Talk:House of Stasov
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His esteemed posterity
[edit]G, as an abstract concept, posterity sounds fine, as in "leaving a gift for posterity". But when you make it a personal noun, as in "his posterity", it starts to sound synonymous with the noun usage of "posterior", which is a polite euphemism for rear end, bum, or arse. Not terrible, but it sounds a bit funny, and I would suggest a different choice of words: maybe "legacy", "descendants", "heirs", or just "children". —Michael Z. 2005-02-4 07:54 Z
- posterity
- n 1: all of the offspring of a given progenitor; "we must secure the benefits of freedom for ourselves and our posterity" [syn: descendants] 2: all future generations. Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=posterity
- There is a far cry from posterity to posterior. The Google search delivers 58 000 hits for "his posterity" and only 55 900 hits for another alternative, "his progeny". --Ghirlandajo 08:07, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I think Wikipedia is seriously hampering your mode of discourse. I'm just saying it sounds a bit like the section is about his bum. Fine, leave it that way. I'll have something to show people when we get bored.
- But if it helps, here's the etymology of "posterity", from dictionary.com. Although they're usually used in different contexts (for good reason), it's a far cry from a far cry. Both are nouns from the same Latin root meaning something of a person that follows immediately after him. And when you isolate the word from context, and make it personal, well....
- "[Middle English posterite, from Old French, from Latin posteritās, from posterus, coming after. See posterior.]"