Yes Minister - Greek and Latin issues

[KariFani]

One of the funniest thing the Sun ever printed was the headline "Sir Bumphrey". They really should have written an episode were Humphrey gets outed and is involved in a sex scandal. That would have been funny.

[butnu]

Wow, what an excellent error which im amazed I wasn't already aware of! Cheers!

[helenwhohelenwho]

"Everything I know I learned from Yes Minister."

[cygil1]

In "beware of Greeks bearing gifts", Bernard claims "bearing" is a participle. It's actually a gerund. Doubtless his Latin and Greek were stronger than his English.

[acr08807]

@cygil1 "Bearing" is the present participle of "to bear," and Bernard used the word as a participle, not as a gerund. He deserved his first.

[acr08807]

@cygil1 Crap, you're right. He said "bewaring of themselves." That is a gerund. I guess I don't deserve my first.

[Abcormal]

@cygil1 Or this could be a case of "Critical Research Failure" (see TVTropes).

[maitland72]

The three people that disliked this went to the LSE.... ^_^

[antonistzekakis]

Haha! ...had you not attended the LSE! 

[phlarrdboi]

danaos is not only the greek for greek its also the latin for greek, its very interesting really.

<3s burnurd

[truvianni]

I just felt that he would say something about Galtieri

[magister343]

The speed and British accents of Latin quotes in this series makes them hardto understand. I had to go back man times to discern that it was "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," which means "I fear Danaans and those bearing gifts." Danaans are Greks of a particular lineage, not Greks in general. The normal Latin word for Greek is Graeci; the Greek, Hellenes.

Amusingly, Google Translate's auto-detect also assumes this is phrase is in Greek. It also mistranslates Danaos as "Greeks, even when."

[admiraljello]

@magister343 The word Danai has always been used metonymically to refer to Greeks as a whole, just as the Argives (rather than just being Greeks from Argos) is also used to refer to Greeks as a whole. When we're talking about poetry, the "normal Latin word" is prosaic--the literary vocabulary, esp. in epic, is entirely separate from the commonplace sort. Synecdoche is the norm, and certain usages have been preserved from the start.

[krum118118]

I dont know what was said but i completely agree....i think....

[Saxifrage040210]

I love when he gets Churchillian...

[multimill]

Integrated Transport Policy? Calling John Prescott 20 years later - were the writers psyhic?!?! Prescott was and epic FAIL as an MP and the car is still KING!!

[pspboy7]

"We need it like an apeture in the cranial cavity!"

LOL

[mrbignose888]

One thing i didn't understand is why they where always joking about the LSE? I thought it was one of the best universities?

[bulbadox]

@mrbignose888 yeah, at that time LSE was considered ordinary...not many people from class families went there. 

[jradetzky]

@mrbignose888 yes, but they don't teach classics (Greek and Latin) at the LSE. Only at Oxford and Cambridge

[AliceTRoyal]

@mrbignose888 It is. It's just that Humphrey is very much an Oxford man, and looks sneeringly upon any university that isn't Oxford. I think.

[bookeater]

you know things are bad when even Humprey is looking confused.I always loved the way they all said 'Thank You Bernard'

[fikealox]

...yes, I take your point, Humphrey...

[bedsitter1982]

Bernard at his best!

[tiskatanabalo2]

(...) had you not attended the LSE!

[cent0grassi]

hole in the head or aperture in the cranial cavity. Which is more classy to use in a conversation.

[arwenae]

Humphrey's "look" at about 4:06

And the fact that Bernard's completely oblivious...

[RadicalWhig]

I can do that in classical Arabic, which is not quite so impressive.

[ludocrat]

For as long as Britain really is this bad at running itself, we will never surrender. Particularly to anyone that we think wants us to surrender, er, to. Er.

But especially to things - or countries, or supranational systems of government (heaven forfend) - that remotely look suspiciously better in terms of how and what they and/or we do vis-a-vis government and law-making.

And rightly so.

[anonUK]

@ludocrat

Britain would never surrender to anyone- not with our current crop of politicians and civil servants in charge of the Surrender Department, anyway.

[ludocrat]

@anonUK

Lol. Exactly!

[simplecoffee]

"If by 'we' you mean Britain that is certainly true, but if by 'we' you mean you and me and this Department, we need an integrated transport policy like an *aperture* in the *cranial cavity*."

Ah, Sir Humphrey, you just KNOW how sexy you are. XD

[Armatige]

Oh god. This is to this day one of my favorite episodes in a comedy series. A very close second is The Key.

[ZNAEBKU]

1 dislike, hmmmm, probably someone from the LSE.

[ss3cleric]

Or doubtless as you would have recalled if you had not attended the LSE. I have a first in Theology (not classics) and this always cracks me up, the pretention is amazing. The fantastic thing is everything that Bernard says is correct, its the delivery that is supreme.

[pisces516973]

One of Bernard's great moments!

[CurtHowland]

The single best written comedy show ever produced.

[HMservant]

Bernard's the best.

[asalmog]

The way Humprey looks at Bernard during the last minute is hilarious.

[slickwillywize]

the rapport of Bernard and Humphrey in this clip is immense.

[dharmaseed]

With two secretaries like that, it's no wonder Jim Hacker was confused.

[juzt156]

I love the way Humphrey edges away from bernard, it always make me giggle.

[CalyxAsgard]

I bet most of show's budget went to buying all those 50 cent words Humphrey and Bernard are so very fond of using.

[cheater5tokyo]

Classic Classical

[allanchrist]

This is great .. I love it!!

[jacktindale]

I do love all the LSE digs in Yes Minister, and by "like" I mean "get greatly irritated by".

[herodotus53]

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" - Bah! I would have been impressed, if he had quoted it in Greek....

[themontypythonmuseum]

But he couldn't do that, because it wasn't Greek, because the common source for the Trojan Horse is Vergil, and not Homer.

[BartBassist]

It was never said in Greek. It's from Vergil (Aeneid Book II, I think), so it was always Latin, although obviously it describes the Trojan War.

It's a shame that a Latin A-level and classes in Ancient Greek syntax no longer serve any purpose other than proving a point on youtube. If I had lived 50 years earlier, I'd be a senior civil servant by now.

[Athenian888]

@BartBassist Wrong my friend.It was indeed said by Laokoon(Λαοκοων in Greek)a Trojan high priest of Apollo to King Priam as a warning and an omen of doom.They never took any real notice of him though.Virgil changed the phrase of the Apollo priest into ''timeo Danaos et dona ferentes''.

[jacksawild]

@Athenian888 They might have taken notice if Athena's (Minerva) serpents hadn't devoured him and his sons for saying so. Cassandra also warned them, but although blessed with prophecy she was also cursed to never be believed. For those who are interested the latin translation, rather than "beware greeks bearing gifts" is more like "I fear the Greeks, even those who bear gifts". It all started with that damned apple of discord.

[Minimus1992]

@BartBassist You are quite correct, it is Vergil, Aeneid Book II.

The actually Latin of course is 'timeo Danaos et dona ferentes' and while it may be translated in English as 'beware of Greeks bearing gifts' its correct translation is not that, as Bernard says. To translate it correctly from Latin it would be 'I fear Greeks, even those bearing gifts'.

If Vergil had wanted to mean the inaccurate English translation it would have be 'time Danaos dona ferendum' which doesn't sound as good.

[embrithil]

@BartBassist it's part of the future "Homeric Cycle" of which we do have fragmants in Greek :)

[martinXY]

@BartBassist

Many of the humorous exchanges on Yes Minister (and indeed in Monty Python) seem to me as if the writer(s) were recalling long drawn out pointless arguments from their University days, when one could ramble on and on and still sound reasonable intelligent. I agree it's a pity Greek and Latin are no longer respected, since they from the fundamentals of not just our language but our systems of government and justice.

[stoprainingonme]

@herodotus53 the clue is in your name really isn't it?? :-)

[eskinol1]

4.26 Yes, I take your point Humphery...

[perfacetus]

That rant on which Bernard goes off is the best I've ever heard. .

Way above my head when it comes to Greek syntax however :P

[admiraljello]

@perfacetus Declension is a matter of grammar rather than syntax. :p

τιμαω is a pain.

[perfacetus]

@admiraljello

Pedant :) I'd never pick someone up for something so trivial ;-)

[freeadmission]

@admiraljello But he said τιμεω, not τιμαω. There's a tomato/tomahto joke in there somewhere...

[admiraljello]

@freeadmission Or at least a Lysistrata joke. I find it unlikely that he'd have learned Doric, though, and I've never heard epsilon pronounced like "ay," but I've heard people pronounce alpha with a long a. But yeah, it doesn't matter in the end except in that I have no idea if τιμεω contracts or not.

[heironymuslies]

Sir Humphrey is very sexy :D (to second giomar99)

[ss3cleric]

Ah a classical education!

[giomar89]

Humphrey is quite sexy too...

[DaniMajor]

I think I shouldnt agree with you but I do!

[ers3031q90z]

@giomar89 no he's not...

[constanzavictrix]

@giomar89 no, he isn't.

[anonUK]

@giomar89

He's been dead for 15 years. And when he was alive, he was gay.

[jlandles]

@anonUK He died in 2001. He has been deceased for 10 years.

[phlarrdboi]

bernard is quite sexy...

[gamgee87]

I have to agree, too...  :-P