nüshu

Sixth Tone brings us a poignant story about a disappearing tradition whose last caretakers are to a degree contradictory to the reason that the nüshu system of writing was contrived in the first place.
As opposed to the thousands of logographic characters of standard Chinese, nüshu was developed as a syllabaric simplification, a phonetic alphabet, for women to use to communicate and record their thoughts around the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries (the Song and Yuan dynasties) without the benefit of formal education that was afforded to their male counterparts in the county of Jiangyong in Hunan province. As the Cultural Revolution ensured that access to education was universal and equitable, the secret and confessional form of writing became—which locals refer to as “long-legged mosquito script”—antiquated and the last proficient and native user, a woman called Yang Huanyi, passed away in 2004, nüshu is now only known through study and research, instead of being passed on from mother to daughter as a provisional form of literacy Unfortunately, despite its new-found visibility with on bilingual shop signs to appeal to the tourists, it’s no longer the exclusive outlet of the under-valued but initiated (the in-grouping of the out-group) and much of what’s preserved with this resurgence is distorted and incorrect.

rip john mccain

Long-serving US Senator from the state of Arizona and two time presidential candidate John Sidney McCain III has died a day after announcing that he will stop treatments against a particularly cruel and aggressive form of brain cancer at age eighty-one.
One of few members of the Republican Party willing to openly criticise senior leadership and recognise the damage that dereliction of duty does—identifying those to blame rather than root problems and much less solutions, an abiding responsibility that I think was central to his career and outlook. The derision of idiots and cowards have no place in this honourable person’s legacy (it matters where one winds up) and if anything, a voice of dissent that’s not been silenced will serve to give others the grit and the courage of conviction (or shame in some cases—there’s small choice in rotten apples) to do what’s right.

drachenfest

H and I took a drive in the country and it was not materialising as a day for exploration, it seemed, but just on the Thürginer side of the border we saw that they were holding a kite (Drache, from the Chinese tradition) festival with some professional models and pilots on the Dachsberg.

We stopped and watched for a while and the sea creatures dove and undulated as if they were swimming. People were flying their kites in the open field on the hill’s slope below a former East German border patrol tower that’s been conserved alongside a peace cross (das Weltsfriedenkreuz).

danza de la lluvia

Apparently not contended with contributing to the respiratory distress of millions by manipulating its emissions data, one German automotive manufacturer operating in Cuautlancingo in the Mexican state of Puebla has decided to go full on evil mad scientist with a weather-control machine.
The plant (the largest outside of Germany) employed sonic cannons to disrupt the formation of hail, which threatens to ruin the shiny new paint jobs of cars made there. Local farmers complain of the practise saying it has exacerbated drought conditions and ruined their harvest. Developed over a century ago and mostly used to protect crops from hail damage, scientists are skeptical if the sonic cannons have any effect at all, intended or otherwise. For its part, the automobile manufacturer is reaching out to the community and pledges that the disruptors, which were apparently on stand-by at all times, will only be operated manually as weather forecasts indicate and the company will be hanging a protective netting over its lot as a long-term solution.

we do hope marbles turns up

A concerned citizen went down an idiomatic rabbit hole, attempting to recreate the roots of the expression of “having lost one’s marbles.” Very much adrift from a straightforward explanation, there are several layers of cultural intersections to be peeled back to arrive at the phrase’s etymology and meaning. From the late seventeenth century until the 1950s, the human mind was described as a lumber room—lumber metaphorically meaning unused furniture, a clutter and chaos of old, staid knowledge and anxieties that cluttered the brain and made it less limber.
While the notion that one’s memory banks can become full and new ideas and experiences can’t be imprinted until we’ve cleared out something old and useless is now largely stood to be incorrect, there is some truth to the perception that older, experienced people are sometimes slower recalling or processing information because there’s simply so much more of it to sift through. The idea of mind lumber seems utterly alien nowadays but if one reads carefully, we can find the dead metaphor employed by Arthur Conan Doyle and Virginia Woolfe. Drawing on the French word for furniture, les meubles—that is something movable as opposed to real estate, bien immobilier—as slang for household accoutrements in the late nineteenth century. Around the same time, reaching back to the earlier furniture metaphor for the contents of one’s head, marbles started being used as a substitute for wits—the idiom of “losing one’s marbles” outliving the slang senses that preceded it.

ferðasaga

First published on this date in 1937, I recall having read through W H Auden’s and Louis MacNeice’s collaboration Letters from Iceland in preparation for a short trip there years ago—fascination for Iceland is nothing new or novel but before selfies and social media, I turned to the inter-war pastoral’s section marked “For Tourists.” I don’t have an enduring impression of the correspondence or the travelogue but remember the advice to avoid Reykjavík—which I didn’t heed, but we do think it’s a good occasion to revisit the book and plan a return excursion Iceland itself.

for the nonce

Rounding out a whole year’s worth of Weekly Word Watches, the always vigilant crew at Oxford Words blog introduces some trending—perhaps one-off—concepts including the concept of identity condiments, prompted in response to the premature requiem for mayonnaise that demonstrates the strength of connection that individuals have to their sides and dips.

Also in this issue’s word bank is the indictment of so-called woke-washing—a portmanteau of two themes that are very much rooted in current politics, diluting the power and presence of being aware and enlightened through misappropriation as a marketing ploy, like greenwashing and similarly constructed superficial uprightnesses. We’ll be sure to keep checking out this logophilic regular feature and hope you will as well.

mcdol ou le maire mccheese

We learn that the town of Dolus-d’Oléron has staged a four year legal battle to keep one fast food franchise off the picturesque and pristine Île d’Oléron (previously here and here), and amid contentions the courts may arrive at a decision soon.
Opponents, hoping to continue to foster a culture of environmental sustainability and minimising the deleterious effects of human enterprise, present some rather compelling arguments against the famously unwelcome franchise. Above and beyond reasons of aesthetics and how the competition hurts local business, the opposition group, led by the mayor of Dolus, offers that the business model of fast food and drive-thru service is a relic that’s done quite enough damage and has no place in the future. France has had a rather fraught relationship with the fast food giant over the decades not only as an assault on the palette but also a symbol of unchecked globalisation, protests and dialogues prompted over a trade dispute in 1990s when the US retaliated against an array of French products, including Roquefort cheese, over Europe’s refusal to allow hormone-treated beef into its markets.