Quote:
Bernd Lehnen wrote:
Thank you, Professor Goldsbury.
How do you do?
As I was brought up in one of the late Humboldtian Humanistic Gymnasiums, I had to keep up with some ancient Greek, a long time ago.
Anyway, somehow, the outer similarity of meme with mimema clicked in. I thought it funny that "meme" should be kind of acoustic imitation of an ancient Greek word "mimema" which in itself contained the idea of "imitation", and the whole thing didn't even seem to be too fare fetched.
To my mind, Ellis's reply doesn't sweep it completely off the table.
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Of course. The term has become too well established to be swept off the table. To my mind, it is like the concept of metaphor. The term has a rather different meaning in Japanese from the way it is used by, for example, Lakoff and Johnson. In fact, the Japanese translation of
Metaphors We Live By is an interesting example of how translation does not quite succeed. Metaphors are brilliant devices, but it is rather hard to explain how they actually work.
Quote:
Bernd Lehnen wrote:
I have to agree, but am I to perceive a subtle dig here?  |
No. I read with profit J T Burman's essay, which is cited in the
Wikipedia article Ellis refers to.
Best wishes,
PAG