The Achilles thing made me chuckle. And then it made me weep a bit because general education seems to be dead. I learnt about the Trojan war and attached mythology at school, doesn't that happen anymore or is it an attention issue?

Maybe it's just anything Greek. I remember reading a comment chain right here on Lemmy like 6 months ago, something about a thing/machine/software named Prometheus. One commenter wondered why they'd name themselves after an Alien movie.

I don't think I ever covered any Greek myths in school in the UK. Like many others I did have an interest in them so I did read the Iliad and Odyssey in my school years (though I don't remember which translations). We did cover a few Norse myths; the bit of the Prose Edda with the giant Skrymir was one that stuck with me for some reason

At the end of the day there is simply far too much history to give everyone an overview of all of the big things. There are interesting aspects of the relationship between myth, history, historiography, and archaeology that I expect Troy could be a great subject for, but I don't think there's anything so unique about it that it has to be a topic

I do this intentionally sometimes, for shits and giggles, but Poe's law guarantees that someone will inevitably miss the joke.

Here in the U.S., we cover the Greek stuff A LOT. Like it is hammered into your head. The reason for this is, of course, the U.S. sees itself as the heir to Athenian Democracy and Roman Republicanism, so we have to really emphasize that in our conditionin.... Uhhh education.

Ouch. Prometheus himself would probably have turned around and returned the fire where it came from if he knew about that.

I remember there was a post asking what Superman's kryptonite was. I hope it was a joke.

I don't remember learning about the Greek myths in Canada's (Ontario) public school either. I heard about them for the first time when I studied it in a university history class. We did ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt as a young kid but I don't believe the myths were mentioned.

Low effort satire just makes people worry lmao

I'm trying to remember if we studied greek and roman mythology in school, or if I just read about it on my own. Did I read the Odyssey for fun??? Maybe it was on those "read something from this list" summer reading assignments.

I think I learned about the Achilles heel thing earlier because an art teacher had walking issues and talked about it. I'm not sure that counts as learning it in school except in the technical sense.

To be fair, Nolan has named a protagonist Protagonist in the past; if you don't know the origin of the word Mentor, it would not be unreasonable to assume as OP did

My favorite character name is still Hiro Protagonist. Nominative determinism at its best. Or maybe they just forgot to update the placeholder name before going to print.

I like to think that at some point, Hiro changed his name because he thinks that highly of himself. Like, the opening speel about the "Deliverator" is just what his internal monologue is saying all the time.

I genuinely believe that some people are just completely unaware of anything made before their birth.

Like they actively choose not to be aware, to the point of calling out a re-telling of a literally ancient tale for tropes it literally invented.

That's not how forethought works!!

"I still get punished for helping those idiots thousands of years ago? Boy, that was so not worth it."

"The universe started when I was about six years old."

Right!? The Alien from 'Kablam!' who taught Bob deserves better than that.

Edgar Allen Poe was a lawyer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

It's harder when you have words that people are native language to but you're using it like you just invented a word, even if it is the original origin and it's used slightly differently.

I think Neal Stephenson was just being funny as it was (more or less) his first book.

As far as i know, the film is based on the actual Odyssey (unless they decided to ruin it?) So i don't see why Nolan would do something like this, assuming that it was just another Nolan bad naming scheme make little sense unless you don't know what is the Odyssey (which is kinda strange)

Haha i le trolled you!!!!

"...and will end when I die!"

I want to say 7th grade in the usa it was mandatory reading and I hated every fucking word.

Yeah, after suffering so much.

I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

Woosh

…general education seems to be dead.

…learnt…

Is this intentional irony?

Edit for the down voters:

Learnt and learned are both used as the past participle and past tense of the verb to learn. Learned is the generally accepted way of spelling it in the United States and Canada, while the rest of the English-speaking world seems to prefer learnt for now.
Why for now? The American English tendency toward making irregular verbs into regular ones has started influencing British English, which is why the -edvariant is being used increasingly around the world. Soon, learned might be the most common form everywhere.

Source

We were taught that it was only okay to use T in some words that end in D, for instance build -> built.

betting we're gonna get this kinda feedback on the Neuromancer tv adaption

Lawyers don't write laws, dumbass.

Edgar Allen Poe was a legislator.

Smartest Twitter user.

What did he translate again?

Explain the joke please

Fuck, you whooshed me.

The joke is the whole thread. You are correct, the film is based on the Greek epic, so the character names come from Homeros.

Your comment is absolutely correct, just redundant.

no, that was unintentional. But if you really like my mistakes as a non-native speaker you can print them out, stick them to the bedroom wall and masturbate to them to fuel your superiority; i aim to please.

Edit: I looked it up, it's correct. You can still use it as a masturbatory template if you wish so.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/learnt -> past tense and past participle of learn in american english.

Odysseus: "Its time for us to embark on our Odyssey."

Crew: "Our what now?"

Odysseus: "A long an arduous trip named after its only survivor."

Crew: "Oh, ok... wait a minute..."

“Learnt” is how the British spell the past tense of “learn.” It’s perfectly valid.

A fellow HI-tter!

Prescriptivist assholes being wrong is like the sweetest nectar

Can’t confirm for everyone, but can confirm that 7th grade is when my school district explored ancient history.

I still remember being told the story of the origin of Phoenician purple (pigment/dye.) Something about a dog biting a snail on a beach and its mouth turning purple/blue. I think it stuck in my memory because my first thought was that the snail poisoned the dog, and I was shocked at how casually the teacher told such a sad story. But the teacher continued on to say it was just a pigment covering his face, and I was relieved.

But they never discovered a papyrus ending in /s.

Deliverator

I assumed he was talking about some Amazonian

Learned is more commonly used than learnt.

From your own link…

But I guess reading would get in the way of being a pervert.

I'm just excited for all the "historically accurate" cyclops, witches, demi gods, and magic objects that the conservatives are going to have in their AI remakes!

/s (just in case)

To be fair, Nolan has named a protagonist Protagonist in the past

Isn't that character named as such only in the script with their name never being mentioned in the movie itself?

"Less common" is not the same as "wrong", and it's doubly not the same as "wrong" when it actually just means "normal in other dialects of the language"