…unfortunately, not only niche, but abbreviated. I thought I would be granted one admittance to the TLS this month – but no such luck! But, as far as I could read, the gist is; when Professor Beard was at school, girls were taught Ancient Greek without accents – pondering the rationale (!) behind that is really interesting indeed! Mind you, it didn’t do Mary’s brilliant career much harm; or maybe it did force the direction – after all, her specialisation did become that of the Romans and Latin does not have (at least not in written text) those pesky diacritical marks of Greek. And she does say, that to this very day, she feels somehow deprived, and is adamant it is a technique that must be learnt from the git go.
Where I am concerned, the truth of course is – with or without (accents) – it remains all Greek to me!
Not wasted though was this return visit to Twitter, for I picked up mention of a very new site, called Antigone, dedicated to making Classics accessible to a greater audience. A quick browse through suggests lots of good reading, and they are even able to offer help for those (like Mary!) struggling with accents.