[B-Greek] RE; John 2:4 TI EMOI KAI SOI

Vasile STANCU stancu at mail.dnttm.ro
Sun Feb 21 01:42:48 EST 2010


Yet it should be of certain interest to understand the components of an idiom individually, as well as how they function together in a meaningful way grammatically. I would compare the idioms, as they are used in language communication, with methaphors in poetry. Both these categories are affixed some kind of imagery which is construed by means of the component words. Understanding an idiom would require, I believe, accepting and understanding that kind of imagery together with all the logical implications extracted from the various uses of that particular idiom. Take for instance the English idiom 'chewing the fat'; I think that one who ignores the image of someone who is busy chewing a spoonful of fat deprives himself of some interesting nuances such idiom suggests. (However, this particular idiom may fall into a similar category with idioms of ancient time cultures, in this age where so many people cannot really imagine how that could be, given the semi-global attitude of abhorrance toward anythings that bears any tracks of cholesterol).

Coming back to our Greek idiom, my proposal was supposed to clarify the relationship between the two datives. Most of the text references given seem to put the two persons/entities on positions of some sort of separation. I believe the person speaking is drawing a kind of separation line between the interest/attitude/plan/will, etc. of his and the counterpart of the other person. If this is true, then this construction would be an idiom 'improper', since its meaning is basically derived from its individual components.

It is crucial, I believe, to first understand the cultural settings of the times, before properly understanding the meaning of certain idiomatic constructions. However, it is quite dangerous to rely primarily on cultural settings, subordinating to them every possible logical explanations. For instance, I heard that the explanation of the English idiom 'It rains cats and dogs' is that in older times there were too many cats and dogs around in England, and they spent most of their time lying on rooftops. When rain came, they would rush jumping down from the rooftops, hence they were dropping like rain. To me, this explanation is rather childish; it seems more logical to me that the idiom is not a substitute for 'rain' but it describes a 'strong rain'. Therefore the explanations should better be related to the fact that cats and dogs are usually at enmity with each other and there is always a conflict when they meet. (I wonder what explanations may be given to the Romanian idiom that would be literally translated into English 'Where the devil <verb at past tense> his children' (<verb at past tense> = action taken on little children when trained to shift from mother's milk to different food - I do not know the English equivalent). I 'shudder' imagining what one may find 'searching' the old Romanian culture in that respect; probably a new series of Dracula stories...)

Vasile Stancu


-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Iver Larsen
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 8:00 AM
To: Louis Sorenson; B-Greek List mail to all
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] RE; John 2:4 TI EMOI KAI SOI

... this is an idiom, and you cannot get the 
meaning of an idiom by adding up the meaning of the individual words, nor by 
making a literal translation

....

Iver Larsen





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