"millenia" = 'an indefinite but lengthy period of years'

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/16/2012 12:52 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>Or it literally means "millennia", as in "2000 years".

Can't be this, because -- as you say -- it's around 1100 years, not
even close to two milleniums.

>Or it could be
>just a grammatical error--the Aleppo Codex is dated roughly to the 10th
>century.

Unlikely? -- I would have expected to see "for *a* millenia" as the
error for "for a millenium", not the article's "for millenia".

>If something has been around for 120 years, should we use
>"century", "centuries" or "decades"? In fact, in this case, "centuries"
>would have worked just fine, but 1100+ years just seems to be so much
>more ;-)

If the writer had written "one millenium", I would have been
content.  But she wrote "millenia."  Centuries would have worked just
fine.  Perhaps the error was confusing "cent-" with "mill-".

Joel


>     VS-)
>
>On 5/15/2012 6:15 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>and presumably greater than centuries but less than aeons.
>>
>>"Perhaps the most authoritative manuscript of the Jewish Bible, the
>>Aleppo Codex, called the Crown, had been annotated by Maimonides
>>himself and safeguarded by the Jewish diaspora for millennia."
>>
>>Book review by Brook Wilensky-Lanford of 'The Aleppo Codex' by Matti
>>Friedman. Boston Globe, today.
>>
>>Brook Wilensky-Lanford, author of "Paradise Lust: Searching for the
>>Garden of Eden," can be reached through her website,
>>www.paradiselustbook.com.
>>
>>Joel

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