AskMe mentionned in a Reddit post.

January 14, 2007 10:25 AM

From a front-page post on Reddit this morning, here's a "Massive list of sites all self learners should know about" that includes a link to Ask Mefi, under "Questions"
posted by growabrain to MetaFilter-related at 10:25 AM (48 comments total)

Yeah, I think I saw that somewhere else today too, but I can't remember which site it was on.
posted by BeerFilter at 10:32 AM on January 14, 2007

(oh fuck... i started reading backward today...)
posted by growabrain at 10:53 AM on January 14, 2007

.smelborp evah uoy kniht uoY
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:08 AM on January 14, 2007

I wish there were a fish in my pants.
posted by By The Grace of God at 11:10 AM on January 14, 2007

smelborp 4 evah
posted by mediareport at 11:48 AM on January 14, 2007

SMELBORP!

When things do not wendell.

or... llednew ton od sgniht nehW
posted by wendell at 12:00 PM on January 14, 2007

and, troperaidem, how do you know you only have 4 problems?
posted by wendell at 12:02 PM on January 14, 2007

llednew ton od sgniht nehW

We're speaking Welsh now?
posted by evilcolonel at 12:36 PM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

!SMELBORP - lanac a ,nalp a ,nam A
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:45 PM on January 14, 2007

smelborp is a lovely word
posted by quonsar at 12:46 PM on January 14, 2007

Qwghlmian, surely.
posted by cortex at 12:50 PM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

I too find smelborp ravishingly quonsarian.
posted by vacapinta at 1:03 PM on January 14, 2007

Smelborp sounds like a scandinavian fish dish of some sort.
posted by oats at 2:00 PM on January 14, 2007

Sharing that page with Yahoo! Answers is an honor, to be sure.
posted by Kwantsar at 2:19 PM on January 14, 2007

‮‮Amatuers.‭
posted by loquacious at 3:02 PM on January 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

However, I have a new favorite username via the favorites on that self-learnin' thread: mustcatchmooseandsquirrel.
posted by loquacious at 3:08 PM on January 14, 2007

What's the open source real media player, again?
posted by IronLizard at 3:23 PM on January 14, 2007

Is Real Alternative what your thinking of, IronLizard?
posted by Ufez Jones at 4:07 PM on January 14, 2007

Can I do anything with the 'learn languages with iTunes' links that doesn't require actually using iTunes, or is that absolutely necessary?
posted by jacalata at 4:17 PM on January 14, 2007

Ahhh, yes, thank you Ufez.
posted by IronLizard at 4:31 PM on January 14, 2007

Yeah, loquacious- I'm still waiting for that user to chime in on this thread.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:08 PM on January 14, 2007

WTF is self-learning, anyway? Look at me! I'm self-bathing!
posted by Mid at 5:12 PM on January 14, 2007 [3 favorites]

(:
posted by caddis at 6:21 PM on January 14, 2007

WTF is self-learning, anyway?

In this case, a gross misunderestimation of the hive mind's vocabulary, since the word Autodidact is as common as dirt as well as the term of self description preferred by any self learner worth his or her salt.
posted by y2karl at 6:30 PM on January 14, 2007

Just sounds weird. Wouldn't autodidact translate more like "self-teacher" rather than "self-learner"?
posted by Mid at 6:47 PM on January 14, 2007

"Self learning" may be a clumsy contraction of "self-directed learning", which is still clumsy. Note that I use neither of them. Learning is learning. Learning is much more than credits and accreditation, more than GPAs and graduations and certificates.

I'm probably preaching to the converted here, but these things are so often lost in the incessent din and clamor of diplomas as meal tickets and career paths. To loosly quote a highly annoying SF author specialization is for insects.
posted by loquacious at 7:48 PM on January 14, 2007

seinop dna sgip htiw elbuort gnivah neeb ev'uoy reah I
posted by flabdablet at 5:51 AM on January 15, 2007

All this time, I thought an autodidact was someone who preached to conversion vans.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:03 AM on January 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't autodidact translate more like "self-teacher" rather than "self-learner"?

No. 'I learn' in Greek is didaskomai.
posted by languagehat at 6:04 AM on January 15, 2007

"Translate" was a bad choice of words on my part. What I meant was that the root "didact" relates to teaching, not learning, at least in modern english. (Also, LH, that last Webster's link disagrees with you about the meaning of the greek root. Further, this page translates didaskomai as "I got myself taught," which sounds weird, but not as weird as "I learned myself.")
posted by Mid at 7:34 AM on January 15, 2007

You crazy anglophones. Just learn Dutch and use the same word for both senses.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:42 AM on January 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

the root "didact" relates to teaching, not learning, at least in modern english

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. There is no "root didact" in English; there is a word didactic, which means 'designed or intended to teach,' but that is irrelevant to the word autodidact, which means something else.

that last Webster's link disagrees with you about the meaning of the greek root.

No, actually it doesn't. It says "Etymology: Greek didaktikos, from didaskein to teach." The verb didaskein (active) means 'to teach'; the verb didaskesthai (medio-passive), of which I gave the first person singular, didaskomai, means 'to learn.' That is a typical example of the difference in meaning between active and medio-passive forms. As I said before, 'I learn' in Greek is didaskomai. The fact that didasko means 'I teach' is interesting but not relevant to my point.

this page translates didaskomai as "I got myself taught," which sounds weird

Yeah, the reason it sounds weird is because it's not actually a translation, it's an (oversimplified) explanation of how the medio-passive works: didasko 'I teach' + medio-passive form = (grammatically) 'I got myself taught.' But the actual (semantic) translation is 'I learn.'

Sorry if this sounds snippy, but I'm not sure why you're trying to correct my Greek when I clearly know more Greek than you do. You know what they say about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.
posted by languagehat at 7:49 AM on January 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know what they say about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

That's languagehat's job!
posted by y2karl at 8:06 AM on January 15, 2007

My point was that rendering "autodidatic" as "self-learner" seems less natural than "self-teacher." (I said "translate," which, as I said, was probably a bad choice of words.) You responded "No. 'I learn' in Greek is didaskomai," suggesting that my construction ("teach" rather than "learn") couldn't be right because the Greek root meant learning, not teaching. But now you seem to be saying that the Greek root can relate to learning or teaching, depending on whether the verb is used actively, passively, etc. I don't think that's inconsistent with the original point I made.

And yes, your comment did sound snippy, Mr. Greek Science Penis.
posted by Mid at 8:14 AM on January 15, 2007

I've got 99 smelborp, but a bitch ain't eno.
posted by koeselitz at 9:12 AM on January 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

That's languagehat's job!

Damn right! See, granny, you start at this end...

you seem to be saying that the Greek root can relate to learning or teaching, depending on whether the verb is used actively, passively, etc. I don't think that's inconsistent with the original point I made.

Well, yeah, it is, since this is what you wrote:

Wouldn't autodidact translate more like "self-teacher" rather than "self-learner"?

But if you meant that it could be translated either way, then I agree with you.
posted by languagehat at 9:17 AM on January 15, 2007

I'd always understood an autodidact to be one who was self-taught, as opposed to one taught by another. Regardless of whether I consider myself to be a student or an autodidact, the one who learns is still me; "self-learner" seems to apply in either case.

There are two sources here that give "didaktos" (taught) as the Greek root for the "didact" part of "autodidact". I know bugger-all Greek, but I observe that "didaktos" is not "didaskomai", "didaskein" or "didasko", which suggests to me that arguments about the meanings of these latter are not, prima facie, relevant.

So school me, LH, if you please. I don't understand how you got from the fact of "didaskomai" meaning "I learn" to answering "No." to Mid's original question, "Wouldn't autodidact translate more like 'self-teacher' rather than 'self-learner'?"

Or perhaps you could just flame out a little. That would be fun.
posted by flabdablet at 9:56 AM on January 15, 2007

goodnewsfortheinsane: "Just learn Dutch and use the same word for both senses."

I would, but I can't find anybody to learn me.
posted by koeselitz at 11:27 AM on January 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'd always understood an autodidact to be one who was self-taught, as opposed to one taught by another.

Quite right.

As for the Greek: Look, I know this stuff isn't intuitively obvious, but Greek is not like English. It's much closer to Proto-Indo-European, in that a given root sprouts words by the addition of various prefixes, suffixes, and occasionally infixes. The 'learn/teach' root at the base of Greek didasko and Latin disco (probably related to the *dek- we see in Greek dekomai 'receive') only gets disambiguated in particular inflected forms, such as the active and mediopassive verbs I cited earlier. The root itself can mean either; as Buck says in Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages (p. 1222), "The complementary 'learn' and 'teach' are often expressed by related words. Thus 'learn' by refl[exive] forms of words for 'teach' (Goth., ON, Balto-Slavic); or conversely 'teach' by caus[ative] forms of words for 'learn' (Lat., Skt.)." When Webster's, to take the example quoted above, says "Etymology: Greek didaktikos, from didaskein to teach," it could just as well have said "Etymology: Greek didaktikos, from didask- teach/learn." Now, autodidact does mean 'self-taught,' but that's because that's what it means, not because of what the Greek root means, if you follow me. Etymology is not destiny. (A clear example is anti-Semite, which literalists keep claiming doesn't mean 'anti-Jewish' because Semite doesn't mean 'Jewish.' But that's silly—it means what it means, regardless of the meaning of its constituent parts.)

I hope this is reasonably clear. Again, I'm sorry about the earlier snippiness, but like many people, when I'm challenged I get my hackles up.
posted by languagehat at 11:53 AM on January 15, 2007

Oh, I forgot:

Or perhaps you could just flame out a little. That would be fun.

It would! For all concerned! Believe me, I think about it every day. But the problem is, once you've flamed out, you can't really come crawling back, and I like hanging out here. So I keep suppressing the impulse. But I really crave that good, salty flameout taste, so if somebody doesn't do it soon, who knows?
posted by languagehat at 12:02 PM on January 15, 2007

I don't know. It's all so much Greek to me.
posted by loquacious at 1:11 PM on January 15, 2007

I was gonna say that!
posted by Mid at 1:12 PM on January 15, 2007

*and this is me running very, very far away from the angry people with the sharp pointy things and the shouting and poking oh yes running keep running*
posted by loquacious at 1:13 PM on January 15, 2007

Yes, but the etymology that mentions "didaktikos" is for "didactic", not "autodidact". The etymology for "autodidact" speaks of "didaktos".

Does or does not "didaktos" translate straightforwardly as "taught"? If so, it would seem that etymology, as well as present usage, makes "self-taught" the proper meaning for "autodidact".

Leaving etymology aside and concentrating on meaning: it seems to me that "self-teacher" suggests "self-taught" better than "self-learner" does, so I still don't see where you get your "No."

But language is a tricky thing. I still can't decide whether "I have a fish in my pants" is best read as a claim about a poisson dans le pantalons du Quonsar or a description of how he finds his car keys.
posted by flabdablet at 3:47 PM on January 15, 2007

Can we move on to the Greco-Roman wrestling now?
posted by cortex at 4:40 PM on January 15, 2007

Does or does not "didaktos" translate straightforwardly as "taught"? If so, it would seem that etymology, as well as present usage, makes "self-taught" the proper meaning for "autodidact".

Well, I just checked my Gemoll dictionary, and apparently didaktos means either 'taught' or 'learnable,' but the former is clearly at the base of autodidact, so yeah, I can go along with that.

Leaving etymology aside and concentrating on meaning: it seems to me that "self-teacher" suggests "self-taught" better than "self-learner" does, so I still don't see where you get your "No."

Oh, I agree that "self-taught" is better from all points of view, but I was pointing out the fact that just because you find a 'teach' translation in etymologies does not mean that's all the Greek root means—it carries the 'learn' meaning as well.

However, despite my fearlessness at plunging into the thickets of etymology, I know better than to plunge into the dank recesses of quonsar's fishpants. There are some things we were not meant to know.
posted by languagehat at 5:13 PM on January 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

huzzah.
posted by Mid at 5:57 PM on January 15, 2007

hats off to you lh
posted by caddis at 6:34 PM on January 15, 2007