Tuesday, 2 December 2014
double the pleasure, double the fun
troll the ancient yuletide carol
Mental Floss has an excellent, brief grammar lesson about the finer and arcane points of English syntax frozen as it were in the lines of traditional Christmas songs. It was certainly a fun and lively read and causes one to think of other examples, quirky little conventions that reveal how language evolves.
The etymological curiosity in the word troll, sometimes sung as toll or trawl, is especially interesting, as it reflects both Anglo-Saxon roots and the more familiar mage in later Norse influences. In the sense of the carol, it reflects Old English origins, prior to the arrival of the Vikings, to go about or to stroll. The connection with fishing, a drag-net, also extends from this source. The sense of a monstrous creature has old Germanic roots and though the English had their own words for native orcs and demons, they borrowed the word of the newcomer. Perhaps the two meanings again converge in the ultimate sense of a horrid individual who is trawling for attention with nasty comments. English did borrow a lot of basic vocabulary from the Scandinavian languages, and interestingly what’s been retained of—or edged out by—Norse terminology are words with an overwhelmingly negative connotations, which probably bespeaks their uneasy cohabitation: anger, awkward, blunder, bug, crook, cur, death, dirt, dregs, gawk, heathen, Hell, irk, mire, muck, muggy, odd, outlaw, rotten, skull, slaughter, thwart, ugly, weak and wrong—to name a few. Of course, there are numerous exceptions, too—like that word Yule, for the midwinter months and associated festivities, which was later appropriated by the Christians. Monday, 1 December 2014
lykkefรธlelse
The Norwegian edition of The Local features an interview with a publishing-professor from the University of Tromsรธ whose latest project is assaying the notion of happiness. Of course, happiness is more than just an emotional response and an outlook and code of behaviour, but not necessarily a dogmatic one, as the author suggests, insofar as permanence and aversion to change are not the metrics that happiness for most people are measured by.
Rather than the hedonistic notion of becoming the perpetually punch-drunk gadfly that first got the author interested in the question, happiness is also to be found in change and challenge—exemplified by the Scandinavian double-barreled question how are you doing/how are you coping, “Hvordan du hard et/hvordan du tar det?” That’s a very provoking parallel construction that is not just limited to these icy climes and six months of no sun—the campus being above the Arctic Circle. On the media’s role in shaping our feelings and stance, the author also makes a very poignant observation that sensational, responsible, impassioned or neutral alike, the news and the broader entertainment industry is propelled by sponsorship, whose purpose is either to validate and reinforce opinions, loyalties that one already shares or to make one feel inadequate and uncertain about present allegiances. Sometimes that may be a good thing but I don’t think most marketers are concerned about the examined life. While this manipulation and patronage is no doubt true and important—and the author does not pose a problem without offering at least the glimmer of a solution—that pronouncement does strike me as typical Norse.
Sunday, 30 November 2014
dramaturgy or meme-base
An aspiring thespian and student of Aristotle named Theophrastus devised a list of archetypal and stock-characters. While it may not be predictive of every aspect of human nature—as their ought to be as well a generic Misogynist, the Fan-Boy and the Xenophobe—and alternately, many positive qualities that probably are not very exciting are absent, it seems to be pretty complete, same-otherwise, and you could certainly apply the same template to a lot of modern means of expression, though the Greek makes the caricatures sound especially harsh:
| The Insincere One (Eironeia, irony) | The Flatterer (Kolakeia, the shit-sayer) | The Garrulous One (Adoleschia, the Sophomoric One) |
| The Boor (Agroikia, the Skeptic) | The Complacent One (Areskeia, the Inactive One) | The One without Moral Feeling (Aponoia, the Psychopath) |
| The Talkative One (Lalia, Chatty-Cathy) | The Fabricator (Logopoiia, the Wordsmith) | The Shamelessly Greedy One (Anaischuntia, shunning society) | ||||||
| The Pennypincher (Mikrologia, Scrooge) | The Hapless One (Akairia, the Unlucky One) | |
| The Officious Man (Periergia, just like a Boss) | The Unsociable One (Authadeia, the Loner) | |
| The Superstitious One (Deisidaimonia, the staunch conventionalist) | The Suspicious One (Apistia, the conspiracy theorist) | |
| The Repulsive One (Duschereia, poor hygiene) | The One with Petty Ambition (Mikrophilotimia, the vain) | |
| The Stingy One (Aneleutheria, the ungrateful child) | The Arrogant One (Huperephania, the by-stander) | |
| The Coward (Deilia, the nostalgic soul) | The Late Learner (Opsimathia) | |
| The Slanderer (Kakologia) | The Basely Covetous Man (Aischrokerdeia) | |
orchard kebob
H got to take a cooking class one evening not too long ago and his team’s contribution to the meal was an exquisite mango and kidney bean variation on the classic Dรถner (shawarma) sandwich. He repeated the creation a few nights later and it was really easy to prepare and had a deliciously unique fusion of tastes. For four big sandwiches, one needs the following:
- One can of kidney beans (200 grams)
- One flat-bread—Dรถner or Gyro bread would be best but any similar loaf (like pita, tandoori) would do
- A small onion, one or two cloves of garlic
- A large mango
- One large chunk of fresh mozzarella, 200 grams of soft ricotta cheese
- Some rocket (Rucola) for garnish, about 100 grams
Pulse the kidney beans, garlic and onion together with a food-processor, season with a pinch of salt, pepper and chili power, and combine with ricotta to form a purple paste. Slice the bread and apply the spread liberally to both to the top and bottom of the bun. Chop up the mango and mozzarella and arrange it on the bread with some rocket and toast the sandwiches, either with a sandwich-press or alternatively in the oven, under the weight of a casserole dish, until the bread has browned and the two halves stick together. A tsatsiki or yogurt sauce would compliment these nicely.
Saturday, 29 November 2014
tinker and tanker
Remember Richard Scarry’s picture book Busy, Busy Town that illustrated what people do all day? Tom-the-Dancing-Bug cartoonist Ruben Bolling brings the Butcher and Baker into more contemporary times. What do you think? The commentary strikes me as far from cynical. What occupation would you include, with most traditional trades being out-sourced or endangered by machines?
six-penny or landed-gentry
Absent Roman influence and insular trading practices, the British Isles were relative late-comers to fiat currency, which perpetuated the tradition role of kingship that had existed among the Germanic tribes even as kingdoms grew beyond the tribal clan. Essentially without coinage—though some charters did exist for so called moneyiers to produce crude blanks of specie for trading purposes, the old ways of the continental Saxons held with the king collecting tribute from peasants, whom were otherwise free, in the form of conscription and an annual food tax, figured on the size and arability of their parcel of land. Of course being a French term, the farmers in Britain did not pay taxes, though the concept is pretty universal, but rather a mol or male—which incidentally is the source of the idea of blackmail, given that there were bullying vigilantes who tried to supplement the king’s army and forced individuals to pay up for extra protection—blaichmol, protection rent, rather than the alledged latter day practise of posting letters of extortion in darkly coloured envelopes so the receiver did not know where the stamp was canceled. Matters, however, began to change for England with the Norman Invasion, who reintroduced economic policy and a currency over barter system that they had inherited from the Romans. The Normans, through the Franks, also employed some housekeeping methods that the Romans had failed to comprehend, which led to hyper-inflation and the eventual collapse of the Empire. Though Emperor Diocletian had made a good-faith effort to round up all the destructive and worthless currency he could managed, these gestures fell short.
The Franks and later the English, however, were more savvy about the face-value of coins, and began to issue legal-tender with an expiration date that better ensured that there would be no runaway inflation. Say shepherd Dagofirรพ had earned sixty shillings—twelve pence (the penny being named for former uniting force Penda, with no relation to the Welsh dynasty of Pendragons from Arthurian lore) to a shilling and twenty shilling to a Pound (£ being a symbol for libre pondo from the Latins) having derived from the French style of twelve denier to the solidus (being the wage a soldier) and twenty of these to a livre—and in order to keep what he earned current, he must redeem his coins after three years at the counting-house of his liege, King รรพelฦนorn. Dagofirรพ, however, might be surprised to find he is only getting back, say, three-and-fifty shillings in the new, up-to-date coinage, minus some administrative costs of mining and minting the silver in รรพelฦนorn’s good name, plus as a mechanism for market-corrections if, say, there had been a poor grain harvest or royal ransoms to pay. It was clever and responsible on the part of the government to cast such bounds over money, but after its introduction, matters escalated rather quickly. Pretty soon, Dagofirรพ could not manage to keep up with his obligations to his family with his devalued coin, and so so luckier personage, a apiarist who had connections perhaps with that blackmailing crowd, named Beวทofief, graciously steps in and offers to help Dagofirรพ in his plight. Beฦofief will be responsible for the shortcomings (and profit) in exchange for holding title to the land Dagofirรพ was working for รรพelฦนorn directly. Many of Beวทofief’s peers got keen to this scheme as well, and soon the an aristocratic class of landed-gentry was formed, that alienated the worker from his king and keep and came to be called the feudal system. A hierarchy of counts, dukes, earls, barons was soon established that all compounded this estranging effect and put more distance between the monarch and subject. Rich with actual money that resembled coinage encountered elsewhere, England soon entered in the world stage as a trading partner, with suppliers pleased to receive legitimate-looking money in exchange instead of pledges, rough-hewn coins, or bushels of perishable turnips. This success, however, was also soon to attract the notice of their former neighbours, the Vikings occupying lands adjacent in Scandinavia, from whence the Anglo-Saxons vacated, and soon summoned raiding parties from across the seas, thinking these wealthy lands might be easy targets.
