Talk:Tetrapharmakos

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	Ancient philosophy

TetrapharmakoN?[edit]

Hi! I believe that the right form is "TetrapharmakoN", since it comes from the Ancient Greek noun "to pharmakon" ("drug, medicine, etc.") which is neutre. And there are several occurencies of "Tetrapharmakon" in the net, but I found no "Tetrapharmakos". I propose to correct it: do you agree? Is there different evidence in your sources? Benio76 16:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

---Tetrapharmakon is a completely different word than Tetrapharmakos. Tetrapharmakos means means "fourfold cure"; Tetrapharmacum is a Roman cuisine. The -os is consistent in all my books, especially the book from which the site in the article was used. If you Google it it should come up -- [[1]]. I suspect that Tetrapharmakon is a translation into another language other than English because when I Googled it every page was in a foreign language (I found it in French, Spanish, Italisn, German, Chinese...). Usually the first part of a word is saved when a word like this is translated, but the ending is changed to fit the system of the other language; this seems to be the case. It's good to know someone's actually reading it. LCecere 01:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Of course someone is reading it! :) I'm not talking about translations, which anyway would be indeed translations in other languages! It is a transliteration of the Greek word you are using, and I wonder if it's the right one - and so which was the original word itself. I saw that the -os version is used also in the French WP, but in my studies on Epicureanism I always found the -on version. As you said, the word means "fourfold cure" and it cames from "tetra" which means "four" and "pharmakon" which means "drug, wether healing or noxious", and "remedy" (this is our case). See pharmakon on the Greek Lexicon based on Liddell Scott dictionary; in the same Lexicon, I searched "pharmakos" and I found that it means "poisoner" - indeed, Ancient Greek words ending in -os are masculine nouns while words ending in -on are neutre nouns. Maybe the word as a whole became masculine. Or, if your sources says -os, maybe it is the current English transliteration, but I'm not convinced: f.ex. Encyclopaedia Britannica on line says "tetrapharmacon" ([2]) and anyway it is not obvious to change a "n" in "s". I think that we have to look in a Greek dictionary, I will do it. The best would be of course to have the original text itself... Are your books reporting it? Thanks, Benio76 22:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess -os has been popularized. Encyclopedias don't always stay concurrant with what is actually used. I don't know anything about Greek, but maybe, as a guess, the spelling has been changed to the masculine form to make it stand out from the other uses of the word, to make it a philosophical term, to make -os mean one thing and -on mean another(?). It's not very scholarly, but I'm just trying to rationalize it. I tried -os on amazon.com and every book that came up (19 books) had something to do with Eupicurus' philosophy and under each "excerpt" the -os was used. I tried the -on form and only 4 books came up, 2 of which are books in French. I guess I'll have to go with what's popularized. In a college philosophy class we used a textbook that used the -os version--the book that's used in the article citation. I propose that at the beginning of the article it should state that the ending of this word is subject to variance. Sounds good to me. LCecere 00:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I found information at least! Actually, we are both right! :) I consulted the printed Liddel Scott dictionary (in the New Edition revised and augmented by Stuart Jones) and actually our word is originally an adjective (ending in -os in the masculine and feminine form, and in -on for the neutre form):

"tetrapharmakos, -on" = compounded of 4 drugs

It exists as a feminine substantive, which ends in -os, but it can be found also as a neutral one, ending in -on:

"he tetrapharmakos" = a compound of wax, tallow, pitch, resin; also "tò tetrapharmakon"

And the same word has been used in a metaphorical sense by Epicurus:

"he tetrapharmakos" metaph, Epicurus, Phld, Herc, 1005.4

So, the -os form is the one used by Philodemus. I can just add the Greek transliteration in the article and, if you agree, I can also write a small note explaining the origin of the word (the 4 drugs stuff), and add some direct references to Epicurus' texts.

Concerning the other article (tetrapharmakon), I will propose on its talk page to add the -os form as a variation. What about creating a disambiguation page? Benio76 01:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, go ahead on both. I'm was going to add a note to the first paragraph, but I'm currently working on the references and notes. LCecere 03:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"god", lowercase and singular?[edit]

When "God" is a proper noun referring to a single entity, it should be capitalized. This is simple grammar, regardless of religious or cultural beliefs. Unless someone can explain how the author was being poetic and did something in Greek equivalent to deliberately avoiding capitalization, it should be capitalized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.48.248.79 (talk) 03:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]