Galen's Good Sense

From Galen's commentary on Hippocrates De Fracturis. This is why I don't give a shit whether you pronounce Iraq as eye-rock, or eye-rack, or ee-rock, or ee-rack.

Defer to whichever way somebody wants to pronounce the word. If somebody speaks to you as you pronounce the word gausós (this is the only pronunciation I've actually seen people incline to in reading the book), and they think it right to pronounce it gâusos, then just pronounce the word the way they want. Then if again you come across someone else who wants to pronounce it gausós, do likewise, sneering away at word-accentuation, since it contributes nothing to philosophy, let alone to geometry, arithmetic, music or astronomy. Seeing that turgid disputations over these damn words are not fundamental to the aim of any applied profession, one must not only not buy into people's concern with such things, but ridicule it as much as possible.

ὁποτέρως οὖν τις θέλει φθέγγεσθαι συγχώρει. κἂν ποτέ σοι καὶ τὴν ὀξεῖαν τάσιν εἰπόντι γαυσός. ἐπὶ τοῦτο γὰρ μόνον ἐπειράθην ῥεπόντων τῶν ἀναγινωσκόντων τὸ βιβλίον, ἄν τ’ εἴπῃ τις ἀξιῶν προπερισπᾷν, ὡς ἂν ἐκεῖνος ἐθελήσῃ καὶ σὺ φθέγγου, καὶ πάλιν ἂν ἑτέρῳ συντύχῃς ὀξυτονεῖν ἐθέλοντι, καὶ αὐτὸς οὕτως πρᾶττε καταφρονῶν καὶ τόνων καὶ ὀνομάτων, ὡς οὔτε πρὸς φιλοσοφίαν συντελούντων, πολύ γε μᾶλλον οὔτε πρὸς γεωμετρίαν ἢ ἀριθμητικὴν ἢ μουσικὴν ἢ ἀστρονομικὴν, ὥστε εἰ μηδεμία τέχνη δέεται πρὸς τὸ ἑαυτῆς τέλος τῆς τῶν ἐπιτρίπτων τούτων ὀνομάτων μακρολογίας, οὐ μόνον οὐ χρὴ προσίεσθαι τὸ ἐπιτήδευμα τῶν ἀνδρῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ καταγελᾷν ὡς μάλιστα.