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Help[Facts] Re: Question about Greek names . . .
in reply to a message by Lilith
Just wait for Pavlos - he's brilliant!
As far as I know, the problem arose because when most people who got as far as high school learnt Latin, they would have used either a very anglicised pronunciation in which the"soft c" would just be an s, or - later in the 19th century when life got scientific - they would have been taught that all instances of c in Latin were pronounced k anyway. (Which they were ...) Now that both Latin and Greek have effectively died as school subjects, there's no point in using the Latin spelling - kids will never read the myths in Virgil, Ovid etc any more, so why not give them the original spelling? It also breaks away from those ghastly, sanitised versions written for delicate Victorian maidens, which did use the Latin spelling along with pretty-pretty bowdlerising all round.
As far as I know, the problem arose because when most people who got as far as high school learnt Latin, they would have used either a very anglicised pronunciation in which the"soft c" would just be an s, or - later in the 19th century when life got scientific - they would have been taught that all instances of c in Latin were pronounced k anyway. (Which they were ...) Now that both Latin and Greek have effectively died as school subjects, there's no point in using the Latin spelling - kids will never read the myths in Virgil, Ovid etc any more, so why not give them the original spelling? It also breaks away from those ghastly, sanitised versions written for delicate Victorian maidens, which did use the Latin spelling along with pretty-pretty bowdlerising all round.
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