User talk:Maid Marion

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Hello, Maid Marion, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the Wikipedia Boot Camp, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  Kukini 16:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moralia

hello, gentle maid -- my original question on RD/H was posted before I found the list in amazon's "look inside", so I answered my own question really. I found what I was looking for, and I'll leave the Moralia article in its present state for now. If you feel like it, you would, of course, be very welcome to clean up the Latin titles, the translations of the Greek titles, and if possible add the Greek titles, or even add content summaries. regard, dab (ᛏ) 12:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation assistance

Thanks for the offer to help on List of fraternity and sorority mottos! I still don't know if the format I've been working on is acceptable to others, but it seems decent enough to me. I'm not sure how to introduce any "alternate" translations to the page, and verifiability is a concern of mine. Any thoughts?

Hi. I'm fairly new to WP, have never contributed to an article, and don't in any case have strong feelings on presentational issues, so as far as that is concerned I am probably no help to you. On the question of translating the mottos, all kinds of tricky issues arise, which I'll illustrate simply by referring to the first few items in your list. In the Acacia article, there is a statement that the Greek 'Akakia' refers to 'leadership and distinction'; but in fact, I doubt if such a Greek word exists, and if it did it would only mean 'absence of badness'. In the Alpha Delta Gamma article an English motto is cited 'A brother who is helped ...', and yet the crest bears three words in Greek, the middle one of which is non existent, and the outer two make no particular sense, certainly nothing about a brother. In the Alpha Sigma Pi article one could quibble that a better translation of the motto's conclusion is '... the effect is very apparent', but do we really want to be quibbling like this? In another item on the list, which I remember from yesterday but can't immediately locate today, the Greek motto contains a word that transliterates 'kerophen', but is actually supposed to read 'kerothen', as indicated in the society's own transliteration. (In other words, the Greek motto is simply wrong, but nobody in the society has noticed.) Again, do we want to be nitpicking about such things? In view of all these issues, I wonder if we are quite clear that there is something worthwhile to be achieved by digging further. Perhaps you could have a think about this, and if you think it is worth persisting with, I'll lend what help I can. By the way, who are you?--Maid Marion 16:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm a student, now at the University of Maryland. I'm a brother of both Alpha Phi Omega and Lambda Chi Alpha from chapters at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Hopefully, Lambda Chi's latin and greek is alright. The Latin I think is close enough, but I only studied it in 7th and 8th grade :). I have no knowledge of Greek; however, I have vague recolections that "Chalepa Ta Kala" is taken from Plato (the Republic?). Lambda Chi's heraldry is pretty good, especially as far as U.S. fraternities go, so I'd hope the mottos were also well thought through. (There was one issue where the ΔΠ on our badge was originally (and mistakenly) a ΔΦ, but that was resolved early on.) APO's motto is in English—no worries there!
I'm fairly new to wikipedia, too, and I've just been getting involved with more and more articles: simply adding them to a watch list. The fraternity articles really seem in need of some help. For instance, Kappa Sigma reports their "legendary" founding as part of the organization's history! Lambda Chi's article is far too long, with long annoying lists. So, I'm trying to clean stuff up, but I'm more busy with actual school-work.
I know that translation is a hazy game, and I don't expect many groups to be thrilled to have the problems in translation pointed out. However, it seems that in an objective Encyclopedia, if a phrase is supposed to be Greek, and then translated into English, and the "Greek" isn't real, and the translation is nearly as fictional, it should be pointed out! If the word is a fictional combination of roots and prefixes that doesn't exist, but is being used to mean such-and-such, then that should be explained, too. The more information, the better, really. The trick is to maintain verifiability, and to cite sources, so that the work is done "right."
I guess that my point is that the "information" that acacia presents about it's name should be considered correct by people who actually know Greek! So, I'm hoping to get some people to help out. Who're you? (we should probably both set up userpages) --Vijay 20:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, 'Chalepa ta kala' is one of the mottos that I meant to cite as an example of the translation difficulties (but I forgot). As you probably know, it literally means 'Good things [are] difficult'. Now, 'Naught without labour' is much more elegant than this, and captures the spirit of the original, but strictly speaking is not a 'translation' of the Greek. Would we quibble about this too? As for me, I'm in my 50s, with a degree in Classics from the University of London dating back almost 30 years now, but I've continued to read Greek and Latin in all that time. If it's any help to you, I can offer to go through the articles one by one and insert notes about the mottos and their translations. Is this what you have in mind? I feel a little shy about appearing to nitpick when no doubt all of these societies are doing worthy work according to their lights, but I take your point that we can look a little foolish if people knowledgeable in these areas read our articles and find stuff that is obviously inaccurate. Let me know if you would like me to do this, and if so I will work through the articles a few each day and finish no doubt in a few weeks from now. Maid Marion 08:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)