685
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 107 points 2 days ago

The Achilles thing made me chuckle. And then it made me weep a bit because general education seems to be dead. I learnt about the Trojan war and attached mythology at school, doesn't that happen anymore or is it an attention issue?

[-] gedfromgont@piefed.ca 74 points 2 days ago

Maybe it's just anything Greek. I remember reading a comment chain right here on Lemmy like 6 months ago, something about a thing/machine/software named Prometheus. One commenter wondered why they'd name themselves after an Alien movie.

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 57 points 2 days ago

Ouch. Prometheus himself would probably have turned around and returned the fire where it came from if he knew about that.

[-] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 22 points 2 days ago

"I still get punished for helping those idiots thousands of years ago? Boy, that was so not worth it."

[-] Captain_Buddha@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Right!? The Alien from 'Kablam!' who taught Bob deserves better than that.

[-] prole 3 points 1 day ago
[-] hayvan@piefed.world 5 points 2 days ago

Yeah, after suffering so much.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago

That's not how forethought works!!

[-] Skua@kbin.earth 21 points 2 days ago

I don't think I ever covered any Greek myths in school in the UK. Like many others I did have an interest in them so I did read the Iliad and Odyssey in my school years (though I don't remember which translations). We did cover a few Norse myths; the bit of the Prose Edda with the giant Skrymir was one that stuck with me for some reason

At the end of the day there is simply far too much history to give everyone an overview of all of the big things. There are interesting aspects of the relationship between myth, history, historiography, and archaeology that I expect Troy could be a great subject for, but I don't think there's anything so unique about it that it has to be a topic

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 0 points 21 hours ago

Skrymir

Oh great, those nords are now copying Skyrim and changing letters around to try and hide it!

[-] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

It's fine, you're allowed to learn things outside of school. Something many people apparently have completely forgotten.

[-] MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 2 days ago

Here in the U.S., we cover the Greek stuff A LOT. Like it is hammered into your head. The reason for this is, of course, the U.S. sees itself as the heir to Athenian Democracy and Roman Republicanism, so we have to really emphasize that in our conditionin.... Uhhh education.

[-] slackassassin@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

Studying Greek classics being used as an "America bad" is the biggest stretch, jfc. Not everything is a conspiracy. Take it down a notch.

[-] MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

That's not an "America Bad" thing, it's just fact? That's the explicit reason for the entire framing of western history in American classrooms. We start with Egypt, then the hand the torch over to the Greeks, then they hand the torch to the Romans, then the Dark Ages (spoooooky), then the Renaissance, the British Empire, and then the USA. It's one of our foundations for American Exceptionalism

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 hours ago

I don't think your history experiences sound very typical. I didn't have anything about the Egyptians outside of pyramids in elementary school, very little Greek mythology, and then nothing about the Romans (beyond a bit about how they had good tech like aqueducts), dark ages (maybe a little about the plague and feudalism), or Renaissance. Did you go to a school with extra history requirements or something?

[-] slackassassin@piefed.social 1 points 11 hours ago

Sudying Greek history and mythology merely for the sake of propaganda and as a through line to exceptionalism is not a fact, no.

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago

I read a lot of Greek mythology on my own and through elective classes but I think the only core course material I had on it was pretty brief. Shakespeare was pretty much every year starting in middle school but not much Greek.

[-] slackassassin@piefed.social 2 points 11 hours ago

Ya, like most things in the us, it's not ubiquitous. But my experience was similar to yours. We covered it, but it wasn't beaten into us like it was on some "we're the heir to the Athenian dynasty" tip.

[-] WilloftheWest@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago

Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Victorians and WWI are all part of the UK national primary curriculum and have been for at least 30 years.

[-] Skua@kbin.earth 2 points 1 day ago

Yes, but there's a lot to cover about them without touching any of the myths

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 6 points 2 days ago

Here in german speaking central europe i learnt (i wont stop using it just to piss @atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works off lol) about the wars among the greek citystates, with references to Homer, and later on when learning Latin (which i sucked at, but that's not so important right now) we read excerpts and learnt (hahaha roflcopter) about the mythology a lot more. There also were references to the Greek mythology in our literature classes.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Thanks for letting me live rent free in your head!

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Dude i'm just chuckling when i see you pop up. We could make a running gag out of it if you are up to it - i keep using "learnt" and you keep shitting on me for using something you are not used to lol

I would even offer that everytime i use it, i send you a PM so you can comment on my incorrect usage ;-)

[-] Skua@kbin.earth 7 points 2 days ago

Alas, poor atomicbocks, they learnt that people spelt some words differently in other parts of the world. Whilst they knew what was meant, 'twixt comment and reply all their indignation swept them up. They dreamt of a world in which they telt all speakers of the tongue how they ought to have exprest it

And all but two of these examples can still be heard regularly where I am!

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

What's interesting is I use both "dreamt" and "dreamed", depending on the circumstance. I'm not completely sure when I use one over the other.

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 4 points 2 days ago

Aw come on, stop ribbing him ;-) I looked up what he comments normally, and he seems like a stand up guy, and i have no hard feelings at all, as long as i made my point that education does not protect against assimilating different pidgins and integrating them into your common vocabulary.

[-] Skua@kbin.earth 3 points 2 days ago

Ahahaha, fair point, I respect that civility

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 3 points 2 days ago

That is something that wouldn't be possible on Reddit, which is why i left (aside from the APIcalypse). I believe we all here can much more easily find common ground simply by staying human.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] xistera@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 days ago

I took a whole Greek Lit class in high school.. but that was like 20+ years ago.

fuck I'm getting old

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 5 points 2 days ago

at least you are not growing old alone, i going with ya all the way ;-)

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

…general education seems to be dead.

…learnt…

Is this intentional irony?

Edit for the down voters:

Learnt and learned are both used as the past participle and past tense of the verb to learnLearned is the generally accepted way of spelling it in the United States and Canada, while the rest of the English-speaking world seems to prefer learnt for now. Why for now? The American English tendency toward making irregular verbs into regular ones has started influencing British English, which is why the -edvariant is being used increasingly around the world. Soon, learned might be the most common form everywhere.

Source

We were taught that it was only okay to use T in some words that end in D, for instance build -> built.

[-] DaniNatrix@leminal.space 5 points 1 day ago

As a former ESL professor, I both learnt and taught: learnt, dreamt, was, became, began, taught, blew, meant, brought, thought, caught, drew, felt, fought, lit, grew etc. as part of the (very long) list of irregular English verbs in the past and participle forms.

I'm assuming your insistence is born (not borned) out of embarrassment over your initial mistake. It's ok to not know something, admitting a mistake is a far better look.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

What part of me posting the correct answer is insisting? I really don’t understand why everyone needs this to be a gotcha so please fuck off.

[-] gwl 4 points 1 day ago
[-] slackassassin@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

Pretty sure you mean bröther, bruv.

[-] gwl 3 points 1 day ago

So your edit is just "I'm wrong but going to pretend I'm not", neat

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago
[-] gwl 1 points 1 day ago

Sure thing, keep telling yourself

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

no, that was unintentional. But if you really like my mistakes as a non-native speaker you can print them out, stick them to the bedroom wall and masturbate to them to fuel your superiority; i aim to please.

Edit: I looked it up, it's correct. You can still use it as a masturbatory template if you wish so.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/learnt -> past tense and past participle of learn in american english.

load more comments (14 replies)
[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

“Learnt” is how the British spell the past tense of “learn.” It’s perfectly valid.

[-] gwl 11 points 2 days ago

Prescriptivist assholes being wrong is like the sweetest nectar

[-] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 points 2 days ago

We did too but that was a few decades ago.

this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
685 points (100.0% liked)

tumblr

6366 readers
443 users here now

Welcome to /c/tumblr, a place for all your tumblr screenshots and news.

Our Rules:

  1. Keep it civil. We're all people here. Be respectful to one another.

  2. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia or any other flavor of bigotry. I should not need to explain this one.

  3. Must be tumblr related. This one is kind of a given.

  4. Try not to repost anything posted within the past month. Beyond that, go for it. Not everyone is on every site all the time.

  5. No unnecessary negativity. Just because you don't like a thing doesn't mean that you need to spend the entire comment section complaining about said thing. Just downvote and move on.


Sister Communities:

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS