Matthew Scarborough 𐏋

Admittedly when I proposed the idea my job ended a week later and I was suddenly plunged into writing final reports and organising a move across continents lest I be deported please try not to judge me on my priorities.

I'm living in denial right now and I say that knowing very well that some people involved can see me right now what have I done

I've heard people try to make the case (badum-tish) that the ablative be renamed to something like a 'prepositional' case to better encapsulate its diversity of functions, but it's hard to agree on what's a descriptively more correct name, and then there's the inertia of the grammatical tradition...

Case syncretism in Greek makes sense where the ablative was rolled into the genitive which has more semantic overlap. Same with the dative-locative. (Some Greek "dative" endings continue old datives, others, old locatives.) Instrumental functions are mostly absorbed by the dative as well.

Well, given that the Latin ablative took on the functions of the older IE locative and instrumental cases after these were formally lost in Latin, it literally is three cases in a trench coat.

Liverpool Oxyrhynchus papyri

@garstangmuseum.bsky.social now holds 20 Oxyrhynchus papyri:
libguides.liverpool.ac.uk/library/sca/...

Looking forward to showing some of these items at our next Applicant Discovery Day on March the 14th, including this beautiful first century Hesiod.

55 λησμοσύνην τε κακῶν ἄμπαυμά τε μερμηράων.
/lɛːsmo̞súnɛːn te̞ kakɔ̂ːn ámpaumá te̞ me̞rmɛːráːɔːn/
And a forgetfulness of evils and respite from concerns.
| – ⏑ ⏑ | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – | – ⏑ ⏑ | – – | – – |

my ET of the Armenian:

"It was also suspected that his relationship with Alkibiades was based on a detestable desire, but the Socratics remark, saying, 'His relationship with everybody was based on divine desire, not the desire of the passions.'"

Old Armenian word of the day
շաղաշարեմ
entwine, combine, connect

as 2x in ps.-Nonnos, ed. Manandian, 253.15-17

Այլ կասկած եղեւ թէ եւ ընդ Աղկիպիադեայ շաղաշարի ըստ գարշելի տռփութեանն. բայց սովկրատեանքն ասելով ասեն, թէ շաղաշարեցաւ ընդ ամենայն ոչ ախտատռփութեամբ, այլ աստուածայնովն։

my ET (+ Grk) ⬇️

Continuing to resist that primal masculine urge to start a podcast. That one's still difficult.

Never would I have expected that in the year 2026 my commitment to shaving and reading books would be a marker of gender non-conformity.

While I had it marked in my calendar for reasons, I missed it myself and I didn't see anyone posting about it yesterday so I'm glad ἐξελαύνω day is officially dead. It was very dumb.

I think the idea is that he's talking about the reflexes of what he assumes to be his proto-form *ʢʷneHª-, but it's definitely not standard cover-signs.

I find it strange he's weirdly specific about *ʢʷ, but *Hª is just some indeterminate a-colouring laryngeal.

I assume that's what Hamp thought the third laryngeal was supposed to be.

Instead of the article title, which is "*ʢʷneHª- in Greek" JSTOR has (highlighted) "Math input error in Greek"

Eric Hamp broke JSTOR lmao

Needless to say once I finally got the author's offprint that was the first thing I saw after looking at the first page for only 15 seconds.

Highlighted: "Myc. (Myceanaean)" for Mycenaean.

I have this published book chapter that was read by at least five or six other people before it reached final proofs and yet...

well, this kept getting more true, huh

lmao

Look, I have the concept for a podcast. I will talk about the news and pronounce proper names correctly.

It's remarkable how Jason Kenney, the founder of the Leopards Eating Your Face party, is so surprised at how the leopards ate his face and now they're coming to eat everybody else's.

I mean, also I have those characteristics which helped.

Narrator: He could only get legally paid for the job he was already hired to do for that time already unless it was deposited in a Danish bank account.

Denmark is also real, but for me that's only because it took me almost three months of being a resident in order to finally get a bank account opened.

My perception from visiting Switzerland to attend a conference a year and a half ago is that Switzerland is a great country to live in... if you're Swiss.

(No shade towards my Swiss friends, you're the cool ones.)

Sorry I've been silent all day I hate all this and everything right now.

Polymarket Iran Bets Hit $529 Million as New Wallets Draw Notice As US and Israeli bombs fell on Iran this weekend, bettors on Polymarket — where $529 million was traded on contracts tied to the timing of the strikes — were cashing in. Almost immediately, blockchai...

oh? oh?! I am so fucking surprised. God I fucking hate the future.

It would be infinitely better for humanity if the humans that run the AI Bubble had the cascade errors their agents have

I first encountered Grimshaw's painting in the Scarborough Art Gallery in North Yorkshire when I went to Scarborough for a visit for no better reason than I shared a surname with the town and I was really impressed with his paintings there.

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

ok this post is great but can we also really appreciate Grimshaw's ability to perceive and reproduce light in painting which was appended, I suppose, as a stock image to this blog post?