shibboleth, cool whip

 Recently we were introduced to a phonological concept that struck as completely novel though we’d been acquainted with one of its most cited examples for some time: the rhyming passkey—in a sense—Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa’t dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries (Butter, bread and green cheese; who can’t say this is no authentic Frisian) was employed during an early sixteenth century revolt to weed out Danes in their midst, reasoning that only native speakers could pronounce all the words properly.
The term shibboleth is from a biblical battle where accent and pronunciation similarly distinguished friend from foe and can figuratively refer to not just a language test to differentiate in-groups from out-groups—given that scripts are adapted to the set of sounds unique or common to every language—but more broadly to cohesive, meaningful jargon, shared experiences, anthems, prayers or other common cultural touchstones. I suppose the term could further be abstracted into sort of an anti-alphabet or anti-lexicon of limitations, like asking a German to say “squirrel” or any number of tongue-twisters that it would be a challenge for a foreigner to master. Do you know your own personal set of shibboleths? We are all outsiders and misfits to some group and that’s perfectly fine. Why are you saying it all weird?

6x6

1995: a retrospective of the first five web applications that informed the internet as we know it, via Waxy

travelling matte: a thirty kilometre long art project for train passengers between Jena and Naumburg

bellerophon: incredible Roman mosaic discovered by amateur archaeologists in the Cotswolds

lay of the land: different proposals for visualising maps and daily journeys through the lens of time

mona lisas and mad hatters: other Elton John songs that Dear Leader uses to refer to world leaders

phase shift: pumping air through sand makes it behave like a liquid, first spotted here  

devil’s on the doorstep

Thanks indeed to TYWKIDBI for giving us the chance to re-visit the engineering superstition (not pictured) that considered feats of medieval architecture so far beyond the capacity of human builders—especially bridges—that local populations would have had to enter into a diabolical compact in order to have their commission fulfilled.
Certainly encountering such marvels would have been rare and awe inspiring, but people, vastly under- estimating their own abilities, attributed them to more ancient, pagan times (the opposite direction from another bit of German lore, the Schwedenschanze (EN) that mistook ancient fortifications and earthworks to be remnants of the Thirty Years’ War with Sweden rather than traces of prehistoric humans).  During the Middle Ages even the relics of Roman roads were considered to be too logistically sophisticated and in excess of mortal requirements to not be the product of some Faustian bargain.  I wonder what sort of preconceptions are clouding our vision presently that we will only be able to dispel with hindsight.

cheminées sarrasines

We enjoyed this article on the enduring mystery of the so-called Lanterns of the Dead from Amusing Planet and reminded us how we were first acquainted with the structure while on holiday on Île d’Oléron.
The purpose and origin of the towers that appear predominately in southern France but are also to be found in other European countries is unsettled but one theory suggests that the towers were guideposts built along ancient pilgrimage trails that pointed the way to the Holy Land—the French word for moors (maures) misheard as the word for “dead” (morts) and the new appellation eventually held. The use of the towers to gain one’s bearings—or orientation, of course comes from the lands to the East where the sun rises.