“A word bearing the acute upon the ultima is known as an oxytone, one with the acute upon the penult as a paroxytone, one with the acute upon the antepenult as a proparoxytone. One which bears the circumflex upon the ultima is called a perispomenon, one with the circumflex upon the penult is a properispomenon. These terms, though formidable, will save much laborious periphrasis.”

- A New Introduction to Greek, Chase & Phillips, 1941


Needless to say, we never did master the terms, and laborious periphrasis has been our lot ever since.

Laborious Brit. /ləˈbɔːrɪəs/, U.S. /ləˈbɔriəs/

Characterized by or involving hard work or exertion; requiring much time or effort; arduous, tiring; painstaking, tiresomely difficult. Also of a physical action: performed with great effort or difficulty; slow or deliberate; heavy.

Periphrasis Brit. /pᵻˈrɪfrəsɪs/ , U.S. /pəˈrɪfrəsəz/

Chiefly Rhetoric. A figure of speech in which a meaning is expressed by several words instead of by few or one; a roundabout way of speaking, circumlocution.

- OED Online, accessed 9/1/12

Tuesday, October 9, 2012


            As fond as I am of walking through this city, my keenness wanes when I contemplate walking back to my flat, and then back to George Square in between classes.  It’s only about a fifteen-minute walk either way, but the turnaround is too short for the trip to a cup of tea and an afternoon snack to be appealing.  I’m too frugal to make a habit of spending money on coffee just to spend the time, and so for the first few weeks I would circumvent the cue spilling out of the library café door to find an empty table where I could fiddle with my notes and tell myself I was being productive.  I could, I suppose, bring my laptop with me and work on course-related readings, and so I do when deadlines are pressing.  It’s not as though they don’t give me enough to keep me busy.  It’s a heavy little bugger though, to drag along for just forty minutes of reading.  There are plenty of computers in the library complex, but I am generally idling there in the early afternoon, when most study spaces are filled to max capacity.  All of this is really an elaborate excuse for my new favorite spot to waste time.

            It started when an essay I was reading on the technicalities of visual reference and biological mechanisms for the identification of animation, and it referenced a scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh.   I spent the rest of the hour humming “Palaces of Montezuma*,” and when I finished my reading a little early, I ducked into the library on a whim to see if I could find a copy of the Babylonian epic.  I’ve never read it before, you see, and despite the previous claims on my time, something told me that I ought to.  I found where the book was supposed to be, on the third level of the library and a shelf up from some tomes on the history of Hebrew names, but the first volume had been taken out.  Once I found myself in the ancient history section, however, I couldn’t simply walk away.  My inner Daniel Jackson** took hold of the situation, and I pulled out several books on the materials used by the Assyrians in religious practice.  Nearly all of the nooks on that floor are reserved spaces, but I didn’t want to roam far, as I was short on time.  Several rows over, I found a sort of cubby in the wall, where I could sit on the floor and read while not being underfoot for anyone hoping to get past.  When I got settled, I realized that I was sitting, staring at a rack of nothing but excerpts, analyses, and translations of Homer.  I’ve been returning to the third floor and that same cubby every since.

          As I’ve said, there’s plenty of reading I could be doing for my classes, but this is different.  There is something so enthusing about learning something that you didn’t anticipate.  It reminds me of my childhood, when I’d aimlessly dig through our World book encyclopedias, roaming from entry to entry, finding things that I would have never thought to go looking for.  I love that I have the opportunity to go to university, and my classes are thoroughly interesting, but there is something special about clandestine knowledge – about picking up a book on Assyrian tablet translations, or the history of hieroglyphs, or Ancient Semitic attitudes towards the ocean.  Ancient languages and history are certainly not my only interests, but like I say, I’ve been camping in the classics section as of late.  I’m a horrible procrastinator, always have been, and I can think of few more enjoyable and enriching ways to waste my time.  Learn how to read Coptic?  I don't see why not.
 *

**For those of you that weren’t watching sci-fi in the early 2000’s, Daniel Jackson was the archeologist/ linguist in the elite intergalactic exploration team on Stargate: SG-1.  He starts out as a typical headstrong bleeding-heart academic, and gets consistently more badass as the series progresses.  

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