Difference between revisions of "Logos and logs"
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Latest revision as of 01:33, 30 May 2026
About the Greek word logos, λόγος. It is usually translated as "word", but a lot is lost in translation when doing so. Wiktionary says "speech, oration, discourse, quote, story, study, ratio, word, calculation, reason". The etymology is from proto-Indo-European "leǵ-", meaning to collect, to gather.
Philologist Erik Ellis has thought a lot about logos, and he says that the best English translation he has found so far for logos is "account". Both a bank account and to give an account of last night is about recounting the events that led to the current situation, to tell a story, and that meaning of account captures logos best.
Amusingly the way Ellis was describing "account" made me think of the word "log", the way it is used in computing and on ships, and it took me an embarrassing moment to notice the similarity between "logos" and "log", but etymologically they're entirely unrelated as the latter comes from tree log, which has old Norse roots.
It's just another funny, accidental etymological convergence.
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