[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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