QFT

Quoted for Truth: An IHE Quick Take entitled “Accents Matter in Ancient Greek.” I haven’t seen the t-shirts in question, but I can easily understand how such a problem might arise. It goes along with the frequent problem of non-Greek-literate sign painters trying to reproduce letterforms on painted institutional crests and mottoes (Glasgow cleverly avoids this by having adopted our biblical motto in its Latin form: “Via, Veritas, Vita.”) Once I ordered Greek-inscribed t-shirts for a class, and had to make a last-minute change (at a certain out-of-pocket expense) because my memory slipped a cog on the proper form for a third-declension genitive, and somewhere in a box I have a t-shirt that students made for me with an imprecise Greek slogan on it.

4 thoughts on “QFT

  1. The IHE piece links back to the Santa Fe Reporter item, and there they have a photo of the shirt.

    Looks like it had (here goes…) ???? for ???? , and ?? for ??. At least one commenter points out that the problems might be evidence of someone losing a battle with their computer or font.

    (One slight embarrassment that mars the enjoyment I get out of volunteering for elementary school chess: our team has a t-shirt showing an exceedingly implausible, though mercifully not illegal, board position.)

  2. I’m very pleased to say that it was my very first Greek prof who caught the error. Cracking down on the inaccurate accents (mine included) in his GK605 undergrad intensive Attic course (the 6 is for “six hours a week” as it was an entire year in a semester) at UT – Austin gave him good practice for T-shirts!

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