People get "dystopia" wrong a lot too, although I think modern fiction of every unappealing setting being called a dystopia is part of that. It doesn't come from "bad place", but from "bad utopia" and the first dystopias were satires of utopian fiction - worlds that from some perspective were presented as perfect/utopian but the reader/audience could see that were deeply flawed.
>
the first dystopias were satires of utopian fiction
Exactly. The worlds portrayed in Zamatin's *We*, Huxley's *Brave New World*, and Orwell's *1984*, were all societies that some utopians wanted to live in.
It’s a little misleading to label Thomas More as a philosopher. Certainly he played that role, but he was largely a lawyer, statesman, political scientist, now of course, a saint of the Catholic Church. He also wasn’t “trolling” us, but sharing his views on politics and society.
Plus he’s not really an authority on utopias, despite coining the term and authoring the book. When I’m power in England, he put a lot of reform minded Christians to death for believing differently than the Pope.
>Plus he’s not really an authority on utopias, despite coining the term and authoring the book. When I’m power in England, he put a lot of reform minded Christians to death for believing differently than the Pope.
I can't think of a single would-be architect of utopia who hasn't been willing to get behind putting people who believe differently to death -- assuming they aren't willing to be reeducated to proper belief. Every proposed utopia is somebody else's dystopia.
If you want a society where people can believe different things without fear of inquisitors, thought-police, guardians of public morality, et cetera, then you might want to look into something like liberal democracy, which is quite far from utopia.
This is from Alice in Borderland, there's a TV adaption as well I believe. People get transported to the Borderlands, where they have to play death games in order to extend their lifespans.
It's been awhile but I think this specific part is regarding a resort created by survivors of the games.
From what I remember, the place they are at is called the Beach, where everybody is required to wear sexy clothes and can otherwise do whatever they want so long as they agree to hand over the cards they collect in the death games to the Beach as a whole, because they are trying to get a full set because they think something will happen when they do.
I think the conversation in particular was about how the Beach presents itself as this idyllic paradise, when the reality is that there are some major intrigues and ugly truths lurking beneath the surface.
I've always wondered why they don't just mirror the art so the book and order you read in go the way we're used to in Western languages. I guess it's to preserve artistic vision, etc, but I wonder whether it would be more immersive for Western readers to preserve the flow of language.
It used to be common. Apparently the main reasons publishers stopped are that it's just cheaper to not do an extra step, plus some art doesn't flip well (clocks, numbers, English writing, maps etc.)
I'm confused about the concept of trolling and people mentioning "Eutopia". Where is that term coming from? The More book is called "Utopia", not with an "e".
And what's the trolling exactly?
Eu- would have been a greek prefix meaning "Good"
Ou- would have been a greek prefix meaning "Not/non existing"
-Topia is a suffix meaning "Place"
"Utopia" wouldn't really have been a word, a real one would have been either "Eu-topia" or "Ou-topia"
By dropping the first letter, he brings ambiguity about which one he meant, "Good place" or "None-place" ?
He isn't "trolling" by the 1990s internet definition of the word meaning "being deliberately obtuse to anger someone else", but he is but the 2020's definition of "doing a bit of cheeky funsies"
Not my favorite translation decision. It’s literally “No Place”, which is perfectly good English. Why translate it with an unnecessarily complicated phrase, when a concise literal translation does the job just as well?
Damn good manga, if anyone is curious. It's Alice in Borderland. It also got turned into a live action show that a lot of people have been praising, but I haven't seen it.
Well, sort of? From my understanding, Utopia meaning “not a place” most likely is due to the fact that utopias are sought after as a future potential for society. It’s probably not because this philosopher thought utopia will never occur, but merely just because it doesn’t exist yet/cannot exist in the society we currently live in.
Edit: I’m definitely wrong
No, it’s an intentional pun. Eu-topia means “good place” and “ou-topia” means “no place.”
Thomas More was a hyper educated lawyer and legal philosopher in a time when they all learned Greek, this isn’t an accident.
I don't necessarily see it as trolling. The word utopia meaning a perfect place is taken from the fictional place Utopia. The fictional place does not exist. Many authors give names to places and characters that are on-the-nose but in a language where the name wouldn't be obvious. Theoden from LotR is a good example. In Old English his name simply means lord or ruler.
I've never read the work but the meaning could just refer to the fictional place in the book Utopia.
Ok, but deliberately dropping the O makes it ambiguous whether it is eu or ou. I am pretty sure that you cannot drop a letter from a diphthong like that, and if there were reason to elide them, ου would go to ω which is transliterated into English as a o, not a u.
TL:DR—this neologism is bad at Greek in order to trick the audience.
That doesn’t seem right to me. Compare Greek Οὐρανός which gives Latin / English *Uranus*.
*Utopia* would be the expected spelling according to standard English spelling conventions for classical Latin/Greek borrowings.
Yeah Uranus is an interesting case—especially as the English pronunciation is so different from the original, but you do raise an interesting point.
Cases where it goes from ω to o include:
ὠθισμός to othismos (the push)
Ὠρίων to Orion
Κλέων to Cleon
From the Wikipedia page on Ω “The letter omega is transliterated into a Latin-script alphabet as ō or simply o.” But I wonder what’s going on with Uranus vs Ουρανος.
my dumb ass always thought it came from eu + topia aka a good place
It was a deliberate play on words, so it's not your fault.
It's both on purpose. The book is about an ideal place free of problems contemporary to Moore's Europe that does not exist.
It does. It’s a combination of eutopos and outopos.
Yeah, came here for this. There has been confusion over the years of utopia vs eutopia.
People get "dystopia" wrong a lot too, although I think modern fiction of every unappealing setting being called a dystopia is part of that. It doesn't come from "bad place", but from "bad utopia" and the first dystopias were satires of utopian fiction - worlds that from some perspective were presented as perfect/utopian but the reader/audience could see that were deeply flawed.
> the first dystopias were satires of utopian fiction Exactly. The worlds portrayed in Zamatin's *We*, Huxley's *Brave New World*, and Orwell's *1984*, were all societies that some utopians wanted to live in.
It’s a little misleading to label Thomas More as a philosopher. Certainly he played that role, but he was largely a lawyer, statesman, political scientist, now of course, a saint of the Catholic Church. He also wasn’t “trolling” us, but sharing his views on politics and society. Plus he’s not really an authority on utopias, despite coining the term and authoring the book. When I’m power in England, he put a lot of reform minded Christians to death for believing differently than the Pope.
>Plus he’s not really an authority on utopias, despite coining the term and authoring the book. When I’m power in England, he put a lot of reform minded Christians to death for believing differently than the Pope. I can't think of a single would-be architect of utopia who hasn't been willing to get behind putting people who believe differently to death -- assuming they aren't willing to be reeducated to proper belief. Every proposed utopia is somebody else's dystopia. If you want a society where people can believe different things without fear of inquisitors, thought-police, guardians of public morality, et cetera, then you might want to look into something like liberal democracy, which is quite far from utopia.
What’s happening in this comic?
It's Japanese manga-style. Read right to left.
Thank you!! It makes more sense now 😊
No I got that I was more asking for the context
Ah. No clue. It's possible (although I could be wrong) that this is not the original text and this is just an excerpt from some manga.
This is from Alice in Borderland, there's a TV adaption as well I believe. People get transported to the Borderlands, where they have to play death games in order to extend their lifespans. It's been awhile but I think this specific part is regarding a resort created by survivors of the games.
Big fan of this manga, and I can confirm that is what is happening here
From what I remember, the place they are at is called the Beach, where everybody is required to wear sexy clothes and can otherwise do whatever they want so long as they agree to hand over the cards they collect in the death games to the Beach as a whole, because they are trying to get a full set because they think something will happen when they do. I think the conversation in particular was about how the Beach presents itself as this idyllic paradise, when the reality is that there are some major intrigues and ugly truths lurking beneath the surface.
I've always wondered why they don't just mirror the art so the book and order you read in go the way we're used to in Western languages. I guess it's to preserve artistic vision, etc, but I wonder whether it would be more immersive for Western readers to preserve the flow of language.
It used to be common. Apparently the main reasons publishers stopped are that it's just cheaper to not do an extra step, plus some art doesn't flip well (clocks, numbers, English writing, maps etc.)
They used to. And people didn't like it.
In a full manga, you get used to it pretty quickly.
You have to read it from right to left 
Erewhon
What manga is this btw?
Alice in Borderland. It's good, just don't expect a nicely wrapped up ending that explains everything.
That meaning is very present in modern Dutch. The word "Utopie" means as much as "impossible reality". For example, "World peace is an utopia".
Same in German!
I'm confused about the concept of trolling and people mentioning "Eutopia". Where is that term coming from? The More book is called "Utopia", not with an "e". And what's the trolling exactly?
Eu- would have been a greek prefix meaning "Good" Ou- would have been a greek prefix meaning "Not/non existing" -Topia is a suffix meaning "Place" "Utopia" wouldn't really have been a word, a real one would have been either "Eu-topia" or "Ou-topia" By dropping the first letter, he brings ambiguity about which one he meant, "Good place" or "None-place" ? He isn't "trolling" by the 1990s internet definition of the word meaning "being deliberately obtuse to anger someone else", but he is but the 2020's definition of "doing a bit of cheeky funsies"
Got it, thanks.
Not my favorite translation decision. It’s literally “No Place”, which is perfectly good English. Why translate it with an unnecessarily complicated phrase, when a concise literal translation does the job just as well?
Kind of like Molise ..
??
It’s a joke and popular meme shared by Italians in which the region of Molise is a place that does not exist.
Damn good manga, if anyone is curious. It's Alice in Borderland. It also got turned into a live action show that a lot of people have been praising, but I haven't seen it.
Fun fact, there's a village in Co Durham, England called No Place. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Place
What manga is that?
Someone said it's Alice in boderland
Well, sort of? From my understanding, Utopia meaning “not a place” most likely is due to the fact that utopias are sought after as a future potential for society. It’s probably not because this philosopher thought utopia will never occur, but merely just because it doesn’t exist yet/cannot exist in the society we currently live in. Edit: I’m definitely wrong
No, it’s an intentional pun. Eu-topia means “good place” and “ou-topia” means “no place.” Thomas More was a hyper educated lawyer and legal philosopher in a time when they all learned Greek, this isn’t an accident.
I just learned that More wrote his book as a form of political satire too… so yeah, apologies I am very wrong.
It’s kind of a send-up of Plato’s Republic. As in yeah, this would be the ideal society, but it could never actually work.
I suspect that even *The Republic* has satirical elements.
True
I always interpreted it as a condition that's so good it's unreachable
I don't necessarily see it as trolling. The word utopia meaning a perfect place is taken from the fictional place Utopia. The fictional place does not exist. Many authors give names to places and characters that are on-the-nose but in a language where the name wouldn't be obvious. Theoden from LotR is a good example. In Old English his name simply means lord or ruler. I've never read the work but the meaning could just refer to the fictional place in the book Utopia.
Ok, but deliberately dropping the O makes it ambiguous whether it is eu or ou. I am pretty sure that you cannot drop a letter from a diphthong like that, and if there were reason to elide them, ου would go to ω which is transliterated into English as a o, not a u. TL:DR—this neologism is bad at Greek in order to trick the audience.
Bad at Greek or an intentional pun? Methinks he knew exactly what he was doing.
That doesn’t seem right to me. Compare Greek Οὐρανός which gives Latin / English *Uranus*. *Utopia* would be the expected spelling according to standard English spelling conventions for classical Latin/Greek borrowings.
Yeah Uranus is an interesting case—especially as the English pronunciation is so different from the original, but you do raise an interesting point. Cases where it goes from ω to o include: ὠθισμός to othismos (the push) Ὠρίων to Orion Κλέων to Cleon From the Wikipedia page on Ω “The letter omega is transliterated into a Latin-script alphabet as ō or simply o.” But I wonder what’s going on with Uranus vs Ουρανος.
I read Uto-pla I thought it was Pluto in pig latin- not utopia