23 Jan 2011

Eighteen-hundred-and-eighty times as great


I often consult Perseus Online because it's such a useful resource but one day I randomly ran into what must be the craziest classical Greek word I've ever set eyes on yet:

χιλιοκτακοσιογδοηκονταπλασίων
(khilioktakosiogdoēkontaplasíōn)
'eighteen-hundred-and-eighty times as great'

(Try saying that three times fast.) And when might the context even arise to say such a thing?! I still have much to learn about these ancients.

2 comments:

  1. From Wikipedia "Hipparchus":Theon of Smyrna wrote that according to Hipparchus, the Sun is 1,880 times the size of the Earth, and the Earth twenty-seven times the size of the Moon; apparently this refers to volumes, not diameters.

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  2. Yes, the ancient measurements of the cosmos are interesting historically in themselves. But aside from Hipparchus and this one context, one has to admit that it's a very unused term.

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