[Buddha-l] Mere mereness

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Richard Hayes schreef:

>While you're in a dictionary mood, take a peek at your Greek 
>dictionary. I think you'll find Purrhon listed there, which will 
>shed some light on why speakers of German and French and Dutch 
>refer to the man as Pyrrhon (just as they refer to Plato and 
>Platon), and why Italians call him Pirrone. The mystery is why 
>anglophones keep dropping the 'n' from the ends of the names of 
>Greek thinkerns.
>
>  
>
Alas, the reach of the anglophones goes far. Sometime between 1960 and 
1967 someone stole Platon's 'n'. Platon was usually called 'Platoon', 
but suddenly he was referredto by the name of 'Plato'. I suspect John 
Lenno(n), who visited Holland at the time had somehting to do with it.
The French and Germans guarded the 'n' against all lingual intrusions.  
They also purified their computerprograms from anglophone influence. The 
French even didn't accept the word 'computer' but insisted on 
'ordinateur'. It's like the Punjabi habit of dropping the 'a' at the and 
of words, which thurns Buddha into Buddh, while the Bengalis on the 
other hand talk about Buddho.

-- 


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950