> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://thepatrologist.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Greek for 'that's interesting'... - URL: https://thepatrologist.com/greek-for-thats-interesting/ - Published: 2018-10-16T13:01:52.000Z - Updated: 2018-10-16T13:01:52.000Z - Author: Seumas Macdonald - Tags: Uncategorized, Expressions, Greek, Language, Living Language, Neologisms, #Migrated-1784156034836, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-15 22:54 There’s two types of modern expressions that present difficulty for speaking ancient languages: - names for things they didn’t have - expressions for things they didn’t say In many cases (1) isn’t so bad. You just have to neologise. How do you say *helicopter*, *television*, *mobile* (=cell) *phone*, etc etc..? Even *coffee*, *tea*, present problems, but not insurmountable ones. For Latin, with its longer continual history, it’s often easier. For speaking *ancient* Greek *modernly*, various strategies can be used: adapting an ancient word with a similar meaning; using the Greek equivalent to a Latin word used for the same modern thing; deriving a (sometimes entirely fictive) ‘ancestor’ form for a contemporary Greek word. The second issue is much more problematic. Consider the expression, “It’s interesting…”. In Latin, we can use phrases involving *studium* – *studium me tenet*, *studium me excitat*, and the like. Greek is, it seems, more tricky. I asked my good friend Στέφανος about this, as I often do, and he proffered a few suggestions: διαφέρει -- it's important ἄξιον σπουδῆς -- something worthy of zeal/esteem/effort προσέχω τινὶ τὸν νοῦν, τὸν νοῦν ἔχω πρός τινα – expressions for paying attention to something. None of these, as he recognised, quite fits. We want something for “here is a thing that is worth paying attention to/thinking about”. But perhaps we can build off these. ἄξιον + infinitive makes a good impersonal structure for “worth doing X”. So… ἄξιον τοῦ τὸν νοῦν προσέχειν – worth paying attention to ἄξιον διαλέγεσθαι – worth talking about ἄξιον ἐπὶ ᾧ νομίζειν – worth thinking on, ἄξιον μελετᾶσθαι – worth contemplating Take these out for a spin, let me know what you think.