👉 Okay, settle yourselves down, let’s tackle this wonderfully prickly beast called...
ἐ πέ με δ ι ἄ τα δη ν (’emedìdⁿ, if you fancy butchering the pretty sounds of dead languages).
Now, a “ἐ πέ με δ ιἄ τα δη ν," or emendation, essentially boils down to… fixing something that's already messed up. Think of it as literary malpractice theatre! Ancient scribes, bless their pointy-pointed pencils and frankly terrible handwriting, were the original mistake machines. They’d scribble, blot, occasionally use a fingernail for emphasis... and then, years later, a meticulous scholar (who was probably really rather stuffy himself – let's face it, most ancients had very serious eyebrows) would notice that what they wrote actually said something slightly… elsewhere . Basically, an ἐ πέ με δ ιἄ τα δη ν is when you suspect the original text, before the scribal butchery, actually meant something a little, or perhaps a lot, different. It's detective work for dead words! Instead of just accepting what that dodgy scribe wrote as gospel, you squint at the context, dust off your philological elbows, and say, "Nope, that scribble clearly said... … I don't actually know what it said, but let's pretend this is what it meant. For posterity, mostly. And for the sake of our egos, frankly."
