[B-Greek] Grammatical Rules Bent and Broken

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue May 29 08:01:57 EDT 2007


The "Old Curmudgeon" (self-styled Laudator Temporis Acti) is at it  
again, this time on the celebrated(?) rule about not ending English  
sentences with prepositions -- you know, the rule parodied by Winston  
Churchill in "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not  
put." Today's offering (http://tinyurl.com/yv7epk) is entitled "A  
Cherished Superstititon," and although it does not have any direct  
bearing on Biblical Greek, it is -- to my mind, at least -- a nice  
illustration about the difference between the language that the  
GRAMMATIKOI teach in the schools and the language that more ordinary  
folk speak and write, namely, KOINH. It bears on the question, When  
is a usage that sounds and looks odd simply a variation on a standard  
usage and when is it a solecism? When is using a middle-voice form  
such as PLHROMENOU in what is evidently an active sense (TO PLHRWMA  
TOU TA PANTA EN PASIN PLHROUMENOU Eph 1:23) so jarring that we have  
to say that the writer "slipped up"? (BDAG has a note on this (BDAG  
PLHROW. 1.a. ) and BDF discusses it at §316).

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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