Matthew Scarborough 𓀀

But, to paraphrase Don in his keynote lecture: It's been a lot of fun.

I didn't livetweet because it turns out sole organising, chairing two of the panels, and managing a social programme is very demanding, but many people involved have been very happy with the event. Now we have to figure out publication.

Today’s the day!

Ní bheidh tú i d'aonar go deo - tá an imní taobh leat i gcónaí.

oh fuck oh shit

Apparently a classicist recently died and all their Plutarch loebs are in Fiolstræde.

#toomuchplutarch

I miss when bsky discussed other things than cishet men.

(Sorry for the cuss-words, it's late over here and I've been indulging in my midlife wine-mom habits.)

Look, as a cis-guy I've never had a problem with being a man, but every single time all these fuckers get uppity (and it's been a fucking *lot* over the last decade) my instincts towards full gender abolitionism go fucking wild.

We once again have a conference streaming laptop that will not will be interrupting with a ‘please update your OS for these critical security updates’ message every 15 minutes. Hopefully Apple doesn’t see it fit to drop another OS update in the next 72 hours.

Two or three hours later it’s finally done, deo gratias…

It is now thirty minutes later and it still says around thirty minutes left...

Softwareopdatering ... Omkring 20 minutter tilbage AHHHH

Attempt number two...

In the meantime I have been making standees of the two presenters who won't be able to make it in person using my copies of their books and it's been a bit therapeutic.

This is stressing me tf out.

Great, my work laptop that I'm streaming from on Monday that I had completely reinstalled because it just couldn't finish updating now wants to update and it's been stuck on 30 minutter tilbage for about 20 minutes now.

I vaguely remember Anna once telling us about her school full of Oxford academics’ children putting on a very PG play of Gilgamesh only to be shocked years later finding out what the scene with Enkidu and Shamhat was actually about.

[The ki]ng, who opens the vat in the race, is Marduk, who [defeat]ed Tiamat with his penis. (combat motif)

This is from an Assyrian ritual commentary. They know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

Also slapping myself for forgetting to tag @drvalerieisin.bsky.social who probably has strong opinions on Arabic textbooks for Philologists

Not really my area though, maybe there's something better out there @mattboot.bsky.social @phdnix.bsky.social @bnuyaminim.bsky.social ?

I've not actually used it, but from what I've cursorily looked at it, Wheeler Thackston's Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic is formatted as a barebones, just the facts ma'am, Wheelock's Latin type approach.

I'm sorry, you're going to have to take that one up with Paul. I can't defend that one.

The 'Isopata Ring', a Minoan gold ring from a tomb near Knossos: ca. 1550-1450 BC. Often interpreted as an epiphanic scene, the ring is a fantastic example of Minoan glyptic art on the micro-scale. #Minoan #Art 🏺 (1/2)

Image: Heraklion Museum (X424). Link - odysseus.culture.gr/h/4/eh430.js...

A lot of the historical linguists working on Greek from Madrid and Salamanca are especially good at using parallels from later Greek (and typology more generally) to explain stuff that is happening in Ancient Greek. I have a lot of respect for them.

Highlighted text: A second type of innovation is also known: those that may have happened in different groups independently or may have spread through time and space by contact, during the first centuries of the 1st millennium (consider the case of the East Aeolic infinitive ending ‑μεναι, which probably results from contact between inherited ‑μεν with Ionic ‑ναι).70 Footnote 70: For a different view, see García Ramón (2010, 234); Scarborough (2023, 237).

I saw this recently in a book that came out last year (note footnote 70, lol).

51. Redux. Special edition because the opinion police showed up. The representation in Aristophanes of the language of the Scythian archers – the Athenian "police force" – when it's not broken Greek, is entirely nonsense.

Oh no, the opinion police have shown up.

52. Greek ἀκούω 'I hear' is apparently cognate with Proto-Germanic *hausjan- 'to hear'. This is often considered to be a de-adjectival formation *h₂k̑-h₂ou̯s-i̯é- 'is sharp-eared'. I don't think I'm totally convinced by that suggestion, but maybe I'm just saying that to be a contrarian.

(Epigraphic) Lesbian has also generalised thematic actives as V̄ν from inherited forms like ἄγην to polysyllabic vocalic stems, e.g. δίδων (IG XII,2 498.15), ὄ|μνυν (IG XII,2 526.c.9–10). Some of them look like participles which can catch you off guard if you don't know what you're looking at.