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   clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 22-Sep-2024 12:39:24 JST clacke

   Oh! I've been wondering why Swedes call secondary school "gymnasium" when in English that makes you think of weightlifting.

   So it's not just a Scandinavian quirk.

   The word γυμνάσιον (gumnásion), from Greek γυμνός (gumnós) 'naked' or 'nude', was first used in Ancient Greece, in the sense of a place for both physical and intellectual education of young men. The latter meaning of a place of intellectual education persisted in many European languages (including Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Greek, German, Hungarian, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian and Ukrainian), whereas in other languages, like English (gymnasium, gym) and Spanish (gimnasio), the former meaning of a place for physical education was retained.

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasiu…

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     hypolite (hypolite@friendica.mrpetovan.com)'s status on Sunday, 22-Sep-2024 23:46:00 JST hypolite

     in reply to
     @clacke In French “gymnase” is also a sports-related building.
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     Mans R (mansr@society.oftrolls.com)'s status on Sunday, 22-Sep-2024 23:46:17 JST Mans R

     in reply to

     @clacke It's always the Greeks.

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     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Monday, 23-Sep-2024 05:35:23 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     in (Brazilian?) Portuguese, it used to be both. ginásio means sports arena, but it also used to refer to (some kinds of) high school. ISTM the latter sense was phased out. even the term that took its place has already been phased out too.
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     Iron Bug (iron_bug@friendica.ironbug.org)'s status on Monday, 23-Sep-2024 12:25:11 JST Iron Bug

     in reply to
     @clacke in modern Russian gymnasium (or liceum) means advanced (and usually paid) kind of school with more qualified education and/or special emphasis in something (music, foreign languages, etc). and gymnastics hall means a place for physical training of a kind. in old pre-soviet times gymnasium was a kind of education between school and universities. something like college.
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