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by mcswell 219 days ago
"English also has no word for "television" Oh goodness sake. OF COURSE English has a word "television". The fact that you can trace its etymology back to Greek and Latin doesn't mean it's not an English word. If you confronted a native speaker of Latin who also spoke Greek (a common situation back then, also vice versa), they would have no clue what "television" meant any more than most people would know what a "Fernseher" is.
1 comments

He would know both tele and vision. Remote viewng? Some kind of magic?
I found the word τηλαυγής (telauges), "far-shining", meaning "visible from far away". Like a lighthouse. So some theoretical ancient might hear "television" and understand it as "looking at distant landmarks".
Might think it referred to someone with good distance vision (not myopic).