PEDANTRY: small Latin, less Greek Dept.

Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:24:06 +0000


At 11:02 AM 7/24/97 -0400, CarlF wrote:

>This might be called the 'hapax legomena strategy'. (A hapax legomena is a
>word or phrase that occurs only once in a given corpus).

I was dazzled by this wonderful term, but my lexicophilic friend John
Bangsund (of the department of Biblical Accountancy at the University of
Ard-Knox, where they derive stochastic solutions to such problems as how
much it profiteth a man if he lose his soul but gain the whole world)
remarked waspishly that the correct singular is `hapax legomenon'.

Damien Broderick