Talk:House of Stasov

His esteemed posterity

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.]"

—Michael Z. 2005-02-4 09:43 Z