[Buddha-l] Tibetan for...?

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 03 January 2007 14:50, F.K. Lehman (F.K.L. Chit Hlaing) wrote:

>   Why in the world can;t otherwise educated and intelligent persons
> figure out that there is no such thing as  a 'bicep'? 'Biceps' is
> Singular and not plural (Latin, remember?).

For the same reason that otherwise educated people seem not to recognize that 
there is no such thing as a phenomena. It has been several decades since 
otherwise educated people could be expected to have studied Latin and Greek. 
My grandfather (1886-1972), who taught Greek and Latin, spoiled many an 
otherwise pleasant family meal by pointing out that some imbecile had 
unwittingly mixed a Greek prefix with a Latin root. He was sure the world was 
going to hell when he heard that I had graduated from high school having 
taken only four years of Latin and no Greek at all.

My grandfather set a standard of philological pedantry that I have devoted 
most of my adult life trying not to meet. Sometimes I slip up and excoriate 
some undeserving victim for not realizing that a biceps is so called because 
it is a muscle with two heads (cf bis+caput), but several months ago I gave 
up refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of people who did not know that the 
genitive singular of biceps is bicipitis. Being a pedant is a good way to 
lose mitrams---I mean mitraa.ni.

-- 
Richard Hayes