It’s actually worse. The name couldn’t be from the 1st century CE because otherwise it would be Lonchinus [lɔn’ki:nʊs]; back then Greek still kept ⟨χ⟩ as [kʰ] (as in “kit”), this would only change around the 4th century or so.
Plus whoever coined that name wasn’t fully proficient in Greek, otherwise they wouldn’t plop a Latin -īnus into it, they’d go with ⟨λογχίτης⟩ lonkhítēs “spear-bearer, the spear guy” → Lonchites instead.
…the English pronunciation stands out as being weirder than everything above. Also, obligatory:
A spear of Longinus a day keeps the Tang sea away~
nickname for Roman soldiers was “Miles” from Latin mille for “thousand” – legionaries walked everywhere giving us the unit of measure, a Roman mile = mille passus (thousand paces)
![[ElderCactus] There were worse outcomes](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5715508f-01e1-4e13-90ad-a098f1bb8f63.jpeg){kind=link}
They didn’t know this soldier’s name so they essentially named him “Lancer”. Amazing.
It’s actually worse. The name couldn’t be from the 1st century CE because otherwise it would be Lonchinus [lɔn’ki:nʊs]; back then Greek still kept ⟨χ⟩ as [kʰ] (as in “kit”), this would only change around the 4th century or so.
Plus whoever coined that name wasn’t fully proficient in Greek, otherwise they wouldn’t plop a Latin -īnus into it, they’d go with ⟨λογχίτης⟩ lonkhítēs “spear-bearer, the spear guy” → Lonchites instead.
…the English pronunciation stands out as being weirder than everything above. Also, obligatory:
A spear of Longinus a day keeps the Tang sea away~
Ah there is the fork of horripilation. You have one of Sheororaths holy artifacts.
“Yo Lance, you really get to the point.”
“That’s a really good point. Never thought of it that way.”
“Really piercing insight. Gets to the heart of the matter…”
That sucks, he almost got his place in history.
nickname for Roman soldiers was “Miles” from Latin mille for “thousand” – legionaries walked everywhere giving us the unit of measure, a Roman mile = mille passus (thousand paces)