At 5:53 PM -0600 2/9/97, Isidoros wrote:
>>Carl W. Conrad
>>> What puzzles me, however, is your statement above that "the style is
>>> literary, almost Ionic." "Literary" is obviously right, but I don't know
>>> what you mean by "Ionic"
>
>Jack Kilmon
>> By golly, Carl, I DID type "Ionic" didn't I? I am sure that
>>the sentence as originally composed within the dusty caverns of my
>>cranium was "style is literary, almost classic" How it became"ionic"
>>as I typed it at 4AM, I'll never know.
>
>
>Ionic, Classic, those words are legitimately almost
>totally interchangable, dear Jack, that is not really
>any problem. Athens, Ephessos, Corinth, Delphi, Chios,
>Smyrna, Miletos... most all of those Classic are Ionic.
>So it comes naturally, easily, without intent or effort.
Well, there's no question about Ephesos, Chios, Smyrna, and Miletus being
Ionic in antiquity, but not Delphi, nor Corinth, and Athens only in a
special sense. "Classic" is being used loosely. Ionic here is being used
loosely. In fact Ionic appears to mean so many things that it means
nothing, in which case it seems to me better to avoid using it altogether.
>PS. Carl, please be not puzzled. For just as with the above
>analogy, "literary" is, too, interchangably analogous to
>"Ionic." Well, and as you yourself correctly said, "almost".
I did NOT say "almost"--that's part of the text of Jack Kilmon to which I
was responding; and he has admitted that "Ionic" is not what he meant.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/