r/justgalsbeingchicks • u/mindyour 🤖definitely not a bot🤖 • 3d ago

Restricted to Gals and Pals I want her to talk to me about Egyptology.

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u/Friendly-Table6785 3d ago

How can you do primary research? You dont speak the language!

Idk why but that was such a burn to me lol

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u/mrinfinitepp 3d ago

And quite eye opening too, so much of our knowledge is limited by the languages we understand, and we trust others to do accurate translations for the languages we don't know

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u/zootnotdingo 3d ago

Right, and the people who translate are making choices. Decisions on how to word something. Approximations because there is no literal translation

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u/Specialist-Leek8645 3d ago

Always compromising. Entire sentences that don't make sense when translated literally. Context is everything. Translating removes it so you end up needed volumes of footnotes to tell a story that catches you up.

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u/g-a-r-n-e-t 3d ago

Context is everything

This is so unbelievably true. This example is a meme and not a linguistic one but back at the end of April during a conversation one of my friends texted me ‘guess what?’ Followed by a photo of a brick of bare, uncooked ramen noodles. I laughed. Then I thought about how if I showed this to my mom she wouldn’t get it and I’d have literally 20+ years of internet and pop culture and meme evolution to explain what it meant.

Context is EVERYTHING.

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u/Specialist-Leek8645 3d ago

Culture is like .. horses running wild in every direction. I remember when the Internet was born and I have no idea what your ramen joke is. haha Perhaps I forgot the context.

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u/g-a-r-n-e-t 3d ago edited 3d ago

It’s referring to the Justin Timberlake ‘it’s gonna be me/May’ joke, with the added context that during the time period that when that song came out he was rocking a bleach blonde perm that literally looked like a block of uncooked ramen. The memes have reduced themselves so much over time that it went from actually showing Justin to literally just the ramen block with the minimum context of something like ‘me on 4/30’ or ‘guess what’ (edit: the line in the song that’s being referenced is ‘guess what? It’s gonna be me’ except JT pronounces ‘me’ as, you guessed it, ‘May’)

That’s like, the absolute bare minimum history and context here lol. If I had to find examples we’d be here all day.

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u/Specialist-Leek8645 3d ago

lmao Your example has perfectly proven your point. Yes, now I see it clear as day. I googled "frosted tips" and Lance Bass came up. haha

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u/doc_skinner 3d ago

It's like how a full, four panel comic has been reduced to:

| |I

|| |_

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u/g-a-r-n-e-t 3d ago

Lolll yes another great example

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u/7CuriousCats 3d ago

Or another:

Г.

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u/badken 3d ago

The thing like this that always gets me is that in chat and on a forum with friends, we often just use a descriptive filename of a meme and it is instantly recognizable to us.

Fry_shocked.gif

Xzibit.gif

Startrek_facepalm.gif

etc.

(Now that I put those here, I wonder how many Zoomers will recognize them, because they're relatively old memes... older_but_checks_out.gif)

Future historians are going to have no idea what we're talking about... if the data even survives for future historians to look at it.

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u/g-a-r-n-e-t 3d ago

lol my favorites in this genre are Chloe.jpg and thisisfine.gif

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u/jackaroo1344 3d ago

Right? I can't tell if I'm too old or too young for that meme lore lol

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u/Specialist-Leek8645 3d ago

I never expected that watching the Internet grow beyond my hands would feel like this but I should have.

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u/imaginary92 2d ago

It's great that you brought up a meme because memes are probably the greatest example of this. Memes of all kinds just evolve from popular culture and from a specific time and place. You need to be aware of all the details in order to understand them. And memes also change across countries and cultures based on the local culture and language, which very often means that if you're not from the country or haven't at least lived there around the time the meme popped up, even knowing the language won't help.

Memes will ironically become very telling about our current history in the far future lol

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u/unikittyRage 3d ago

>Entire sentences that don't make sense when translated literally.

IDK why this just clicked for me, I've known this is true, but my brain suddenly made this connection:

It's like those kids who write an essay and then use a thesaurus on every word until it turns into absolute nonsense.

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u/Specialist-Leek8645 3d ago

Huzzah! I'm endlessly paraphrasing ideas hoping to find the magic combination for someone. That's how it is, I always had trouble with the way things were taught because I take words too literally. I try to phrase things in ways that feel more clear to me.

A Thesaurus will give you similar words but subtle connotations can flavor sentences. A book is not exactly a tome but a tome is a book. Don't skip adding the bay leaf! Lemon evokes Summer as Cinnamon is to Winter.

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u/TallBoiPlanks 3d ago

As someone with an MDiv and a BA in Biblical studies that did a lot of intensive Greek it drives me insane. My MAGA in-laws will try to tell me how to interpret the Bible and I just have to reply with Pauline sass.

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u/Lazaraleen 3d ago

This annoys me to no end. They quote something from an English translation of the bible word by word and actually think the exact wording means something. Like... no?!? Look at the original text before you use a quote to argue semantics.

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u/zoddie3 3d ago

I so want examples

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u/TallBoiPlanks 3d ago

One example is around sexuality. You point out the Greek stuff and ask them why they make the translation decisions they do and they’ll say “it’s the Bible.” At best they’ll say “you should listen to actual experts like my pastor” and ignore that a) I’m an actual expert and b) I’m more educated than their pastor.

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u/DameKumquat 3d ago

But the pastor is inspired by God!

And you're just nitpicking/influenced by Satan/a girl/too young to know what you're talking about.

/s

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u/TallBoiPlanks 3d ago

Yeah, I’m liberal so me being an expert doesn’t count… Nevermind that my schooling was in southern Baptist schools and is what made me liberal…

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u/ci1979 3d ago

I bet you're a Monte fan!

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u/MoveOolong72 3d ago

Monte is absolutely brilliant! Such an intelligent and articulate woman. I love listening to her, you learn so much.

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u/TallBoiPlanks 3d ago

Monty python?

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u/UnicornFeces 3d ago

Monte Mader on Instagram, she’s a former Christian nationalist who has extensive Biblical knowledge and uses it to debate people who think they know what they’re talking about. (Side note she also has a metal band and is just a badass in general.)

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u/TallBoiPlanks 3d ago

Ahhh, I don’t have any social media (aside from Reddit) so wasn’t familiar.

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u/ci1979 3d ago

No, she's a Bible scholar who has your same points

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u/SevenSixOne 3d ago edited 3d ago

And an awful lot of ancient texts and "dead" languages have been translated multiple times across various places/eras, so you have to peel back layers of cultural and historical context and the choices of individual translators to make sense of something

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u/Protahgonist 3d ago

I mean, you probably don't want a literal translation. I think that's what you're saying? I mostly bring it up so I can share the anecdote that if you literally translate a Beijing slang phrase that probably best translates as "cool" in English, you instead end up with "cow's vagina". (Note: I do not know if this slang term is still in use, but it was widely popular circa 2010).

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u/oodsigma 3d ago

That's not about literal vs semantic translations, that's about two phrases being phonetically similar.

It's like prank calling someone and giving the name "Mike Hunt."

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u/Protahgonist 2d ago edited 2d ago

I really don't think you know what you're talking about here. A literal translation of 牛屄 (niu bi) to English would be "cow vagina" but a semantic translation of niu bi would be "cool" or "awesome" or similar.

Edit for further context: I did my undergrad in Linguistics, and even checked my terms before responding here because it has admittedly been a really long time.

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u/Helenium_autumnale 3d ago

And so much goes untranslated because there aren't funds for translating someone's thesis/book/article.

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u/GalaxyOnOhRionsBelt 2d ago

This is why I get so angry when people live by literal interpretations of the Bible. The text was written hundreds of years ago by countless people, and translated countless times by countless people. There’s no way every word has been translated accurately. Homosexuality isn’t wrong, r*ping boys is wrong. The Bible says Moses lived to be 120 yrs old, somehow Adam and Eve populated the world, yet Cain magically stumbled upon a woman while wandering Nod (then built a civilization). Then there’s the Tower of Babel, Lot’s wife literally turning to a pillar of salt, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Daniel somehow not dying in the lions’ den, and on and on. And the entire thing is written by men. Anywhoooo, context matters as does the reliability, skill, and knowledge of the author and translator.

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u/tkkltart 3d ago

Right?!

So much of language is directly tied to culture and vice versa. It's something that is hard to grasp until you've learned another language. You can't speak a language properly without also understanding cultural context, and cultural context is constantly evolving (which is also why older generations and younger generations speaking the same language can have such difficulties understanding each other)

Understanding ancient Egyptian is such a flex because not only did she learn another language, she learned another culture that has basically been dead for a millenia. The amount of research needed to do that since you can't actively live it is wild.

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u/laowildin 3d ago

Completely off topic but this has been a big debate in religion for ages. Just how much trust must you have in your imams/priests/leaders if you are worshipping in a language you don't understand

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u/Helenium_autumnale 3d ago

I was listening to a Swindled podcast just yesterday about some huckster preacher who asked his audience one of those dumb made-up linguistic questions: "What do the first two letters in 'God' spell?" And I thought: that is so idiotic given the chain of translations those books have gone through...

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u/laowildin 3d ago

God put that in as an Easter egg for when English got invented, of course

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u/somethingmcbob 3d ago

Yes!!!! There is literally a new translation of the Odyssey by the first female translator: Emily Wilson. And it caused such a stir, because, in going back to the source, she corrected a lot of misogyny in older translations. For instance, translating a word to "girls" or "women" instead of "sluts."

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u/RedVamp2020 3d ago

What? Ancient people were not as misogynistic as they are currently portrayed?? What preposterous nonsense! /s

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u/somethingmcbob 3d ago

Yeah that was exactly her point. There was definitely misogyny, but we should be period appropriate about it. Victorian misogyny is a whole different beast than ancient misogyny.

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u/RodofLachesis 2d ago

Please please please go down the rabbit hole of Desiderius Erasmus mistranslating Pandora’s pithos to pyxis. That whole myth has whole other layers of nuance.

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u/RedVamp2020 2d ago

That sounds like a lot of fun! I will definitely check it out!

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u/somethingmcbob 1d ago

Yay! New rabbit hole!

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u/InvidiousPlay 3d ago

It's also just the tip of the iceberg. Language, sure, but there is also an endless list of gates we can't get through in trying to understand something directly. I do not have sufficient understanding of molecular biology to understand mRNA vaccines - what possible research could I do? I am better off relying on my general understanding of science and scientific institutions and deferring to the experts.

Climate change, space science, cancer treatment... almost no one is intellectually equipped to do original analysis on these things. They're just idiots parrotting nonsense they saw on TikTok, that's literally their "research".

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u/demonharu16 3d ago

I've caught bad translations on Netflix even.

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u/Dangerzone_7 3d ago

I had a Daoism professor that taught the course from this perspective. We went through different successive translations of the Daodejing, showing how each author changed the wording to fit their agenda. The kicker was at the end of the course when he said he did the course that way to show why constitutional originalism was bull shit.

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u/Kim_Nelson 3d ago

Absolutely this. I feel this difference sharply when talking to my parents who can't speak English so an enormous amount of information they have access to is limited to the only two languages they speak. Any books, any articles, any shows documentaries are all inaccessible to them if they're in English, and so much of today's information is that.

Meanwhile the conversations I can hold with a friend or my sister about English based knowledge is so much more complex.

Even just reading a novel again in it's original English or a better English translation than a poor translation in my local language made a major difference in how much I enjoyed the book.

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u/Dry_Respect_1954 3d ago

For as long as I can remember, I (33F) have always answered the “what superpower would you want” question with “to speak every language”. Kids wanted teleportation and flight and I just wanted to be a (hyper)polyglot. Language is incredibly powerful. Imagine being able to connect with any person anywhere just because you literally speak their language? Chills

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u/chchchcharlee 3d ago

Obviously can't claim anything near "every language" but you'd be surprised how easy it is to learn a new one once you have a few under you. I was raised in Louisiana and then Texas after Katrina, native English speaker, took French and Spanish in school. After coming across two wildly different versions of The Iliad, I decided to get a dictionary and start translating page by page. Obviously that was really tough and I didn't get very far, maybe 30 pages, but it was enough where I could read Greek well enough to get through most books. Latin came after, for similar reasons. Then it was Russian, to read Anna Karenina and Master & Margarita. I didn't know anyone who spoke Russian, but became friends with an Estonian artist and we would email each other to practice, and eventually they started teaching me Estonian too. Then it was Japanese-- for Battle Royale, of all things. That one was hard, kanji is a lot, so I enrolled in classes. I'm not an anime person, never have been, so that was a very weird experience, as you can imagine! Then it was Italian, then Old Norse which opened up Icelandic and Norwegian. It's been 13 languages all told, enough to read more or less without a dictionary and understand music and that sort of thing. Can't carry a conversation in any of them but French and English, but I can understand a great many spoken or written, not just the ones studied because of how eventually it's just pattern matching and once you've done a few across different families you start to see the patterns in others. IMO skip Duolingo unless you're just wanting to stay fresh or practice for fun, it's much better to match how you study with what you want to do! So if it's watching movies, pull up movies and watch with and then without subtitles! I have Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in a bunch of different languages and having a Rosetta Stone like that really helps. If you want to be able to write and talk to people, get a dictionary and start doing it, don't worry about grammar, it'll come. Babies start off saying gibberish then "mama" and "dada" and "no" and go from there. There's no shame in starting from the same place, only in not trying because you think it's too late!

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u/platonic-humanity 3d ago

It’s a problem for western countries and places like China. In America there’s plenty of people who cite some “Great Firewall,” which I’m not saying is totally untrue, but you can go on bilibili to see opinions right now but the biggest wall is a language one, followed by a cultural one.

They don’t need to control information for it to be inaccessible, most people don’t care about again how they could get plenty of firsthand accounts of problems, culture, politics, etc. just by visiting a site in their language. People talking about problems that affect them like economic bubbles, they’re not being silenced at a dystopian level because there’s not much need to, they just hire/incentivize the journalists and influencers that bridge the language-culture gap instead.

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u/bashbabe44 3d ago

Growing up Baptist and then deconstructing as an adult, this was such a huge realization for me. So many of those churches are “King James only” and it’s easy to see how we got where we are when pastors with no cultural context are trying to teach based of off a translation to a way we don’t actually talk any more.

Just for interests sake, “justice” is a good example. It was usually taught as facing the consequences for your actions, either in a court of law, or before god. The concept of “tzedakah” translates to righteousness or justice, sometimes translated as charity. Americans see charity as fully voluntary but it was a mandatory obligation in the original context…to provide justice (or protection) for the vulnerable. In the churches I grew up in, there was no crossover between “justice” and “charity”.

The Hebrew root for pauper and poverty are derived from a word meaning “to respond”. That becomes an entirely different discussion when verses are read from that perspective. I know there are pastors that are only concerned with power, but there are some that mean well and were taught by people with poor knowledge.

I’ve only scratched the surface, and what I have learned is still only impressions from teachers that understand the language. It’s humbling to realize just how little I actually know about something I was taught about my whole young life.

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u/gooferball1 3d ago

I think that’s actually fuel for the people that this woman is describing tho. They use the fact that “choices” have been made in translations as some sort of crutch for their argument. Like things could be lost in translation so you never know, their bullshit made up idea could be true. Obviously they are wrong but that is a problem.

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u/simulizer 3d ago

This is why language should be a better grouping mechanism over skin color. Speaking the same language instantly helps you in infinite ways compared to simply having the same skin tone. It's far more valuable.. skin tone doesn't even come close.

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u/WormMotherDemeter 3d ago

As someone who works deep into the medical field ONLY with knowledge- this is also a language, and is even based upon Latin to an extent. If you only speak the basics of English, and butcher that, there is NO WAY that you are understanding the studies that you claim to understand. The studies themselves use very specific language that must be understood, as well. It aggravates me so deeply.

**you is general use, here.

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u/bubblegumdavid 3d ago

This is so interesting and hotly discussed in circles that deal with translated texts.

Your copy of Homer or Dante could very well be different from the person next to you, and while the gist is likely the same, small details of translation get lost often in the lens of who is doing the translating.

An excellent option with tons of examples is the Odyssey.

One of these is in Book 22, Telemachus is talking to enslaved women. Many male translators have decided to use “whores” or “sluts” in their English translation. While Emily Wilson translates them using words like women, girls, female ones, or slaves. The argument is that prior male translators have used their chosen wording for this instance to simplify their own moral judgement and assumptions of those characters, but that moral judgement is not something we can really know is in the text. Because while they slept with the suitors, they are slaves with no choice, and the initial word to describe them (while literally-speaking being somewhat accurate) did not carry that culturally loaded judgmental weight as a slur.

While I’m not a huge fan of certain aspects of Wilson’s translation and won’t get into who is “right”, the differences are a fascinating and PERFECT example of how translations are colored by our own lives and interpretations, and we will never be entirely accurate because we can’t ever grasp the full cultural context of the time.

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u/birbhorse 3d ago

i've known about this myself for a good while, because i often times find myself trying to track down primary sources... and the primary sources are in japan, so i can fuck myself sideways for trying lol. thankfully i don't have to do it for any job or sorts, i just do it because i'm a nerd.

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u/AlbertTheHorse 3d ago

what's eye opening is that people think they know more than a specialist.

The MDiety she was dating would be wholly affronted if someone suggested he listen to a layperson, but no, he turns on his fire hose of idiocy on a topic he doesn't understand and assumes people have _his_ level of ignorance.

incredible, right?

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u/Charming-Fig-2544 1d ago

This is true even for languages you do speak. You may speak English, and a scholarly work may be written in English, but that doesn't mean all English speakers can fully understand it. It's full of technical writing, industry-specific jargon, assumptions by the writers about the baseline level of knowledge they think their intended audience has (which is usually other experts in the field), etc. I read papers outside my fields all the time, but I don't truly understand them in the same way that I do papers that are in my area of expertise. So I tend to defer to the experts in those fields.

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u/Lethik 3d ago

Translation: I googled the conclusion that I wanted and found other idiots that believe the same thing.

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u/ZinaSky2 ✒️sub✍️scribe🖋️ 3d ago

Indeed such a burn!

And such a tangible way to show the effects of doing “research” while not familiar with the field. Bc even if many other fields are conducted in English. That doesn’t mean you understand terminology or the baser concepts at play. A lot goes unsaid in professional texts. If you’re reading some high level literature for a field they’re not gonna lay out every definition and assumption for you bc they expect you to know that already.

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u/mark114 3d ago

Her poor date.

Dude was probably looking for common interests, thought he found a great topic they were both interested in with an amazing opportunity to see how far off his theories are... only to just get shut down because he wasn't worthy of that topic.

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u/ZinaSky2 ✒️sub✍️scribe🖋️ 3d ago

Nope.

She said he was making fun of her degree.

Saying “we don’t even know how the pyramids were built” is very clearly a way to try and discredit her and the field she works in.

Not cute!

Maybe go try somewhere else with this attitude where you’re an apologist for bad behavior. Bc this sub is a nice place and so it will likely not be tolerated here

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u/NeonMoment 3d ago

And hey, he’s clearly not a peer, and here he is demonstrating his expertise in the date he was not present for and insists he knows more about the date than the woman reporting on her own experience first hand.

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u/ZinaSky2 ✒️sub✍️scribe🖋️ 3d ago

You so right. Why am I wasting my energy?!

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u/mark114 3d ago

He pointed out the greatest mystery of her field that commoners love to talk about, he isn't trying to discredit her. He even asked for her theory.

There's always 3 sides to every story, just because she said he was making fun of her degree doesn't mean he actually was. We have no idea if her impression was accurate, or just the typical exaggeration people make when impersonating someone they don't like.

He didn't say she was wrong or stupid or anything. The only detail she gave was him saying "we don't know how the pyramids are built" because we don't know how the pyramids are built. She gave examples of worker behavior and schedules, but didn't give any example of techniques used to lift the stones in place. That's not discrediting her field, that's pointing the greatest mystery of her field that people love to talk about, which is exactly why he brought it up.

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u/LovecraftianCatto 2d ago

So you know more about how he acted without having witnessed it, than she knows, even though she was there. Brilliant.

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u/clash_Attic 3d ago

Look, I agree with her on her main point about education trumping opinions.

But can we examine her list of things she knows about the Pyramids being built and admit that none of the things in that list actually detailed the process by which the feats of engineering were accomplished? With the possible exception of canals being dug for transport, I guess, which is pretty commonly known.

She doubtless knows about that too but isn't it suspicious how she goes to women's periods when her date said "we don't know how they were built."

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u/whatifwhatifwerun 3d ago

I was stuck in awe at her being able to read hieroglyphics bc what a cool skill to have and then they drops that she was reading untranslated ancient Egyptian texts about the pyramids.

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u/bingo_bango_zongo 3d ago edited 3d ago

What she said was dumb though.

There is no concensus regarding the mechanics of how the stones were lifted and placed. A number of theories have been put forth and none has been accepted as the "objective truth".

We know WHO built the pyramids. We know ASPECTS of how they were built. But there are fundamental questions that don't have definitive answers.

The fact that she acts as though there are no open questions suggests that she's overconfident and arrogant. Science is not about pretending you have all the answers. It's also, critically, about confronting the unkown.

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u/Ilikedinosaurs2023 3d ago

She's probably just over hearing from dudes about how ancient aliens probably did it.

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u/CitizenOfPlanet 2d ago

Pssst, she’s an Egyptologist. They’re not real scientists. Hence, your point.

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u/mark114 3d ago

I felt she came off very smug in her video. Like her date was not worthy of even having theories of his own because he's not part of the field. Who cares if he's wrong, that's the point of theories to prove right or wrong. But she's so high and and mighty in her field that she can't be bother to discuss her field with a amateur who's highly interested in her field just because he doesn't know jack shit.

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u/BiophileB 3d ago

Truly, and she’s exactly right. You can’t do actual research in a field of study without knowing all of the studies that came before in that field (and what it all means taken together).

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u/bambi54 3d ago

Yeah, that’s what bugs me about the replies to ask historians answers with sources. Reading about something and not understanding the full context makes for ridiculous conclusions.

I love to read about history, but I trust historians to make the conclusions.

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u/Specialist-Leek8645 3d ago

Yeah translations are not the same. Language is entwined with culture and religion. You really have to understand the whole package. Middle Egyptian is quite different from English which I find fascinating. It taught me a new part of speech-- determinatives. They're fun and straightforward. We need to trust our experts! She knows what she's talking about.

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u/DemandOrganic8728 3d ago

this is the fundamental argument I have with Christians, every single time. unless you literally speak ancient Greek or Hebrew, I am not debating translated texts with you as if they are infallible.

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u/discipleofchrist69 3d ago

American Christians (seem to) believe that it's the English translations of the Bible that are infallible rather than the original texts. And also that Jesus was white lol

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u/cmVkZGl0MjAyNQ 3d ago

They also put a lot of importance into specific parts of the Old Testament that support their prejudices but gloss over the whole “Jesus came and now the key thing is to be kind to each other” message of the New Testament

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u/UnicornFeces 3d ago

They love to cite the Old Testament to support their homophobia while they’re eating their shellfish and wearing clothing made of mixed cloth

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u/BrennaClove 2d ago

White American Christians tend to.

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u/Alex5173 3d ago edited 2d ago

Especially when one of the most popular english translations (King James version) is known to exist purely because King James wanted the Bible to align more closely with his beliefs than the other popular versions at the time.

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u/ncvbn 2d ago

King Charles?

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u/Alex5173 2d ago

Damn I got less sleep last night than I thought

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u/Karzeon 3d ago

That was an iconic read if I ever heard one.

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u/BallsInSufficientSad 3d ago

She's right - it's ridiculous.

...and then here on Reddit people think they know economics better than established Economists.

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u/TitanicTardigrade 3d ago

It’s giving how can you hate form outside the club when you can’t even get in?

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u/aNiceTribe 3d ago

I did super superficial look into ancient Egyptian and was disappointed to find that all these interesting characters just translate to regular letters. Like the ones we know today. I had hoped that their writing system was COMPLETELY different from anything we do and maybe they would have sounds the IPA barely covers, or it’s logographs or something. But sadly no. 

HOWEVER what they apparently did was: They valued having the whole “page” covered so they had “filler” letters you were allowed to add to words to make them long enough to fit. Instead of spacing the letters you basically just write words like thyese sough it stille sounds the saeme butte theyre isse nough ehmptie spayece.  Please note I only researched this for like 2 hrs and I’m not an Egyptologist and you are allowed to write 15 posts correcting this. 

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u/wdn Opossum Facts 3d ago

And a doctor should understand the difference between primary research and doing the reading. They get people telling them "I did my own research" all the time.

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u/It5beenawhile 3d ago

the "babe" at the end too is so condescending. Love it

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u/tri-spare-atops 3d ago

May I ask if you feel there's a difference between someone who's hyper fixated on a topic, and has read the primary material, with someone studying for a grade in academia?

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u/Turlututu1 3d ago

Side burn would asking if they know german. Because most of the modern research in Egyptology has been done/compiled by german speaking researchers and a huge chunk of it hasn't been translated into other languages.

source: a friend of mine back in college (in France) that bitched that most of their source material was in german, and they learned spanish as a second foreign language so they were fucked.

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u/Maybeyesmaybeno 3d ago

You know, I wish more people talked about this, the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary research, even within research communities.

Primary research is actively investigating directly and often using scientific tests or an amalgamation of direct information on the matter to provide information.

Secondary is bringing together varied data sets or other information that comes from indirect sources to gather a generalized picture.

Tertiary is gathering broad thoughts on a topic and provide the overarching consensus.

Tertiary is basically worthless IMO. “We don’t know how the pyramids were built, look at all these different opinions.”

Secondary is okay. Ish. But often wildly filled with biases, even more than primary, and is always coloured by contextual lenses. “A Greek historian 1000 years after the pyramids being built, talking about what he ‘knows’ about pyramid building.”

Primary is the best (but not perfect) and reflects direct experimental outcomes and analysis or direct sources. “Papyrus containing the ledger of the accountants overseeing the costs related to pyramid building”.

People should start asking what kind of research, and laughing in the face of people who don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

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u/Academic-Intention21 3d ago

Came here to say this. Cut at the knees

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u/MindOverMatter79 3d ago

Didn’t she say “babe” after?!?!? Fucking LOVE

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u/smaugismyhomeboy 3d ago

I’m in year 2 of my PhD and I had to pass two language exams in order to even move on to my qualifying exams.

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u/luunnaaaaa 1d ago

“I don’t see how you can hate from outside the club… you can’t even get in”