A safe and legal way

 I was reading an old book and had a small epiphany. The insight was not religious or philosophical. It was an insight into how an idea could be expressed, perhaps better, in a language that has grammatical features that English doesn’t have.

And I remembered this, marked in a textbook that is almost 50 years old:

 

Grammar, though no longer stylish, is a good thing. A knowledge of grammar enables us to speak and write correctly, clearly, elegantly; and to recognize the same qualities in others. Studying a foreign grammar forces us to see and to ponder the different ways in which things can be and have been said; it gives us a chance to look at other modes of expression than our own and to glimpse other modes of thought behind them. It makes us more aware (and more wary) of what we are reading and writing, hearing and saying. In short, grammar is a safe and legal way of expanding one’s consciousness.

 

I have made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life, but deciding I needed to learn something about Greek was not one of them. 

It seems almost miraculous to me that you can learn things as a young person that will fascinate you when you are old.

And I wish that more people who are as old as I am would tell younger people that. I think that’s why you go to college and why you don’t skip the humanities. 

• Source: C.A.E. Luschnig, An Introduction to Ancient Greek; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975, p. 17.