[B-Greek] Etymological fallacy?
Joseph Weaks
j.weaks at tcu.edu
Wed Nov 19 14:59:12 EST 2008
I think a big part of the problem is that as a teacher of Greek to
beginning students, it is too tempting to over-simplify for the sake
of pedagogical advantage. Etymological & transliterative cues play
such a role in vocabulary learning. I think this applies equally to
both deductive and inductive process. It goes like this:
Teacher: "Yes, well, LUW means 'to release or loose'."
Student: "I'm never going to remember that."
Teacher: "You can find it in in English words... 'analysis' is ANA+LUW
which is to 'break up' something so you can analyze each part."
Student: "Excellent. I understand."
Teacher: "Right, you UNDER+STAND it, meaning that you stand under the
concept in order to gain perspective on it."
Student: "Huh?"
And, once we've learned vocabulary through such reliance, it's
difficult to move away from it. When I was a [Greek-learning] child, I
thought like a child, but now...
Cheers,
Joe
Rev. Joseph A. Weaks
Minister, Raytown Christian Church
Ph.D. Cand., Brite Divinity School, TCU
On Nov 19, 2008, at 1:26 PM, Dr. Don Wilkins wrote:
> I like Carl's comment that there seems to be no way to convince
> people regarding the ety. fallacy. I'm afraid the problem is that
> etymological "gold nuggets" are one of the leading reasons why people
> get interested in Greek, and they desperately want to believe in
> them.
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