Author: opoudjis

What did you do with your partner on your first anniversary?

By: | Post date: October 5, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Personal

Why, what else does one do on a first marriage anniversary? Put your wife on a gondola. (Luxury Gondola Cruises: Venice on the Yarra) Everyone on the riverside assumed this was for a proposal. I kept hollering out to onlookers: SHE SAID YES!!! (sotto voce) Two years ago… Answered 2016-10-05 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-did-you-do-with-your-partner-on-your-first-anniversary/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

In the traditional British public school system, why is (or was) it believed that knowledge of “the classics” was necessary?

By: | Post date: October 5, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture

As you found out in comments, OP, the history came along for the ride with the literature: Thucydides and Caesar were read more as literature, than because schools actually cared what happened in Syracuse in 415 BC. But they are great literature. Why were the Classics valued in elite schools in 19th century England? Well, […]

Men of Quora: what do you look like with and without facial hair?

By: | Post date: October 4, 2016 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: Personal

Mid-2012. I need to put some text content here. So I’ll say what people said when Derryn Hinch, way too prominent Australian reporter, shaved off his beard. The image everyone conjured was that of Daffy Duck, sans bill: Oh, and I don’t deserve to be on the same thread as Michaelis Maus. But there you […]

Which intellectual topic can you just not get into?

By: | Post date: October 1, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Personal

Lots. It seems that the dismal science, economics, is a popular answer here, and I’ll put my hand up for that as well. (I just looked up the origin of the phrase The dismal science and… holy shit! Carlyle made up the phrase to decry economics as being amoral, and hence depressing—because economics was concluding […]

If atheists are proven wrong, how will they explain to God why they never bothered believing in him?

By: | Post date: October 1, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture

My time for struggling with that question, like so many others’, was high school. I did not have Augustine to debate with, as Michael Masiello did. But it was pretty painful. I looked over the poems I wrote at the time, to see if I had an answer at the ready back then. To my […]

Which vice(s) do you most struggle with, e.g. one of the seven deadly sins?

By: | Post date: September 26, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Personal

Wrath: I enjoy it a little too much, though it really is more as a performance piece than a reality. The Magister Optimus Michael Masiello circulated the rage performance pieces of Eddie Pepitone recently (Michael Masiello’s answer to Who’s the best stand-up comedian whose act is awkward and funny?); they had me in stitches. Gratias […]

What is the etymology of Helios?

By: | Post date: September 26, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Language

OP, get a hold of Frisk’s and Chantraine’s etymological dictionaries of Ancient Greek. Which may or may not currently be at archive.org—although they are both under copyright, so of course, you should be going to your local university library instead. Hēlios is simply a reflex of the Indo-European word for Sun, via proto-Greek *sāwélios. See […]

What are the myths about Australians?

By: | Post date: September 26, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Australia

Myth: That Australia is a classless society. Fact: Only when compared to the British. Myth: That Australians are an informal, relaxed people. Fact: Only when compared to the British. Myth: That Australians are an open, friendly society. Fact: Only when compared to the British. Myth: That Australians are rugged frontiersmen. Fact: Only 5% of them […]

What are the best names in history?

By: | Post date: September 25, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture

Ordelafo Faliero de Doni, 34th Doge of Venice, ruled 1102–1117. Like the Latin says: Orfaletrus D(e)i Gra(tia) Veneciȩ Dux. Ordelafo, By God’s Grace, Doge of Venice. Ordelafo is a one-off name, and is presumed to be the Venetian name Faledro, spelled backwards. Spelling names backwards as far back as the 12th century. And coming up […]

What are some common mistakes PhD students make in graduate school? Are there any common pitfalls or bad habits that separate unsuccessful students from successful ones?

By: | Post date: September 25, 2016 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Academia

To narrow down Cheri Thomas’ answer: failing to scope down your thesis as you go. You are always more ambitious at the start of the thesis than you need to be, and you will need to say less than you thought you would. Cheri says: Another is that they set too high a standard for […]