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Archives for 2014

And now, a public-service announcement

12 April 2014 by 1 Comment

First, an item of late news:

I have been unable to write or work at much of anything for several weeks, because (as it turns out) my thyroid gland has gone walkabout. So I spend an average of about 16 hours per day sleeping, and the rest in a waking fog, whilst my thyroid schleps about the Northern Territory, communing with kangaroos, dodging crocodiles, and pretending to be Paul Hogan with very little success. At least it hasn’t been eaten yet. Medication is forthcoming once tests have been completed and results resultivated.

In the meantime, allow me to remind you all of Unbreakable Rule #5 of Good SF, courtesy of Reginald Pikedevant:

This is old information, but apparently there are some benighted souls who have not yet received the news. Spread the word! And remember, there may be a quiz on this later in the term.

Filed Under: Foolishness Tagged With: , , ,

Call for information

15 February 2014 by 8 Comments

I’m posting this in the hope that one or more of my Loyal Readers will be able to help me with a small difficulty. I’m looking for a word. More precisely, I’m looking to see if there is a word.

I want to find out whether there is a specific technical term for the kind of name whose literal meaning is the complete opposite of the thing it actually refers to. I don’t mean an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms, I mean things like these:

  • The Australian habit of calling redheads ‘Blue’.
  • The Holy Roman Empire, which as Voltaire observed, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
  • Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’, which produced nothing but lies.
  • ‘Democratic People’s Republic’ almost anywhere you find it, but especially as applied to the comic-opera régime of North Korea, an unconstitutional hereditary monarchy in which the people count for nothing.

I have a sort of vague intimation that there is a term for these kinds of names, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. It may be Latin or Greek in origin, a whatsitation or thingumanym. (I may adopt thingumanym anyway, as a kind of meta-name for ‘some particular class of words that hasn’t got a name, but you know the ones I mean in this context’.)

So, what’s the proper word for these thingumanyms? Anyone? Bueller?

Filed Under: The Superversive Tagged With: ,

John C. Wright: Humans and animals

15 February 2014 by 2 Comments

The preference among biologists is to emphasize the similarities of man to other animals, and downplay their immense and categorical differences. This is not science or religion: is it merely a slant. The glass is half empty rather than half full.

Anyone can see the similarities between humans and apes. Apes are just like humans, as both human scientists and ape scientists agree. Ape cathedrals and human cathedrals both use flying buttresses. Ape operas and human operas both use four-point harmony. Apes crap in the woods and so do humans when we cannot find a toilet, and have not taken the time to dig a latrine. The Ape-Pharaoh of Ape City wears a pshent just like Ramses II of Heliopolis.

—John C. Wright, ‘Losing Religion II’

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Yes! We have gone bananas

13 February 2014 by 4 Comments

Just checking in, since I know my 3.6 Loyal Readers are wondering where I’ve been, or else worrying about really important things like how to set Granddad’s 1974-vintage digital watch which they found in the attic still inexplicably working after all these years but even more inexplicably keeping the correct time for Meiganga, Cameroon; in which case, hearing from me will help them get their minds off their own perplexities.

In a nutshell, I have been unwell. My ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ posts saw me through the worst of my flu, but that was succeeded by a general compound of malaise, ennui, Weltschmerz, Angst, and other ghastly feelings imported at great expense from Europe. Any fool can be sick, but it takes a rich fool to have Krankheit.

Since I have reached a sort of impasse with my old family physician, I sallied forth when I was able, and went to see a new doctor. He gave me the standard diagnostic questionnaire for depression, and gravely informed me that if I am not suffering from depression, ‘no one on this earth is’. (I scored nine out of nine.) He put me on Effexor, and Effexor put me promptly to sleep. I lost more than a week; the time is simply a blank in my calendar. I could have told people I was in training to be Rip Van Winkle.

Drowsiness, as Dr. Hussain warned me, is a known side-effect of Effexor, but it doesn’t usually hit people as hard as all that. However, I have been knocked out cold for 36 hours by a mild sedative, so I should perhaps have expected this. The good doctor then put me on a reduced dose, not intended to be therapeutic, but merely to allow my metabolism to acclimatize itself to the drug. After a few days, my foggy and logy feeling went away, and so (blessed relief!) did the nightmares that had been hag-riding me for months, robbing me of all rest and turning my hair grey. Apparently my drowsiness is now confined to the time I actually spend sleeping, which is, in my humble but infallible opinion, a good place to put it.

I had a series of misadventures last week; the heat in my flat stopped working, just as we had a cold snap with temperatures down to –25 °C, which (for those of you who still use Fahrenheit) translates to ‘much too bloody damn cold’. My car died in rush-hour traffic, after dark, in the fast lane, going uphill, and had to be expensively towed and more expensively resuscitated. (The alternator belt had snapped, taking out other parts along with it, and so the car stopped running the moment the battery ran down.) This is the same car, Admiral Halsey by name, that got stuck on the ice in my back alley in January and had to be winched out by a tow truck, and needed a new battery because the old one would not hold a charge. None of this work is worth doing, since the car is technically scrap metal, but at the moment I can’t afford either to do without it or to replace it. I have a kind of frail, perishing hope that it will last me the rest of the winter, which in this sunny clime runs until May or thereabouts.

Through all this, The Worx (a program of Prospect Human Services) was faithfully badgering me to come in and get my resume furbished up so that I can look for part-time work. I would, I maintain, have been unable to do any work that I did find, so nothing was lost except time; but today, at long last, I struggled over to their offices (the Admiral won’t idle anymore; he wants to stall at every stoplight) and worked on that for a spell. On my return journey, my attention was diverted by something that I hope may divert you as well.

Prospect H.S. have their offices in an industrial park, not far from a specialist greengrocer’s which has (I believe) found the true and permanent cure for the dreaded Grocer’s Apostrophe. Every grocer thinks that the plural of BANANA is BANANA’S; this is an ineradicable part of the human condition, at least until either the English language or the apostrophe dies out. Some plucky lad or lass at this establishment, however, got rid of the whole problem by getting rid of the plural entirely. But the cure may have been worse than the disease:

BANANA
49¢/POUND

‘What!’ I thought. ‘They have only one banana, and they sell it by the pound? That must be some banana!’ And I was irresistibly reminded of an old song, the lyrics of which I jot down here from memory, for those of you who may not be blessed (as I am) with more than perfect recall:

Yes! We have one banana,
We have one banana today!
It’s tasty and mellow
And curvy and yellow
And too big and heavy to weigh.
By itself,
It made a whole shipload;
Each end
Has its own zip code;
But yes! We have one banana,
We have one banana today!

This peerless feat of memory shows, I believe, that my mental faculties are just about as good as they ever were and better than I deserve; for which the thanks or the blame should go to Dr. S. Hussain and the inventors of venlafaxine, a.k.a. Effexor.

You’re welcome.

Filed Under: The Superversive Tagged With: , ,

The twelfth day of Christmas: Adeste

5 January 2014 by 5 Comments

One likes to close on a high note, and since I began this twelve days’ journey in the Baroque period, I shall end there. ‘Adeste fideles’ is one of the most familiar Christmas carols all round the world; I dare say it has been translated into every living language except possibly Pirahã.

I thought of posting one of the performances at the Vatican, either from Christmas Eve, 2011, or from Epiphany a year ago. But while every material resource has been lavished on these – the best choirs, the best orchestras, the best arrangements and conductors – I am sad to say that the results do not justify the means employed. These versions plod. They limp from note to note; the choirs are not tight, the rhythm diffuse and imprecise, with the inevitable result that the words become mushy and indistinct. I had the impression that the singers would have fallen asleep but for the sheer volume of the orchestra. Both those performances were a chore to listen to, and I suspect they were a chore to perform: an old favourite of the masses that must be trotted out for its yearly exhibition, no matter how tired of it the musicians have become.

But even at this late date, it is still possible for a choir to treat the song, not as a staid set piece from an over-familiar repertoire, but as an invitation to make a joyous noise. As an example, I offer this performance by the choir of Hendon St. Mary’s in London, directed by Richard Morrison, with soloist Jo McGahon.

Merry Christmas to all, and a joyous Epiphany tomorrow; and may God’s grace go with you in 2014.

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The eleventh day of Christmas: Veni

4 January 2014 by 2 Comments

And now, a 12th-century piece that needs no introduction: ‘Veni, veni, Emmanuel’.

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Happy eleventy-twelfth!

3 January 2014 by 4 Comments

As you (of course) recall, Bilbo said his farewell to the Shire at his eleventy-first birthday party. Apparently ‘eleventy-one’ is a perfectly good word in the Shire, which leads one to infer that Hobbits have a mathematical terminology all their own, not necessarily aligned with plain old mundane decimal arithmetic.

In Chapter VII of The Hobbit, when Gandalf was slowly introducing Beorn to the members of Thorin’s Company (a scene sadly omitted from the wretched Peter Jackson films), Beorn offered this parenthetical comment:

‘But look here, Gandalf, even now we have only got yourself and ten dwarves and the hobbit that was lost. That only makes eleven (plus one mislaid) and not fourteen, unless wizards count differently to other people.’

Wizards may count differently to other people, for all I know, but Hobbits definitely do: at least when they are counting birthdays past 109. ‘Eleventy’ is a good word all the same, and deserves to be used more often. Indeed, say I, there ought to be a special dispensation to extend the eleventies beyond the customary ten years of a decade. A man of 121 ought to be proud to announce his age as eleventy-’leven; and today, the third of January, 2014, is, I am honoured to observe, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s eleventy-twelfth birthday.

Beyond eleventy-twelve, I fear, we shall have to let arithmetic take its course. ‘Twelvety’ is an awkward word, and neither ‘twelvety-three’ nor ‘eleventy-thirteen’ quite has the right sound for a number. We therefore stand at the apex and terminus of that whole line of linguistic development. Eleventy-twelve is the top.

So let us pause awhile on this summit, looking far and wide over Middle-earth, and salute the learned author who acquainted us with the first Three Ages of its previously untold history. Mr. J. R. R. Tolkien is a real gentlehobbit, I always have said, whatever you may think of some others of the name, begging your pardon. So here’s to him, in Niggle’s Parish, or the Delectable Mountains, or wherever he may be; and may God rest his soul still, and grant him joy of his journeys!

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The tenth day of Christmas: Nowell

3 January 2014 by 1 Comment

Here is another fine old English carol. After the discussion in the combox about the Middle English pronunciation of yesterday’s selection, I should point out that this song is rendered in just about perfect M.E. Perhaps a little too perfect; for the early stages of the Great Vowel Shift were already underway in the 15th century, when this carol was written. At that stage, if the reconstructions are to be trusted, the long vowels were just beginning to be diphthongs, but they were diphthongal versions of the original English vowels, and had not begun their Völkerwanderung all over the phonological map. The effect would have struck our ears as a kind of drawl or twang. At any rate, all such niceties have been left out of this rendition, and the vowels have been told to stay at home as if they were still perfectly content there, and had not embarked on their secret conspiracy to swap places until the whole system of English spelling became a manifest nonsense.

About the carol itself, there is not much to say, except that it is an interesting example of what is called macaronic verse:

Nowell sing we both all and some,
Now Rex pacificus is y-come.

Ex ortum est in love and liss,
now Christ his grace he gan us giss, etc.

Compare the tongue-in-cheek elegy by John Skelton, which ended with the lines:

Sepultus est among the weeds,
God forgive him his misdeeds,
With hey ho, rumbelo,
Rumpopulorum,
Per omnia saecula,
Saecula saeculorum.

As this example shows, macaronics were generally employed for comic effect, mixing Latin words and phrases with the vernacular in whatever silly way the metre would allow. Latin–English macaronic verse usually has a doggerel quality, partly because rhymes are so much easier to come by in Latin than in our own language with its ill-assorted collection of stolen words. But in ‘Nowell sing we’, the macaronic is employed with a perfectly serious intent, using bits of Latin that every Englishman of the times would have known from the Mass, and not at the end of the line for easy rhyming, but at the beginning of each verse to introduce a particular topic.

Each verse ends with the line ‘Both all and some’, which seems like an oxymoron, but in fact is probably the shortest possible way of putting the central paradox in the Christian doctrine of salvation. Christ died for us all, so that we might all be saved; but it remains with each one of us to accept or reject that gift, and only some of us, in the end, will do so. The blood of Christ is pro vobis et pro multis effundetur, ‘poured out for you and for many’ – a reminder that the efficacy of the gift is not extended to all, and in particular, not to those who sincerely refuse it. It is, in effect, a gift for ‘both all and some’.

Here, for all and some, is ‘Nowell sing we’.

Filed Under: The Superversive Tagged With: , , ,

The Ninth Day of Christmas: Lullay

2 January 2014 by 7 Comments

The English language is haunted by its own ghosts: you see it most in the spelling, which preserves the living speech of half a thousand years ago. One of those ghosts (as Dickens would hasten to assure us) is the Ghost of Christmas Past; for England was once a Christian country. Here is a fourteenth-century English song with a tune as haunting as its language. It reminds me, at any rate, what a strange and eldritch thing Christmas is. In the dead of a winter’s night, Nature holds her breath, and far off through the silence we hear the first faint rumour of an enchantment that will remake the world.

And now, ‘Als I Lay on Yoolis Night’.

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The Eighth Day of Christmas: Jubilo

1 January 2014 by 2 Comments

I dare say ‘In dulce jubilo’ is the best-known piece in Michael Praetorius’s oeuvre, at least in the English-speaking countries. After posting a bit of Praetorius yesterday, I went looking for a suitable version of this song as a follow-up. It was, I may say, a frustrating quest, and for a while it seemed that it would be a fruitless one.

For this is a song that has been interpreted to death. There are versions catering to every questionable taste from the soporific to the bombastic. I found an arrangement for a solo voice, but the soprano was drowned out by the brass band that accompanied her. Then there was an arrangement for (I think) fourteen voices, in which every line of the melody is drawn out into an endless hurdy-gurdy of contrapuntal variations before going on to the next, so that you never hear the structure of the tune. One version sported eight violas, none of which, it seemed, had been tuned first; and I may say that while the viola at best is not one of Man’s greatest inventions, an untuned viola is a genuine instrument of torture. The harmonics of those bottom strings, subtly beating against one another, seemed to produce a ninth voice – the buzzing of an infernal bluebottle against the windowpane of Hell.

Fortunately, the ever reliable choir of King’s College, Cambridge, came to my rescue with this superb performance.

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