Optimist: the cup is half full Pessimist: the cup is half empty Classicist: that should be expressed with a partitive genitive.

“This is usually the word for cup, but sometimes means barrel or amphora (especially in Aeolic dialects), and often is a slang term for female genitalia. It appears to be used metaphorically in a fragment of Heraclitus but we haven’t got the faintest idea what he means by it.”

And maybe we’ll throw a dative of disadvantage in there, too.