What’s the difference between an ‘epoch’ and an ‘era’?

Buondì.

What’s the difference between an ‘epoch‘ and an ‘era‘?

I confess, I had to look it up (see the links above, which are to Dictionary.com, a site which was new to me until today, but seems quite useful…)

My ignorance can be blamed on my nineteen-seventies-era (not ‘epoch’) comprehensive school education, perhaps. I bet Boris Johnson, Britain’s current prime minister, would have known, as he went to the prestigious and hugely costly Eton College (slogan: ‘Educating for the future since 1440’.)

The definitions to me seem much the same, which is frustrating, as while words can be synonymous in some or most situations, they rarely are (witness my use of ‘era’ above) in every case.

I recall reading somewhere that there are no true synonyms, perhaps due to the functional nature of the way languages evolve. Given the shades of meaning possible (life is complicated), or perhaps just the option to use a different word in a different register (people express things in different ways), it seems more or less invevitable that words are always going to be different in SOME way.

Anyone who can elaborate on the epoch/era thing, please leave a comment (don’t email, as that way no one other than me could benefit from your wisdom. Also because I have a busy day ahead…) To leave a comment, click through to this article on our website (it’s on the homepage), then scroll down to its end, where there’s a comments box. Your email is required, as an antispam measure, but won’t be published.

Talking of Eton educating the overpriviliged and, until recently, exclusively male offspring of the rich and powerful since 1440, that would have been around the end of the middle ages !

Which our writer describes as an ‘epoch’ in today’s article, which begins the final week of our FREE 10-week Summer Series of Italian articles with audio:

Episodio 28, Il difficile equilibrio tra le potenze della penisola (XV secolo)

Was the end of the medieval period the fall of Constantiople to the Turks in 1453? (Prickly patriots, please don’t write to me complaining that I’m having a go at Turks again or I will BLOCK YOU, as I am utterly fed up with it.)

Or was it the Peace of Lodi, the year after? If you’ve never heard of it, as I hadn’t, but BJ surely has, check out today’s text.

Could it have been 1492, when Cristoforo Colombo rediscovered America?

It seems that defining the point at which an epoch/era begins or ends is not something that everyone is likely to agree on.

But my vote for the year the middle ages wrapped up is for 1440, when some clever sod recognised that education was going to be big and created an enduring and profitable business model (see above).

For education, while very much NOT the theme of this year’s Summer Series – it’s been rather Game of Thrones at times, hasn’t it? – will surely be of greater importance next summer, when we’ll have thirty FREE articles (with audio) on ‘Il Rinascimento’ (the Renaissance).

Hope you’ll still be with us then. Anyway, here we are in the final week of the Medieval series – let’s get it done and dusted!

Episodio 28, Il difficile equilibrio tra le potenze della penisola (XV secolo)

N.b. You’ll find all 28 articles published so far, plus 30 from last year’s series on the Romans, on our History page.

A mercoledì, allora.

Two new medieval ebooks!

Well, obviously not ‘medieval’ ebooks as such, given the limits on technology in those days – parchment was still a thing.

And no, we don’t sell parchment versions of our stories, so please don’t write to ask.

But anyway, on Wednesday this week I’ll be publishing a nice story about a muslim archer who fought for Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II (a much more interesting character than he sounds, see episodes 20 and 21 of the current series.)

The level is B2/C1, so hard-ish but not impossible. And for the first week it’ll be discounted to £5.99, rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £7.99.

While next week, once the Medievo series has concluded this Friday, we’ll be publishing (Wed. 22nd Sept.) the ebook version of its 30 articles, which you can in any case read and listen to for free on the website, also for £5.99. Same price, despite the fact that it’s going to be massively longer than the archer story, at over a hundred pages!

So why buy an ebook when you can read it all online gratis?

Perhaps because you’d value the ease of printing the whole text from the .pdf with just one click (however environmentally damaging that might be).

Maybe because it would be groovy to reread the whole thing on your Kindle or other ebook reader, when your husband’s snoring is keeping you awake at night?

Or just to help us out with our costs, why not? Selling a few dozen ebook versions of this series costs nothing more than my time, and helps pay Francesca for writing it.

Can’t wait??

Then check out our Catalog, where all of our (many, many) ebooks are listed by type and level, and where you’ll find links to FREE sample chapters, for nearly everything!

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