Don’t be a dickus
By: Sarah Scullin
Tags: Humor, Higher Education, Classics, Advice

Modern People

Wilamowitz

Vi-la-MOW-vitz

Gregory Nagy

Naaaaaahj

Jas Elsner

Just say “Elsner” and hope that the #abolishnametags movement takes off

Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon (AKA LSJ)

Liddell rhymes with “little” (/ˈlɪtl̩/), a connection you will never forget after you jump down this rabbit hole (ewwww)

A. Scholar

When a scholar’s first name is reduced to initials, either avoid pronouns, or — for the love of Hera — do some googling to make sure said scholar is, in fact, male, before saying “he.” Misgendering is a double whammy mistake: in one fell swoop you can present yourself as uninformed and sexist!

Terminology

Ablatives absolute

If you’re going to use proper syntactic identification, you best know how to pluralize it, son.

Data is/are

Depends on whether or not you want to be a dickhead about knowing Latin; plus, like, everyone pluralizes data now, so the cool thing is probably to adopt a non-ironically retro usage (backed up, of course, with a ten-minute diatribe against prescriptivism)

Decimate

Stop trying to make “reduce by 10%” happen … it isn’t going to happen. Add another zero because decimate now just means “utterly destroy,” usu. in sports, and people who care to “well, actually …” this anachronism are 43% responsible for the death of Classics

e.g. vs. i.e.

You should know what these abbreviations stand for and the difference between their meanings

habeo, habêre (vel sim.)

Don’t forget that long vowel+vowel becomes short vowel+vowel (people make this mistake with second conjugation verbs all.the.time, so, i.e. “ha-BEY-oh” is wrong, “HA-beh-oh” is right). Oh, and you’re welcome for this: Lat. V̄ > V̆/_V, _m#, _t#, _r#, _nt

(The) hoi polloi

Yes, you know Greek, but do you know English? hoi polloi without the redundant article is an auditory abomination and, besides, muggles will require a long-winded explanation for why you’re dropping necessary words out of sentences anyway (you know you’re just dying for them to ask), so save us all some time — and yourself some face — and use the “the” ok?

Penultimate

This means “thing that’s second-from-the-end” and must continue to mean only that. It doesn’t mean “extra-super-duper-greatest thing,” you pleb. I will die on this hill!

The plural of octopus

Octopodes or octopuses (only one is not douchy) … not everything is Latin

The plural of syllabus

Syllaboi or syllabuses (only one is not douchy) … not everything is Latin

Ancient People

Augustine

technically correct: AH-gus-teen

how everyone who works on him says it: uh-GUS-tin

Augustus

uh-GUS-tus (like the fake Gk. nominative form of Aug-US-tin ;)

Lysias

I once had an entire conversation with someone who was going on and on about how “Li-SAY-yus” was his favorite ancient author and had I read him? Oh I hadn’t? I really should read him, then, he’s canonical … and I remember just feeling so ignorant and uninformed and like I shouldn’t even be in college since I had never even heard of the guy. This is the kind of dark shit that can happen when Imposter Syndrome interacts with Dunning-Krugerism. It’s “LISS-ee-us,” by the way …

Pompeii (the place)

Pom-PAY

Pompey (the person)

POM-pee

Pupienus Maximus

Poo-pee-A-nus

Yes, this guy is basically a Monty Python sketch only he was a real life Roman emperor. Get your giggles out now, because if this ever comes up in class you need to act like an adult and not a twelve year old boy: POOPY ANUS, POOPY ANUS, POOPY ANUS!

Thucydides

Do people mispronounce Thucydides? I don’t think they really do but it doesn’t feel right to end an article with a tricolon of poopy anuses (ani?). You should do like the Italians and call him “Too-CHEE-dee-day” just to make people think you sneezed

Sarah Scullin received her Ph.D. in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012, during which time she may or may not have committed a plurality of these transgressions. She also edits for Eidolon.