Bernard displays his advanced knowledge…
Video Rating: 4 / 5
12
Nov
Yes Minister – Greek and Latin issues
25 Responses to “Yes Minister – Greek and Latin issues”
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@cygil1 Or this could be a case of “Critical Research Failure” (see TVTropes).
One of the funniest thing the Sun ever printed was the headline “Sir Bumphrey”. They really should have written an episode were Humphrey gets outed and is involved in a sex scandal. That would have been funny.
Wow, what an excellent error which im amazed I wasn’t already aware of! Cheers!
@cygil1 Crap, you’re right. He said “bewaring of themselves.” That is a gerund. I guess I don’t deserve my first.
@cygil1 “Bearing” is the present participle of “to bear,” and Bernard used the word as a participle, not as a gerund. He deserved his first.
“Everything I know I learned from Yes Minister.”
In “beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, Bernard claims “bearing” is a participle. It’s actually a gerund. Doubtless his Latin and Greek were stronger than his English.
@magister343 The word Danai has always been used metonymically to refer to Greeks as a whole, just as the Argives (rather than just being Greeks from Argos) is also used to refer to Greeks as a whole. When we’re talking about poetry, the “normal Latin word” is prosaic–the literary vocabulary, esp. in epic, is entirely separate from the commonplace sort. Synecdoche is the norm, and certain usages have been preserved from the start.
The three people that disliked this went to the LSE…. ^_^
Haha! …had you not attended the LSE!
danaos is not only the greek for greek its also the latin for greek, its very interesting really.
<3s burnurd
I just felt that he would say something about Galtieri
The speed and British accents of Latin quotes in this series makes them hardto understand. I had to go back man times to discern that it was “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” which means “I fear Danaans and those bearing gifts.” Danaans are Greks of a particular lineage, not Greks in general. The normal Latin word for Greek is Graeci; the Greek, Hellenes.
Amusingly, Google Translate’s auto-detect also assumes this is phrase is in Greek. It also mistranslates Danaos as “Greeks, even when.”
I dont know what was said but i completely agree….i think….
@BartBassist
Many of the humorous exchanges on Yes Minister (and indeed in Monty Python) seem to me as if the writer(s) were recalling long drawn out pointless arguments from their University days, when one could ramble on and on and still sound reasonable intelligent. I agree it’s a pity Greek and Latin are no longer respected, since they from the fundamentals of not just our language but our systems of government and justice.
@mrbignose888 It is. It’s just that Humphrey is very much an Oxford man, and looks sneeringly upon any university that isn’t Oxford. I think.
beware the greeks bearing an olive oil surplus…. rotfl
I love when he gets Churchillian…
@mrbignose888 yes, but they don’t teach classics (Greek and Latin) at the LSE. Only at Oxford and Cambridge
Integrated Transport Policy? Calling John Prescott 20 years later – were the writers psyhic?!?! Prescott was and epic FAIL as an MP and the car is still KING!!
It’s all Greek to me.
@BartBassist it’s part of the future “Homeric Cycle” of which we do have fragmants in Greek
“We need it like an apeture in the cranial cavity!”
LOL
@mrbignose888 yeah, at that time LSE was considered ordinary…not many people from class families went there.
One thing i didn’t understand is why they where always joking about the LSE? I thought it was one of the best universities?