Comment on Know Yourself!
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days agoExcept it’s just “Know Yourself”, because the inscription was in ancient Greek, so when translating it to English, we’d use modern English, not centuries-old English which uses personal pronouns that haven’t been used in English in centuries.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
That doesn’t change anything. Your entire point is that what we translate it to doesn’t change the meaning. So how does that matter?
My point isn’t that “Know Thyself” is the correct way. I was using that more or less interchangeably, since they’re synonymous. My point was that it comes from the Greek, not from Sun Tzu.
And unless you can rationalize why the original inscription being in Greek somehow changes that, I don’t see your point.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
It does change the meaning. The only places someone is likely to encounter “thyself” today are in works from Shakespeare or in certain translations of the bible. As a result, people give certain weight to the term “Thyself” that they wouldn’t to the modern meaning of the word “Yourself”. “Thyself” is a word used by gods, “yourself” is a word used by normal people.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Again, unless you somehow take that as evidence that it was in fact Sun Tzu who said that, and not the inscription on the Temple of Apollo, then that makes no difference to what I said.
Well seeing as it was inscribed on a literal temple of an ancient deity, it seems “Thyself” would be the more accurate translation, according to your own logic.