Re: Order of cases
From: | Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> |
Date: | Friday, October 1, 2004, 17:50 |
Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
> Darn it - I forgot novelties like the "Cambridge Latin Course" when I
> wrote my mail about the 'history of the order of cases'. I stopped in the
> mid 20th century. After that came the Cambridge course. IIRC the original
> version of the course put the cases in the order: NOM, ACC, DAT, GEN, ABL
> and called them the A-Form, B-Form, C-Form, D-Form & E-Form. The order was
> determined as far as I could see by the order in which they were explained
> in the course. The new names were meant to make it 'easier' because it was
> thought the traditional names put pupils off.
Ouch. I do not see why names that sound like something from organic chemistry
are less likely to put pupils off, but if more to the point - if the names were
to be replace, why the **** think up something even less descriptive than the
traditional ones?
(I suppose it's democratic - the clever shouldn't get any more mnemonic clues
than the stupid!)
Andreas
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