There was just a fray over on Bluesky that I created because somebody posted a false opinion based on a false translation of a word from a foreign language.
The poster claimed that Greek ἰδιότης means the same thing as modern English idiot. It does not. Here is the LSJ entry.
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Di)dio%2Fths
If anything, the word means individual. There is no pejorative sense to it. The poster committed the redefinition fallacy.
This is the same sort of thing as pretending that the medieval word villein has the same pejorative connotation as the modern word villain.
Or that a churl in the medieval sense of the word was a gloomy nasty person. The medieval churl was unlettered and uncultured, and the word derives from German kerl which today means "guy".
Anybody with the Internet, and the will to make sure you're not being lied to, could have done the research that just took me 5 minutes. So now if you saw the original post, you know that the poster is somebody you can't trust to tell the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment