word “nigger” has its comical side, as observers have noted, not only because people do not choose the words they use on the basis of city council resolutions, but because the use of “nigger” is most widespread in the United States…
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News That Purim Pastry
This year, I thought of it in time. Annually, whenever Purim has come around, I’ve always remembered too late that I should write a column about hamantashen. Or hamantaschen. Or hamantashes. Or homentaschen. Or hamentashes. Maybe that’s why I’ve always forgotten. How do you write about something with half-a-dozen spellings and two different plural forms?…
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News Yiddish’s Linguistic Drift
Stephen Fisher of Missouri writes: “My grandparents were native Yiddish speakers and my parents were native English speakers. I heard my grandparents speak Yiddish among themselves, but they spoke English to their children and grandchildren. In my childhood, we used a number of Yiddish words in our English; however, I soon learned not to include…
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News Uri Dan’s Famous Phrase
I srael, as you may have heard, has a new justice minister, law professor Daniel Friedmann, who has replaced acting justice minister Tzipi Livni, who replaced former justice minister Haim Ramon, who was just convicted by a Jerusalem court of an “obscene act” for kissing a young female soldier against her will. Ramon had charged…
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News Biblical Discontinuity
Isaac Hirshbein of La Mesa, Calif., wants to know why, in all English translations of the Bible, four of the Five Books of Moses, or Pentateuch, have Greek names — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy — while a fifth bears the English name of Numbers. “Why the break in continuity?” he asks. “And what is…
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