Scylla and Charybdis

There’s nothing eduacated it intelligent about using a reference many your audience won’t ‘get’. It’s yet another example of his emotional stupidity that he though we might be impressed.

not useless Greek and Latin!

Latin is not useless
And we could learn a lot from Ancient Greeks and indeed from legends.

Aesop's Fables anyone?

Ellianne

Not a clue! Are they names of grape wines?

Love it!!

Let's just have a better definition of a good education.

Ancient Greek and Latin, but no science or maths beyond O level is not a braid education.

But I did learn that last bit of your post Spangler about the origins of the months of the year. And, we did black history about slavery, where black slaves came from and came to become slaves and other sorts of slavery from serfdom onwards. I also had practical experience of the workings of a car engine! But I still don't know which order to do plus/minus/times/divide!

Poorly educated, not exactly. He is however foreign, he was born and raised in New York before relocating to Brussels where his father, Stanley Johnson, was made Head of the European Commission's newly-established Prevention of Pollution Division. Johnson went to school in Brussels where he learned to speak French. He is steeped in the EU, through and through.

He comes across as shambolic, clownish and a buffoon, but he's nobody's fool. As well as being fluent in French he's also fluent in Italian and he can speak two of the three classical languages, namely Latin and Greek, and he's studied Hebrew too.

Later on Johnson won a scholarship to attend Eton, that's not easy, the scholarship was set up to capture the brightest who didn't have the financial means, he then went on to attend Balliol College, Oxford, where he became president of the Student's Union.

But to get back on track, I agree that Scylla and Charybdis is lost on youngsters, most of whom will think it might be an unsociable disease. In fact if you ask many whose education is of the last twenty five years, they won't be able to explain that the last four months of the year do not synchronise with their Latin names. Tell them that January & February are two added months and you will get blank looks.

Go further and prove that January is named after the two headed god, Janus, one head looking back at the old year, whilst the other head looks forward into the new one and you will get: "You what?"

Its not as narrow as it was in the 60s Varian, when for more than 90% of girls in my area went to a sec mod and didn't even do maths or science past age twelve. (We did Human Physiology and Hygiene and Business Arithmetic!.)

I know of them as my ex-RN dh served on sister ships to the splendidly names frigates, HMS Scylla & Charybdis.

I don’t think not knowing something makes anyone poorly educated. It simply means they don’t know a particular thing. They might know lots of other things that you don’t know.

No clue what you are talking about I did Latin and French and went to a grammar school but never touched on Greek so what I thought was a pretty reasonable education...obviously wasn’t
Agree totally gagaJo

I knew what he meant - but only from The Police song from the Eighties, Wrapped around your Finger.

Not the best way to communicate with the people of the country if most of them have to go and look it up to understand what he meant. Shows just how out of touch he is.

There is a serious problem with the English education system which allows a narrowing down at the age when pupils absolutely need a broad range of knowledge., such as they might get if they studied for the International Baccalauriat, or even the Scottish Highers.

“ Then there are Stephen Fry's recent popular books about Greek mythology. He isn't ashamed of his learning.”
Sorry but who said anything about being ashamed of their learning?
The issue is whether not knowing Greek myths etc means being poorly educated. No.

Nope... they dint learn yer Greek at my Sec Mod.

Shrub. My son would disagree with you.

Many younger people will have spent time studying 'The Greeks' as a topic for a term at least during their Primary schooling. Reading books and school libraries are full of books containing myths taken from Greek and many other cultures.
Whether people remember them is another matter.
Possibly it will inspire people to look up the reference; so easy nowadays with a phone; my son, a very reluctant reader, does so all the time.
Then there are Stephen Fry's recent popular books about Greek mythology. He isn't ashamed of his learning.

I'm obviously a thick oik. I will go and sit on the naughty step.?

Well I'm sorry but I must have been poorly educated! . What we need these days is more politicians with a science background, not useless Greek and Latin!

From behind sofa with tin hat on!

BJ speaks like that because he was very poorly educated.

He is so foolish, ill-educated and ill informed that he thinks that quoting Ancient Greek or Ancient Greek mythology will impress people who haven't got a clue.

He should be sent back to school for a proper scientific education.

Whilst I understood the reference I think that because the PM had a classical education & studied classics at Balliol he will be used to using his area of expertise in his daily speech. Many people do this with areas of knowledge.
Knowledge in itself is not a sign of being clever or having particular intelligence. A person's ability to use , apply & transfer their knowledge & skills effectively in different situations is a a better way of knowing if someone is really clever or just a fact gatherer.

I can’t believe Esspee that you think not knowing about Scylla and Charybdis makes people poorly educated. A completely unnecessary piece of knowledge, nice to know about but please tell me how it fits into the educational curriculum imposed on educators in this country.
Teachers barely have time to deliver the curriculum as it stands let alone going off at a tangent teaching Greek or Latin myths and legends. (And I’m speaking as someone who loved those stories when at primary school)

Is ergo Latin? I never studied it myself, our sec mod didn’t stretch to much further than basic French.

An alternative might be one of an English myth, Robin Hood, and I am sure that the other nations of the United Kingdom would have some good myths to offer. Might try and bring us back together.

Did Cummings say it was OK to use it, I wonder?

Kitty I think he is, by showing himself to be oh so much cleverer than the majority of us, ergo he deserves to be a leader.

I think he was just showing his assumed superiority. There really is no point. We all know he is incompetent, despite the classical references he chucks around. The only person he's fooling is himself.