Friday, January 23, 2009

Professor's Email

I just received the following email in response to the way we said Stigmata in class on Tuesday:

Class,

στίγματα (stigmata) is the Greek plural for στίγμα (stigma). There is an accent on the Iota (i) in the singular and plural forms, which shows how it should be pronounced. No more stigmaaaata please.

Best,

XXX

In case you're wondering, that means: yes, I am officially studying something no one cares about. And in case you're wondering, when you talk about Stigmata (that thing where people suddenly manifest the wounds of Christ), apparently you should say "STIGmata, not stigMAta." Oh, don't do a google image search for Stigmata. It's gross. You've been warned.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

and that of course is different than a stigma which is a vision condition....

If only those Greeks had "uumloudts" like the Germans, everyone would know how to say stigmata. Maybe you can submit a suggestion for that.

Jim Elek said...

Mom- I think that is called astygmatism, but I am not an opthamologist. Josh, I would appreciate it if we could, when we discuss this in the future, refer ti it as stigmaTA, placing the emPhAsis on the coRRECT syLLAble. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Joshua said...

@ Mom: I've contacted the people who are in control of that sort of thing, and they said they'll be adding umlauts to Koine Greek from now on. They are grateful for the opportunity to rewrite the scholarly Bibles so that everyone has to buy a new one. ;)

@ Jim: You're welcome.

Jim Elek said...

Look at that last picture of Norah, your favorite 1, where she is smiling, and try to tell me she doesn't look like Grandma B.

That's A Rapp said...

I wish I would have heeded your admonition to refrain from looking up the images on google. I have learned my lesson. Keep up the good work!