Education and the Classics

[Easy Bakes 253]

No, I'm usually not serious enough for that to happen. A foreigner peering at their nametag, thinking hard about it, then proudly coming up with the most difficult reading he can think of and saying it loudly is apparently the second funniest thing anyone can do in this country.

whats the first?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

A good, hard slap, whether across the back of the head or across the face, delivered with an optional smile. Other forms of violence seem hilarious here, as well.

[Easy Bakes 253]

they must love the 3 stooges.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sounds like Japanese humour is a relic of the Samurai.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Did I inadvertently hijack this thread? We were talking about Latin before, I believe. I'm very sorry to veer so off-topic like this!

[Easy Bakes 253]

Did I inadvertently hijack this thread? We were talking about Latin before, I believe. I'm very sorry to veer so off-topic like this!

no problems.

Culture is part of language.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Kind of slid into the next hemisphere. I am easily led astray.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

It was a bit of a smooth transition back there, at least.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Iv never understood why straying off the original topic was such a bad thing anyway.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, as long as there is some tentative relationship I suppose it should be OK. I think the "general" topic was language arts, but we were kind of specifically looking at the Vatican's attempt to popularize a very dead language. As a universal language it does fine up the end of the 19th century, then things get a little fast for it.

One can always Latinize new words, however. Anyone ever read "Winnie Ille Pooh"?

I used to have a song sheet in Latin published by the Butternut press in Toronto. Covered all the popular Christmas Carols. And, it is a big enough language to handle things like Beatlemania (Volo manum tenere!). Gotta watch that, manus (tand) is fourth declension.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Id much rather discuss a living language then a dead one.

What ever possessed you to go all the way up north to NMU?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Want to make a new topic? How about one on English dialects in North America?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Michigan is a nice microcosm of that. I went to high school with native Michiganders who had a southern twang to their speech from the country life, and others who share my common Midwestern US accent, and then you go north and talk to the Yoopers, and, well, it's occasionally quite strange, but I came to love it during college, which reminds me of this lovely woman who did her dry cleaning at the shop at which I worked. She was from Georgia, and she said she worked very hard to maintain her aristocratic Southern accent in the middle of Michigan's Upper Peninsula for all the decades she had been up there. It is hard work, the Yooper accent is contagious.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Michigan is a nice microcosm of that. I went to high school with native Michiganders who had a southern twang to their speech from the country life, and others who share my common Midwestern US accent, and then you go north and talk to the Yoopers, and, well, it's occasionally quite strange, but I came to love it during college, which reminds me of this lovely woman who did her dry cleaning at the shop at which I worked. She was from Georgia, and she said she worked very hard to maintain her aristocratic Southern accent in the middle of Michigan's Upper Peninsula for all the decades she had been up there. It is hard work, the Yooper accent is contagious.

I grew up in Michigan. but i now have a Texan accent after 30 years here. were did you live?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

I grew up in Temperance *JUST* over the border from Toledo, OH, and I went to school in Marquette, MI, at Northern Michigan University. Michigan is an incredibly underrated place. Of course now I live in Japan, and things are a little different here.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Owasso was were I was. always wanted to visit Japan.

What ever possessed you to go all the way up north to Northen Michigan?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Michigan happens to be the state that is just across the lake (Huron) from me here in Southwestern Ontario. We get the radio stations, and I don't notice any particular Michigander accent, or maybe I am just used to it.

[Easy Bakes 253]

well a radio stations on air personnel would probably not a good indicator of an accent. they probably are trained to not speak with accents.I know the ones around here dont talk with the Texan drawl.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Undoubtedly. The CBC has a grammarian on staff who gives talks on presentation skills. Really too bad, eh pardner?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

Yeah, that would be like the local news casts, too. If I remember correctly, in Marquette where everyone talks in their thick Yooper accent, the local news people all sound like Trolls (heh, because they live "under the [Mackinac] Bridge").

I wanted to go to Marquette University, then I found out it wasn't in Marquette, MI, it was a VERY expensive Catholic school in Wisconsin, so I went with NMU. I love the snow and drove a Subaru. I fit right in up there.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Just a quick survey of correspondents on this thread. How many of us have been exposed to the mythology of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Scandinavia? Anyone ever heard of the Walsungasaga?

[Easy Bakes 253]

Just a quick survey of correspondents on this thread. How many of us have been exposed to the mythology of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Scandinavia? Anyone ever heard of the Walsungasaga?

I took that in high school as an elective in History, Greek Mythology in that one they compared the Greek pantheon and the roman pantheon . got an A if i recall correctly.they touched on Rome in world history but it was mostly historical events and not much of the mythology. Egypt they only lightly touched,buy iv read lots of Nat Geo articles about it.

Hmmm a Search for Walsungasaga always converts it to the Volsunga Saga

I forgot the name of the movie that ring of the Nibelung was called a few years ago.

Spidy: I still got some cousins that live in Marquette.

[hym 358]

Just a quick survey of correspondents on this thread. How many of us have been exposed to the mythology of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Scandinavia? Anyone ever heard of the Walsungasaga?

Surprisingly, I did get exposed to mythologies. Not in a whole lot of detail, but they were mentioned.

[Duke87 1,070]

How many of us have been exposed to the mythology of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Scandinavia?

Yes, but not in school.

Anyone ever heard of the Walsungasaga?

Can't say I have.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

How many of us have been exposed to the mythology of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Scandinavia?

Yes, but not in school.

Anyone ever heard of the Walsungasaga?

Can't say I have.

Poor Duke. Didn't any of it get mentioned in your history classes? What school system is that?

The Walsungasaga (German spelling) is a long epic poem about Prince Siegfried of Orange and his courtship of Princess Brunhilde of Burgundy. It is the basis for the Ring of the Neibelungen: A series of four operas by Richard Wagner -- Das Reingold; Die Walküre; Siegfried; and Gotterdamerung. 22 hours of music drama, which believe me is an acquired taste. It is all mixed up with the Norse Myths, and the poem. Lots of good music, ghastly arias, and even more boring recitatives. The net effect is that the Rhine Maidens have their gold stolen, then get it back.

[hym 358]

Poor Duke. Didn't any of it get mentioned in your history classes? What school system is that?

Considering the significant amount of material that really should be learned by the end of high school, I think that it would be better for a school system to focus on practical material than on things that are interesting, but relatively insignificant for the modern world.

[Duke87 1,070]

Poor Duke. Didn't any of it get mentioned in your history classes? What school system is that?

We discussed Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Vikings in history class. And while a few of the gods and goddesses were mentioned, there was never much of an in depth discussion of the mythology. Certainly not with the latter two. Greece and Rome, a little more. But still, pretty much everything I know about all that I learned on my own outside of school.

Though, now that I think about it, we did read the story of Daedalus and Icarus... in English class, not history.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A quick dip into mythology in early history classes sets the rationale for our general cultural background. Let's face it, we are all descendents of the Roman Empire if our roots are in South-Western Europe, and the Romans borrowed heavily from the Greeks. The interesting thing about the Norse stuff may come later, but since most English speaking peoples have a heavy dose of Norse tradition as well, it shouldn't be omitted.

Interestingly enough there are many parallels in the northern and southern myths. One glaring exception is that the Norse hell is cold and the southern hell is hot.

[Meg 368]

We studied a little mythology but it was in literature class, not history. and not all of us have ancestors in southwestern Europe. I don't and I'm considered to be relatively white bread, if I may use that slang term.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, something like 49% of the Canadian population doesn't have purely Caucasian blood either. Our first peoples all crossed the land bridge at the Bering strait thousands of years ago, probably during the last ice age. Then there are a lot of immigrants with a good mixture that arrived via the underground railway (not all US slaves were black, by the way).

Nevertheless, the school systems in most of North America are derived from WASP origins, and these are mostly south western European. Odd how education systems have changed in only a couple of hundred years, eh? Things are moving so fast now, it is hard to find a stable curriculum that doesn't leave out twenty centuries of human endeavour.

There are two considerations here:

"People who forget history are doomed to repeat it." quoted by any number of people.

"The winners write history", Herodotus, I think.

You only have to review the period from 1500 to the present to see the first in operation. The second is one of the nasty facts that scare the daylights out of everyone.