No, not interpretation, the way to say it. Where I’m from, the idiom explicitly mentions playing the lyre. I checked.

And no, I don’t read things that don’t interest me or have no impact on my life. This argument is purely for the fun of it. I mean, at this point it is. Thank you by the way for engaging with me. This was a surprisingly nice exchange. My mind still isn’t changed. I prefer to believe things that I am told in real life by people, rather than things I read on the internet. Whenever it suits me, of course. I am a hypocrite after all. You know what they say. “Billions of flies can’t be wrong, there’s gotta be something to this shit.” In any case, thank you for your time, and I wish you all the best.

In my country/culture the idiom goes “Nero didn’t play (or did, people use both versions) the lyre while Rome burned”. I don’t know what else to tell you. The term being invented or not doesn’t matter since the instrument wasn’t invented. Your example with Cesar is different. If knives weren’t invented by that time (or other stabbing implements) would you still say he was stabbed to death? Language doesn’t matter in face of physical reality.

To me, it is the objectively correct version of the idiom, as it involves a historically accurate instrument.

Fool! You think I know what the difference is?

No, really, I think I understand even less now. And how is the word “fiddled” being a verb change anything?

The term “fiddling/fiddled” implies there is a fiddle involved. My problem with the statement is that there couldn’t be a fiddle involved. Because fiddles were not invented yet. Lest Nero was fiddling himself (or someone else), I cannot accept your version of the idiom as correct. Just because there is no such thing as “luteing” or “lyreing” doesn’t mean “fiddling” is the correct verb to use.

Edit: I think I know where the misunderstanding is coming from. Are you assuming I am disagreeing with any part of your statement? I am not. I am simply saying that the correct version of the saying would not mention fiddles. Because there were no fiddles. Unless that is the point. We know he wasn’t playing the fiddle because there were no fiddles? Is that the point?

Of course. The correct version would be: “Do we know that Nero wasn’t actually playing the lyre while Rome burned? Yes.”

I never tried to prove you wrong. I was just correcting WHY we know that. We know he wasn’t fiddling, because the fiddle wasn’t invented yet. If he was playing anything (and he wasn’t) then it would’ve been a lyre or a lute. This is all I wanted to say.

Was it a lesson? I guess, because I learned something.

I asked the person who first told me this fake news about Nero. Turns out it really was a lyre, and I did misremember.

And lutes really were invented before 3000 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lute Not just in ancient Mesopotamia. Egypt and Greece too. And many other places. Before Rome was evem built. It wasn’t invented just once. Just like language.

So yes, maybe I wasn’t right, but at least I don’t have to admit you were right the whole time. Can we just call it a draw?

Lutes were invented in the bronze age…

Edit: I’m pretty sure the bronze age was before Nero was born. Although I am not 100% sure. More like 99.9995%?

Edit 2: Actually lyre also sounds right. Now I’m doubting the version I heard. But it was definitely NOT a fiddle that Nero was not playing.

My man, didn’t I literally say “No offense,”? I’m pretty sure I did.

And I’m pretty sure Chauncer and Shakespeare won’t outlive me, since they already died.

But whatever, this is a discussion about a single perceived misuse of a single word. And at this point I’m getting confused. So, do you agree it was a lute or not? This is what the discussion is about (I think). At least that was my intention from the start. Because I distinctly remember this little story about Emperor Nero having a lute in it, not a fiddle. Although there are versions of the story that say it was a cithara. And a cithara isn’t either a lute or a fiddle.

Also. The article you linked kind of makes it sound like it isn’t talking about an instrument at all. Maybe, possibly, Nero fiddled his diddle while Rome burned. There’s still an instrument involved, just not a musical one. Not conventionally anyway.

And no. I’m not reading the whole article. Not because I don’t care enough to do so (although that is true, I don’t), but because I don’t have the attention span to read an article about a misqote of a fake story.

And again, no offense. I mean what I say as literally as I can. I am terrible at speaking to people. And honest. People don’t like that, usually. As a token of friendship, please accept this funny picture of a drink that I have found (I found the picture, not the drink).

I really don’t know how else to diffuse the situation. 🙂

Mistranslations don’t change a lute into a fiddle. These are different instruments. They look different, and they sound different. And they are played COMPLETELY differently. I will NOT back down on this. It was a lute.

Also, medieval writers in what cultures? Because I’m pretty sure the ones from Italy did distinguish between the lute and the fiddle. They might’ve called it the same word in some cases, like you might call a glass a glass or a cup a glass or a mug a glass, and it’s still a technically correct name, they are different. And glass mugs do exist, I have one right now on my desk in front of me.

You can’t be right just because you give the source of where you got your misinformation from. Sorry. I don’t think that’s how it works.

No offense, though. Everyone makes mistakes. As far as I know, I could be making one right now and not even know.

Okay, I might’ve worded it weird. But I am hung up on the “fiddle” part, not who was doing what with it. If you just changed the “fiddle” for the “lute”, I would have no notes. Because if we just go changing words around like that, Nero might as well had been playing the electric guitar.

Not my point. You almost got me. I almost apologized for not paying attention. But I’m in the right here. The myth was that he played the lute while Rome burned. You brought up the fiddle. That’s where I was confused, why a fiddle? It was a lute. Well, it wasn’t, since it didn’t happen. Okay. I hope that clears things up.

Actually, we can be sure Nero wasn’t playing the fiddle while Rome burned, because Nero died in 68 AD, while the fiddle was invented in the 1500s (AD). He might’ve played a lute though, we will never know.

Other than that, I have nothing to add. Thank you for the comment.

I wouldn’t say my setting is as detailed as real life history, but you can step in at any point from 1977 to around 7000 and there’s always something major happening in the world. There’s always gotta be a driver for world events. So, once you establish that, things tend to happen organically.

I usually treat all conflict as originating from different opinions and points of view. This scales from inter-personal drama to cultures, religions, countries and races. This is both a boon and a curse, since I know the motivations and backgrounds of all characters, I see how superficial and stupid the conflicts between them are. What saves me there is that the reader doesn’t know, so they won’t notice. Once you start seeing it, you notice that there is no actual reason for armed conflict at an international scale. Like, not ever.

And the worst part is writing characters. Not as in creating them, but writing good dialogue. Despite all my efforts, it still seems (to me) like every person is just the same guy wearing different clothes. I desperately need to talk to other humans (to learn how they speak to one another).

I mean, sometimes you have to explain things. Even in LOTR it was explained why Sauron was the bad guy and why the ring was important. But I get it. Flashbacks to millenia in the past aren’t usually good for stories. Usually.

Thank you for that. I was really obsessing in my head about this, and a different perspective helps.

I guess as long as I don’t overwhelm the reader with explanations that aren’t relevant, I should be good. The lore can stay, I like the lore, but I shouldn’t obsess over patching every single potential problem for a theoretical person that might dive a bit too deep and expect an explanation of why and how atoms work in that world.

Thanks.

Thank you for the advice.

The purpose of my writing is to make something that matters. I don’t have much talent in any field that would allow me to make an impact on the world. I’m not smart enough to be a scientist, not fit enough to be an athlete, not evil enough to be a polititian, and not nearly creative enough to be a writer. But with writing, I found a way to cope with my limitations. If I can make a world that is consistent and logical, then events happen on their own. I don’t need to be creative if I make a setting where interesting thigs happen. Or maybe I am being creative in a very roundabout way. In short, I write because I want to make an impact, and I want my words and opinions to get out there and into the collective consciousness. And who I write for is everyone and no one. Mostly for myself. Potentially for people who are like me.

I’m just concerned that my world building is getting too complex for what it is. Who wants to do what equates to a study session just to understand a story?

I do that, but I’m weird, so it doesn’t count. I’m looking for opinions of fellow creatives.

I’m no Tolkien. I’d love to be, but I’m just a guy who started the whole project with a silly justification for the existence of a made up game from the 1980s and a conspiracy theory. Also, I’m way too stupid to write to the quality that Tolkien did. If you want to imagine my level, imagine if the Sonichu comics had a Silmarillion’s worth of background lore that explains everything, and how it all ties to Jungian philosophy and Nietzsche’s Übermensch.

That is good advice. The problem with me is that I’m a perfectionist. Not in the way that I don’t put anything I make out there until it’s perfect. Instead, I don’t do anything, because anything that I could ever do will never be good enough for me to be happy with. To me, if what I make isn’t objectively THE best it could be, I might as well not do it at all.

I’m trying to find a compromise. Thanks for the input.