[B-Greek] Comprehensive Collection of Carl's Ad Nauseums
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Sep 16 17:46:07 EDT 2007
On Sep 16, 2007, at 3:09 PM, John M. Linebarger wrote:
> I've only been a subscriber to the B-Greek list for a few months
> now, but I've come to recognize a pattern. Whenever Carl Conrad
> introduces a concept with the phrase, "I've been insisting on this
> list ad nauseum that ...," I know that a paedogogical pearl is
> coming. So I thought I'd start collecting in one place a list of
> Carl's ad nauseums, and I'd like your help in coming up with a
> comprehensive list. (Please feel free to chime in yourself, Carl;
> ad fontes and all that.)
>
> CARL CONRAD'S PAEDOGOGICAL AD NAUSEUMS
>
> 1. Learn at least a year of Attic Greek before proceeding to Koine
> Greek
> 2. The goal of learning Greek should be to think in Greek, not to
> produce an English translation
> 3. Reading large chunks of unfamiliar text is vital to being able
> to master the language
> 4. Before looking up a word in the lexicon, exhaust all near and
> far contextual possibilities first. In other words, try very hard
> to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word from its context
> before giving up and looking it up in the dictionary.
>
> Other additions or corrections? Eulogiai!
Another thing I think I have said ad nauseam is: When you do consult
a lexicon, go to a good one with full entries -- NOT just two or
three glosses (BDAG is not perfect, but I don't know anything that's
really better for NT Greek); once there, don't just scan the lexicon
entry for something that will match your context but STUDY the entry
and try to get a sense of the range of senses and contexts in which
the word appears -- read the exemplary citations carefully. When you
look up a word, make it an opportunity not just to make a caasual
acquaintance with a word but try to gain some measure of intimate
familiarity with it.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list