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Sometimes it makes sense to half-wad it.
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Apr 21, 2017 11:05
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cda posted:This was a deliberate choice to leave something to talk about when we run into those usages. I did not want to blow my whole wad, so to speak.  masterful...
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Apr 21, 2017 11:49
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slow breeding club: mondo dick L.O.L. |
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Apr 21, 2017 12:04
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Eskimo
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Apr 21, 2017 12:42
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the reason i love this thread is because it makes the book so easy to understand, because of all the explanations. |
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Apr 23, 2017 19:09
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Grammar
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Apr 23, 2017 19:37
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cda posted:Grammar "Grammar" is a fascinating word. Melville is using it here in what was a fairly new adaptation of a 14th century definition. Since the late 14th century, "grammar school" was a school for learning Latin, but less than 10 years before, it had adapted in the US to describe schools in between primary and secondary school where English grammar was an important subject. The usage is thus apt on a literal level, but also, of course, evocative of the much broader connotations of "grammar," which relate to the meanings of words and rules for putting them together. It's basically a pun: where would you find an etymologist? In a grammar school! Nyuk nyuk. Diving into the etymology of "grammar" reveals the magic and the mystery of language itself: Online Etymology Dictionary posted:grammar (n.) We see in the history of the word "grammar" the way that specialized knowledge of language was seen as coincident with a kind of magic: the word "grimoire" is derived from it, for instance, as is the word "glamour," which I did not know but helps explain how the word is used by witches. That's right, I said witches. See, also, "spell," for another example of this. As a guy who likes words, it makes me feel like Gol' Dang Harry Potter to know that the study of signs and letters has always been viewed as powerful and (probably) sexy and also as a good excuse to burn people. ---------------- |
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Apr 23, 2017 20:01
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School)
cda fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 26, 2017 ---------------- |
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Apr 23, 2017 20:01
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cda posted:School) School is yet another word with a really interesting history, one in which the original meaning of the word has been bent into peculiar shapes by the march of time. You can go back to the proto-Indo-European root, which means to get, possess, or have power over, and get a sense of how it eventually came to mean a place where students are gathered (as in "school of philosophy"). Or you can look at the Greek meaning of "leisure time" and how that evolved into "shooting the poo poo" (basically) and from there into "place where you bullshit around" and from there, eventually, to its current connotation of, essentially, the opposite. If I had known this when I was a student, I would have been really angry, because I was doing school the right way and my teachers were trying to tell me it was the wrong way. Melville's version of scholarship is distinctly in line with this older meaning of "school," ("scholar" derives from it and literally means "one who lives at ease"), and the very many whale-related chapters of the book, not to mention Ishmael's entire narrative voice, owe their provenance to a love of idleness and intellectual loving around which are embodied in the character of the narrator. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:school (n.1) cda fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 26, 2017 ---------------- |
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Apr 23, 2017 20:16
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grammar school, more like, grammar's cool |
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Apr 23, 2017 21:12
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more like grandma school
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Apr 23, 2017 21:22
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This has inspired me to start a 'slow movie' thread. The slow movie movement is a genuine one, they like to watch movies that, among other things, focus on an air vent for ten minutes or an hour and a half movie with nothing but a blue screen and dialogue. I'll start it after I've watched Rivette's Out 1 a few times. |
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Apr 23, 2017 21:40
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Starshark posted:This has inspired me to start a 'slow movie' thread. The slow movie movement is a genuine one, they like to watch movies that, among other things, focus on an air vent for ten minutes or an hour and a half movie with nothing but a blue screen and dialogue. I'll start it after I've watched Rivette's Out 1 a few times. check this one out if you havent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1964_film) ---------------- |
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Apr 23, 2017 22:19
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or this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(film)
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Apr 23, 2017 22:18
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or this guy http://home.utah.edu/~klm6/3905/gottheim.html
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Apr 23, 2017 22:19
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The
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Apr 26, 2017 21:03
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cda posted:The Teh Here's the definite article to complement the indefinite article in the previous sentence. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:the Although I previously suggested that articles are simply ornaments of language and not, in most cases, strictly necessary, the successive use does do something interesting to the focus of a scene. Think how often an object is introduced in the indefinite and then subsequently the object is given the definite article, as in these sentences: "A cow wandered across the field. The cow breathed heavily and chewed its cud." There's no literal reason for this very common transformation. The indefinite article indicates a general case. The definite article indicates a specific instance. But as a reflection of our thought process it makes a lot of sense; objects enter our perception as generalities and then become specific through a particular context. A hammer is just a hammer until you need to hang a picture. Then it's the hammer you're using to hang the picture. It is in some ways the literary equivalent of bringing and object into focus in a film. We can see this in the PIE antecedent which means "this or that" and which much more clearly shows the indicative nature of the definite article. It is like an arrow pointing at an object to make it stand out from others. Using "this" rather than "the" gives a old-school feel to a sentence. "Once upon a time there was a man. This man was the happiest in all of France," feels more traditional than "Once upon a time there was a man. The man was the happiest in all of France," even they mean precisely the same thing. ---------------- |
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Apr 26, 2017 21:17
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pale
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Apr 26, 2017 21:16
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cda posted:pale "Pale" is an antediluvian vestige, a real trilobyte of a word. It has not changed since proto-Indo-European: Online Etymology Dictionary posted:
The old and relatively unevolved nature of the word suggests its functional necessity in human experience. For some reason we have always needed a word that means "light-colored," perhaps because it would otherwise require many words to distinguish between similar shades. Easier to say "pale orange" than have to come up with a new word for it, such as The word is used here to further characterize the usher as the kind of person who does not see the light of day very much because he spends his time in the unhealthy dark. ---------------- |
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Apr 26, 2017 21:23
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i hope the pale consumptive grammar school student kills this loving whale i've been hearing so much about |
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Apr 26, 2017 21:54
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Usher --
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Apr 29, 2017 18:40
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cda posted:Usher -- Already seen this word, nothing new about the usage here, but mods please autoplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTJGGXo6gy4 ---------------- |
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Apr 29, 2017 18:40
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threadbare
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Apr 29, 2017 18:42
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cda posted:threadbare This is a nice adjective made by combining a noun and an already-existing adjective, like "careworn" for instance. It is distinct from simply "bare" in that it suggests a thing almost but not completely destroyed, down to the basic structure but still extant. The threads are the skeleton of the fabric, grammar is the skeleton of language, the Usher is a keeper of the bones. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:late 14c., from thread (n.) + bare. The notion is of "having the nap worn off," leaving bare the threads. ---------------- |
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Apr 29, 2017 18:50
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Some
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Apr 29, 2017 19:05
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years
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Apr 29, 2017 19:07
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ago
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Apr 29, 2017 19:08
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IIRC the next word is "boner" but I don't have my copy on hand at the moment. I have no idea what this word means, to be hones.t |
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Apr 30, 2017 19:37
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slowby dick |
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Apr 30, 2017 22:00
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alnilam posted:A let's also not forget, to love ou'rselves, cant forget if u never learned how 
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May 1, 2017 16:20
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posting smiling posted:i hope the pale consumptive grammar school student kills this loving whale i've been hearing so much about h o p e i s a l i e |
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May 1, 2017 16:23
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in
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May 1, 2017 21:28
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cda posted:in "in" is a nicely flexible word, referring to spatial, temporal, and conceptual containment -- you can be in a box, in time, or in trouble -- which allows it to be a great vehicle for zeugma which is how it's going to be used in this sentence. It can also be broader, even, than the meanings attested to by the OED. Consider "Fox in Socks" which is meant to convey not that the Fox, as a whole, is contained by socks, but rather that the concept of this particular fox is inseparable from its wearing of socks. The *concept* of "this fox" is contained within the *concept* of "wearing socks." It is this precise distinction that Seuss' poem turns on, as in "Knox on Fox in socks in box," where the first "in" carries the meaning of inseparable relatedness and the second one the more conventional meaning of "within." See also "Lady in Red" "Venus in Furs" etc. I was surprised to learn that until Middle English there was no distinction between in and on, although it helps clarify how "on purpose" and "on accident" work conceptually. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:in (adv., prep.) ---------------- |
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May 1, 2017 21:45
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coat
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May 1, 2017 21:49
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cda posted:coat "Coat" is a hollow word; try an say it in a way that doesn't toll with emptiness. It is thus especially appropriate to give a macabre touch to our already-chthonic Usher. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:coat (n.) ---------------- |
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May 1, 2017 21:54
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heart
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May 7, 2017 00:13
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cda posted:heart This second item in the list (coat, heart) serves as a zeugmatic transition from the phenomenal to the metaphorical. The sense of heart used here is, I think, not the literal meaning of the organ of the body, but rather the symbolic meaning of "soul, spirit, will, desire, courage, mind, intellect." I can't quite explain why it makes no sense to call a heart "threadbare" in the literal sense, but it makes perfect sense metaphorically -- the Usher's mental and emotional faculties have been worn away through long hours of isolated toil. By using "heart," a word with feet in both the literal and conceptual realms, Melville make a subtler characterization of the Usher -- one that relies on a sensitivity to the semantic flexibility of "heart" -- than he would have if he had said "coat, soul, body, and brain." Note also the slant rhyme of coat/heart. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:heart (n.) ---------------- |
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May 7, 2017 00:23
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body
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May 7, 2017 00:23
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cda posted:body I generally expect words with high utility to trace all the way back to proto-Indo-European, so it's surprising that body only goes as far back as Old High German. "Body" is a word that, to me, doesn't sound much like what it means. It's too cramped and mumbly and ridiculous for the thing we spend our entire lives in. Although I guess cramped and mumbly and ridiculous isn't a bad description of your average body in some ways. It lacks sonic dignity. The OED's discussion of contrasting "body" with "soul" is apt here. It probably explains the sequence of items in this list "coat, heart, body, brain." There's a kind of chiasmus -- a reflective parallelism between the first two and last two items. Online Etymology Dictionary posted:body (n.) ---------------- |
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May 7, 2017 00:32
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