See, here's the thing about symbols:

Christopher Hitchens is dead.  Facebook was alive with the news for, uhm, about a day: "The world is a lesser place without him," some said (though apparently not so lessened that the effects of his demise reverberate beyond several hours).  I'm not too chuffed, but mostly just because I know so little about him, not because I have any particular ax to grind.  However, his death, together with the typical convergence of events or things read that generally lead me to a post like this, have made me think about a few things.

Hitchens wrote a book:  God Is Not Great, in which he asserts his atheism and appears to attempt an undermining of religion.  Apart from the utter futility of such an endeavor (I'm not sure that even God could dissuade just the moderate zealotry (you know, without pressing his "Smite" button, and all); and besides, I mean, c'mon! -- did such an intelligent person as Hitchens really think he could successfully attack and undermine something so essentially illogical with carefully meted and tempered argument, or was he, so much more likely, just trying to sell copy?), he makes some interesting arguments, the vast majority of which I'm not interested in here.  One of his weaker assertions, however, is an attack on the anachronisms--the "ill-carpentered fictions"--of the Bible, which affords a starting point for my discussion.

Let me be the first to say, and despite my love for the Bible, that the tome is chock full of some of the strangest tails and details I've ever come across.  Hitchens thinks so, too (one of the very few upon which we agree).  The Pentateuch, for instance, holds Moses doing and saying some weird stuff--freaky weird, even.  What Hitchens doesn't seem to acknowledge (or, well, he does, but sites it as a further weakness (and I'm not fighting that claim right now)) is the effects of the passage time, one linguistic/cultural and the other human error/interference.  Anyone who studies the Bible will cheerfully acknowledge the dire effect of imperfect people working on or on behalf of the scriptures--the otherwise perfect Word (of course, for most of us, one of the great benefits of the Bible comes directly from the very effort involved in parsing Truth from among all the problems) --not all of whom had good intentions.  But even under the best circumstances, people, despite God's perfection, make mistakes (and those who believe and really think about it will allow that God even permits these mistakes), so many of whom appear in their efforts to forward God's word.  Bigger still, however, than the weakness of even the best-intentioned of men (and there were plenty of malingerers), is the effect of cultural development.  Anachronisms aside, to us today, there's an awful lot, especially from the earliest books of the great Library, that doesn't make much sense and/or contradicts itself.  This brings me to the next of the convergences and closer to my ultimate point.

Languages and cultures shift and change.  Don't believe me (and, crap if you don't, you're freaking obtuse!)?  Just read a week's worth of posts from The Language Log.  Without putting too fine a point on it (and we've talked about it before vis a vis translation) it is essentially impossible--or, at best, impractical--to manage perfect cross-cultural  or cross-language shifts: a translation.  The best we can manage, and we can manage pretty well, is interpretation (hence the art and skill of interpreters against the woeful ineptitude of things like Google Translate and Word's grammar check) --interpretation which requires a ladder into the ether of metalanguage, which we are definitely not going to broach today.  The point is we cannot--EVER--perfectly understand a person of a different language and culture.  Period.  Move this to an extremity of language and culture like that of freaking Moses, and ... well ....  Get the point?

As it's Christmastime, cards and letters are starting to come in from family and friends.  In our house, we post these decoratively upon the cupboards of our kitchen.  Generally, the missives convey family news -- count on my dad to take a different tack (and I don't remember him ever being the one to scribe the annual letter for my folks; how things change!).  He talked about a conversation he and my mom had had regarding the interpretation of a word at the end of "Away in a Manger": "and fit us for heaven," the word fit, particularly, as it ... er ... fits in the line and within the song.  Unfortunately (for the issue at hand here, not the elegant point made by my father in his letter), fit is a pretty boring word, meaning essentially the same thing now as when the song was first published and even three hundred years before that.  The only difference in our uses of fit now as from before is a drop, inasmuch as Lewis Carroll did not mean, or at least did not only mean (most likely he meant both together) fit as a strong, sudden, uncontrollable physical reaction, but a canto: "The Hunting of the Snark, an Agony in Eight Fits."  This difference or change or shift or lack, or whatever you want to call it, in fit's etymology can still be sort of retrofit into the interpretation of the song, at least as a symbol.  And this is the point.

Symbols change just like words and language and culture.  (And I could write a book about this, but we're gonna keep it limited -- hopefully.  Besides, there are others far better qualified than me.)

There are all kinds of symbols, and you should get what I'm talking about by my saying that there are both universal symbols and one-use-only symbols.  The best source I can think of for any symbol--a specific symbol or type of symbol--is literature (go figure).  Authors and poets certainly use both, but the difference should be clear in, say, Catcher in the Rye, where Salinger applies a potentially universal symbol of a cliff and a very specific, one-use-only, symbol of a song lyric.  

(Want more symbols?  Dig out your freshman lit book from high school or even college.  I'd examine my own, but it's buried in the garage.  One in particular that I re-encountered recently is that of bells.  Consider their effect on faeries (or pixies -- you pick), but also in Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," Poe's "The Bells," and Tennyson's "Ring Out Wild Bells.")

Symbols like these, universal or not (another universal symbol, perhaps easier to see, is the black bird, used in both Through the Looking Glass and Tortilla Flat, among so many others), remain fixed, at least inasmuch as their value is fully encapsulated by the text of the book.  Regardless of cultural elements connected to the symbols or their cultural sources, the application of the symbols are self-contained.  Well, often.  Not always.  Consider Jane Eyre.  Early in the book, in the red room, there's the nastiness about the chimney.  With the exception of Santa Claus, we've largely lost our superstitions, and therefore associated symbolisms, of chimneys.

This brings me to my gripe.

It really bugs me when hyper-Christians get all bent out of shape about the "real meaning" of Christmas symbols (as distinguished from "the real meaning of Christmas," which is certainly not in dispute here; and the same goes for Easter): the Christmas tree, the yule log, Santa coming down the chimney, wreaths, poinsettias, and so on.  Easter eggs.  Generally, the hyper-Christians' gripes boil down to pagan rituals and druids and fertility rites and, somehow, the consumerism of the Holidays.  (If you're really ambitious, check out the symmetry between the development of our cultural symbols against the history of our English language.  Cool.)

(Are you offended by my coinage of "hyper-Christians"?  I apologize.  Anyway:)

Here's the thing: Sure, go through the histories--which interest me just as much as the next nerd--and, yeah, that's where a lot of this stuff got started.  But that's not what they mean anymore!  Things change!

Are you still scared of witches coming down your chimney?  I've never roasted a chestnut, but chestnuts are much closer to my cultural nostalgia associated with chimneys than hobgoblins.  (Actually, the majority of my  personal associations with chimneys involve me as a kid getting into a heckuva lot of trouble.)

Just because the symbol itself--the physical thing--persists, and entirely by tradition only (a thing much more rigid than whatever that tradition might have stemmed from (consider how many people go to church on Christmas and Easter not because they believe anything in particular--or particularly strongly--but just because that's what you do on Christmas and Easter)) doesn't mean that it's wrong to hold onto that thing!  It doesn't always matter what something means, but that it means something at all.  Think about it: what do the Christmas tree and the presents and the cookies and the fireplace and the wreath, and whatever else, mean--symbolize--for you?

See?  Right there--that internal meaning.  That is what Christmas is all about.  And if you happen to be Christian, it might mean that much more.  And not by compromise between the traditional symbols and the Bible stories, but because symbols change--we change--people change, and what we become--what and who we are--is what is most important.  You might be surprised, but examine yourself against the symbols in your life.  Those symbols probably define you (not you by them, but they as representations of who you are), not because the symbols might have meant something different to someone else sometime across the ages, but because of what it means to you and you alone.

INVISIBLE CITIES XXII -- Cities and Signs: HYPATIA

"I realized I had to free myself from the images which in the past had announced to me the things I sought: only then would I succeed in understanding the language of Hypatia."  So what, then, is the language of Hypatia--or better, how is it nothing like our language in its regard to signs (signs being the referents of our words) --or best, what is the relationship between signs and the mind's expectations?  So then, if "there is no language without deceit," how does one communicate, and is the language of Hypatia actually any different from our languages anyway?

The real question here (because the first is just another of the countless un-answerables really) is what makes this place so attractive or comfortable that Polo apparently doesn't want to leave--at least not any time soon?

INVISIBLE CITIES XIX -- Chapter 2, ..... 2

1. Considering what "an hourglass could mean," what are your thoughts on everything we've read to this point?  Has your interpretation changed?
2. Similarly, we've discussed a few times how getting to the root of an author's motives or the source of his creativity or his biography can assist the interpretation of a text, so here is Marco Polo an author.  Is it possible for his audience, Kublai Kahn, to get behind the stories?
3. How might Polo's stories, despite their general incomprehensibility yet provide a new avenue for Kublai to understand his own cities?
4. "The foreigner had learned to speak the emperor's language or the emperor to understand the language of the foreigner."  Is there a difference?
5. This exposition was an "aha" moment for me the first time I read it.  What is the great benefit of the charades over the "precise words"?  How do the verbal descriptions given by Calvino perhaps fit better the charades than whatever Polo may have actually spoken?

INVISIBLE CITIES XII -- Chapter 1, ..... 2

Marco Polo

This is end of the first chapter.  (Duh.)  How have your thoughts/opinions of the book changed since the opening scene and the first city or sp?  For me, the timing of this exchange and its revelation was perfect.  While I was very much enjoying the city-to-city descriptions and the poetry of Calvino's assemblages up to this point, I needed either something to happen or a substance-changing revelation, and I got it.  Also, I really appreciate Calvino's use of form here, as this final bit is very much like the last sentence or two of each vignette and the framework those sentences offer for the rest of that city.  This final ..... gives context for the preceding cities, all the way back to first.  But poetry is such a personal thing.  I could easily be seeing this in a way that you don't.  Thoughts?

1. "The emperor is he who is a foreigner to each of his subjects."
2. All the cities have a mythic/fairytale grandeur and vagueness.  How is this explained or justified by the situation of the Khan and Polo's difficulty in language?  How does this news--the language differences--turn on its head everything we've read so far?  From whom are we getting the stories of the cities: the firsthand of Polo, or the secondhand of Kublai Khan?
3. "Everything Marco displayed had the power of emblems, which, once seen, cannot be forgotten or confused."  Hmm.  Sounds a little bit like Zora and Zirma.
4. "Perhaps ... the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind's phantasms."
5. And what of having to know something before being able to possess it, as the Khan asks in the final enigmatic exchange?  This, too, sounds very much like some of issues we've been dealing with.
6. So Polo eventually masters the Khan's language.  Does this mean the rest of the cities we encounter throughout the book will not be subject to the same misinterpretation?  (And about "misinterpretation": are the Khan's interpretations of Polo's descriptions wrong or inaccurate?)

INVISIBLE CITIES II -- Cities and Memory 1: DIOMIRA

courtesy bonacho-portuguessave.blogspot.com

1. Many (all, actually, if I'm not mistaken) of Calvino's cities are girls' names.  Diomira is no exception.  My go-to site for name etymology is behindthename.com, which I've used here before.  Today, it failed me.  I found information instead here, and by extension here, which gives the meaning as the "important woman in the village."  The name is allegedly Spanish, but if we look at it from the Italian perspective (admittedly not all that different, particularly in this case), then we can break it into its constituent parts: Dio and mira.  Dio is, of course, God, and Mira (in nominal form) aim, sight, target, butt, end, goal, design (from my well-worn, i.e. beat-to-ribbons, Dizionario Inglese E Italiano by Loescher) and (verbal, "mirare") to take aim, to admire, to gaze, or in its reflexive, to look at oneself.  Thoughts?
2. Notice the motion of the first sentence?  From where are we leaving?  Why begin thus if, without context, we cannot know the starting point, in which case the direction and distance are useless, geographically speaking?
3. What is the poetical power (that is to say dripping rhetoric) of this line, "...is that he feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time"?
4. Compare that line above to the general theme of entropy from the introductory ......
5. There's a dreamlike quality to Diomira--idyllic and distant.  Does it regard the name, Diomira, as discussed above?  How does it regard the type, Cities of Memory?
6. Notice also the sense of fairytale to the description: the 60 of this, the golden and crystal that, the idealized season.  How does this correlate back to Marco Polo and begin build his character (this is a longterm as well as an immediate question)?

a "jocular coinage"

So Wiktionary describes the utterly ridiculous, perfectly worthless word brought to me by an excited 7th grade science student today.


floccinaucinihilipilification: A jocular coinage, apparently by students at Eton, combining a number of roughly synonymous Latin stems. Latin flocci, from floccus, a wisp or piece of wool + nauci, from naucum, a trifle + nihili, from the Latin pronoun, nihil ("nothing") + pili, from pilus, a hair, something insignificant (all therefore having the sense of "pettiness" or "nothing") + -fication. "Flocci non facio" was a Latin expression of indifference, literally "I do not make a straw of...".


If you still need the definition, here it is, according, again, to Wiktionary: "The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant," which makes me really hope that this word was invented, tongue-in-cheek, simply to invent a big, ridiculous, gratuitously and simultaneously self-referential and worthless word, which, as it turns out, is one letter longer than the only slightly less ridiculous antidisestablishmentarianism (which Blogger, by the way, recognizes as a perfectly "real" and correctly-spelled word).


The thing that bothers me is that this word is recognized by dictionaries (not many, as it turns out, but one's more than enough)!  Dictionaries are supposed to recognize words that are in use.  As far as I can tell, the only usage of this word is not for any sort of communication but merely as a vehicle for the title of world's longest "non-technical" word.  Thankfully, and just so for the blessed sake of the great English language, whose development and evolution I'm generally in favor of, Oxford makes its usage (and only by ignominious association with its by-one-letter-shorter compatriot) simply, and with perfectly little "ink," known here.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana IV -- chapter 3: FLOWERS and MORE FOG

from Benali's edition of Dante's Commedia

So often, chapter titles lend a childish, or, well, a less than sophisticated, sense to a book, not that there's anything wrong with that.  Many of my favorite books, YA or children's, rank right up there with my all-time favorites.  Of "grown-up" books, however, I can only think of a few that manage to use chapter titles especially well: Tortilla Flat, Ender's Game, and, of course, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.  In my impatience and eagerness to get to the meat of the next chapter, I often forget to look at the chapter number or, if it's there, the title.  We are now on chapter 3 of Mysterious Flame and only now have I finally looked up at the chapter title.  I flipped back over the first two, and they're great!

1. What is your impression of Yambo's opinion of himself, especially now that he's seen evidence of his past as a businessman and with (though perhaps he's only invented it, as Gratarolo suggests) Sibilla?
2. (I will generally leave issues of Italian grammar aside, like, for instance, the differences between tu and lei and their correlates in French, unless you'd like me to load up each post with bits of Italian minutiae; otherwise, if you have a question about anything like this, please ask.)
3. This chapter makes me really wish I could afford ancient treasure tomes like these!  I am guilty of buying books just because they're pretty, because they feel nice.  I love a library for its smell.  Would I say no to a Nook were it offered me?  Of course not!  But pages and ink and sweat and love packed between stretched, gilt leather covers....  But that's just me.  Is it such a business of passion for Yambo?
4. "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."  As Yambo has forgotten his past and lost the experiences of love with it, from where will new love build or grow or spring [insert your poetry here]?  In a child, love begins as dependence and trust, and therefore is extended--and only ever around the girth of its own selfishness--to parents, guardians, caregivers.
5. "Are there drugs for remembering?" // "Maybe Sibilla..."  What is the emotion he's experiencing toward this girl?
6. So here's the line that provides the chapter's title: "And someone will pluck your flower, mouth of the wellspring, someone who won't even know, a fisher of spongers with take this rare pearl."  The context, of course, provides its own interpretation of jealousy and lust, but there's another use of plucking flowers, or deflowering, which also applies to the source of Yambo's fear--and mixed sense of conquest--for his maybe-relationship with Sibilla.  Also, often, a wellspring is a ready source of ample fog when conditions are right.
7. Issue of translation and plurals: Umberto Eco carefully supervises the translation of each of his works.  He most certainly was aware of the translator's pluralization of palazzo to palazzos, though the "correct" carry-over pluralization would be palazzi.
8. At the time the Lira went out for the Euro, 1000 lira was worth about 65 cents (very approximately) --just to give you an idea.
9. Another brilliant analogy: Yambo compares his loss of past to the loss of the third dimension, leaving everything flat--without depth.
10. Eco ascribes certain fog quotations to certain characters as their favorites.  Is this meant to indicate character traits or the like, or was the determination arbitrary?
11. Ah, that last sentence!

Finally, what do you think of the nickname, Yambo?  I don't have an Italian copy of Mysterious Flame, so I don't know if the original uses the Y or the more appropriate Ia (Italian generally skips y/upsilon), like J, K, X, and W (except for carryovers from English or French or whatever else), which are phonetically useless.  It doesn't make much sense to examine it in English, which shows itself mildly as "I am," and all it's Old Testament weight, though I can't totally disregard it.  As it is, "Io," is Italian's first-person singular pronoun.  Closer to its spelling, however, is the Italian of the poetry term, "iamb," "giambo" in Italian ("iambo," "iambe," and "jambo" in others of the Romance languages), which, in English, is a trochee, but in Italian, as "giambo" is actually three syllables, contains in its first two an iamb.  I don't know.  Names are usually important, but I can't find anything more than this.  Thoughts?

Through the Looking Glass VIII -- chapter 6: THE NIHILIST PHILOLOGIST

Discussion of the Alice books here have tended periodically to indicate nihilism.  Humpty Dumpty is a perfect example of one who, regardless of what he professes, is a nihilist in practice (so far as I understand the given -ism), though his disregard for any established order seems most consistently targeted at the rules of semantics:  Humpty Dumpty, the Nihilist Philologist.

For the most part, I haven't looked too closely at the nihilism of Carroll (if you haven't followed the discussions from previous posts, you may want to take a look at the nihilism of The Cosby Show, here, at McSweeney's, for a ridiculous point of comparison), because it hasn't fit, or so it seemed to me at the time, with my whole selfish reason for this read-through.  Well, I'm not so sure I've been right to neglect it (though I'm not yet wholly convinced otherwise yet, either).

So here's the question (and I'm leaving it simple in order to invite the broadest possible range of responses):

Based on the Alice books, what, if articulated,

would be Carroll's stance on nihilism?

Aside from that, the substance of this chapter has rather little to do with my goal.  There are, however, some interesting points yet to be made (to which I'm happy to invite more):

1. Is Humpty, as an egg, a continuation of the egg from the end of the previous chapter, or a new entity entirely (notice that except for his condescension, Alice still isn't able to reach him)?
2. Humpty's frequent use of the word "pride" only emphasizes what is already evident in his nature.  Take a look at Proverbs 16:18 (thanks, Mr. Gardner).
3. "One ca'n't [help growing older], but two can.  With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."  Truly the darkest allusion to death of the books.
4. Humpty's claim that words mean whatever the speaker/writer wants isn't that far from the truth.  Or is it?  Words are only representations or signs for things, not the things themselves.  There's a huge discussion here, but I'm going to keep it simple and quote Roger Holmes' article "The Philosopher's Alice in Wonderland" (thanks again, M. Gardner): "May we pay our words extra, or is this the stuff that propaganda is made of?  Do we have an obligation to past usage?  In one sense words are our masters, or communication would be impossible.  In another we are the masters; otherwise there could be no poetry."
5. Joyce's Finnegans Wake takes a lot from, or refers often to, the Alice books, not least of which is the potential import of nonsense.  Finnegans Wake as a whole is perhaps most apt for comparison, however, to this chapter, as Joyce takes complete liberty with language of this book in his writing.  One word in particular, as it recalls our big egghead here: Bothallchoractorschumminaroundgansumuminarumdrumstrumtruminahumptadumpwaultopoofoolooderamaunsturnup
6. A possible place of inspiration for Humpty Dumpty's recitation of, perhaps, Carroll's worst poem:

Summer Days

Wathen Marks Wilks Call
In summer, when the days were long, 
We walk’d, two friends, in field and wood; 
Our heart was light, our step was strong, 
And life lay round us, fair as good, 
In summer, when the days were long. 

We stray’d from morn till evening came, 
We gather’d flowers, and wove us crowns; 
We walk’d mid poppies red as flame, 
Or sat upon the yellow downs, 
And always wish’d our life the same. 

In summer, when the days were long, 
We leap’d the hedgerow, cross’d the brook; 
And still her voice flow’d forth in song, 
Or else she read some graceful book, 
In summer, when the days were long. 

And then we sat beneath the trees, 
With shadows lessening in the noon; 
And in the sunlight and the breeze 
We revell’d, many a glorious June, 
While larks were singing o’er the leas. 

In summer, when the days were long, 
We pluck’d wild strawberries, ripe and red, 
Or feasted, with no grace but song, 
On golden nectar, snow-white bread, 
In summer, when the days were long. 

We lov’d, and yet we knew it not, 
For loving seem’d like breathing then; 
We found a heaven in every spot; 
Saw angels, too, in all good men, 
And dream’d of gods in grove and grot. 

In summer, when the days are long, 
Alone I wander, muse alone; 
I see her not, but that old song 
Under the fragrant wind is blown, 
In summer, when the days are long. 

Alone I wander in the wood, 
But one fair spirit hears my sighs; 
And half I see the crimson hood, 
The radiant hair, the calm glad eyes, 
That charm’d me in life’s summer mood. 

In summer, when the days are long, 
I love her as I lov’d of old; 
My heart is light, my step is strong, 
For love brings back those hours of gold, 
In summer, when the days are long.

Google CAPTCHA, List #2

WRITING EXERCISE:

EASY -- Use ten of these words in a short story, poem, or other comment.

HARD -- Use all of these words in a short story or essay.  

Though difficult, really, this list provides everything from character names, locations, vices, nouns, atmosphere, slang....  I am yet amazed at the variety and potential inherent meaning to so many of these "words."

admanica  |  alshedba  |  anded  |  azablu  |  beedr  |  bilingan  |  blytomet  |  boolino  |  brabsts  |  brons  |  canna  |  ceileable  |  coaketr  |  cochee  |  colem  |  comaspri  |  comba  |  conis  |  crion  |  dakeel  |  dancle  |  deteri  |  diaglyce  |  dited  |  ecooscer  |  elogie  |  enerow  |  ensfulas  |  entip  |  firlect  |  forree  |  fospenud  |  foushen  |  funci  |  galince  |  grabywo  |  gratinge  |  grint  |  haddism  |  heent  |  hinche  |  houroup  |  huyok  |  idofig  |  ilionglo  |  inalk  |  ionglym  |  iroitypt  |  irtsinio  |  isemceme  |  joliphea  |  jubat  |  kingly  |  kryisgra  |  lessess  |  logyr  |  machen  |  menring  |  mingo  |  misib  |  mistanes  |  modat  |  mograble  |  momete  |  mothrock  |  nicadmis  |  nisma  |  nubcati  |  pandes  |  patsi  |  patte  |  phout  |  prelvel  |  pyrris  |  quinat  |  ragit  |  rebrai  |  redia  |  reptor  |  resse  |  restrall  |  retse  |  ropsij  |  shulasho  |  soccesse  |  solloste  |  speaf  |  spepeket  |  sproppia  |  sudazpa  |  torli  |  unnisbeh  |  untroff  |  vesesurp  |  wasubbef  |  welosi  |  whiolv  |  wilunni  |  wipli  |  zormag

A PERFECT SIMILE

From The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (again -- I can't help myself -- Is there no end to Keeler's brilliance?):

Context:
A character, blackmailed for murder, seeks refuge without possibility of extradition in a fictional South American country by the name of San Do Mar, with possible plans to stop briefly in New Orleans along the way to await news from his friend.  He's worried about cold feet and comments that, "Yes, I--I am in a nervous state.  I know it.  And once I'm 900 miles or so from my home town, I'll--I'll be in a worse state than ever.  I'm even likely to head back to--to Canada--instead of giving the police a chance to pull me off of some United Fruit Company liner," to which the protagonist and the man's friend, not to mention employee, Clay Calthorpe brilliant remarks:

"No.  You're done for--if you do that.  

Canada is as much a refuge for you as--as a 

Wisconsin lumber camp is for a lost virgin."


*

Alice in Wonderland X -- chapter 7: RAVENS and WRITING DESKS

"The Mad Tea-Party" is a joke (the good kind) --or, at least, a whole bunch of them all strung up back to back; some are inside jokes, and generally lost on those of us not parcel to Carroll's time and place; there are even a few things that appear to be jokes, but are cultural references, again generally lost on us.  As most of this chapter is nonsense (legitimately and hilariously so), the majority of what I'll put down here are just footnotes and explanations (thanks to Martin Gardener and Wikipedia, though there are few things that I even know on my own! (go figure)).

The Hatter: "mad as a hatter" was a phrase common for the time and referenced the once common occurrence of mercury poisoning from the process of felting beaver fur for hat felt.  This Hatter, however, is most likely--or most convincingly (there is a difference) --a caricature of a local furniture dealer, one Theophilus Carter, who invented an alarm clock bed (and so was rightfully represented as obsessed with time and waking--great foil for the Dormouse) and always wore a top hat.  Note also the quantity of mentioned furniture throughout the chapter.

The March Hare: Hares mate in March.

The Dormouse: This is a nocturnal animal, and therefore fairly groggy in the day.  They were commonly kept as pets by Victorian children who would house them up in old, straw- or straw-lined teapots.

Hair in Need of Cutting: Lewis Carroll reportedly kept his hair rather longer than was considered fashionable for the time (inferred from various letters to, from, and/or about him).  To put this in perspective, and add the only bit of evidence that I can find in this chapter to support my purpose for this particular read, no one made comment--plain and simply no one--about a girl's hair length back then and there.  It was, apparently, more than rude.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?:  From Lewis Carroll (and here without the printer's, not Carroll's, quelling typo) -- "Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, vis: 'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar [sic] put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all."

There are dozens of entertaining responses to the riddle, many made as entries to contests posted in various Carroll fan- or analytical-publications.  Here rare some of my favorites:

• Sam Lloyd (my favorite): 1, Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes; 2, because Poe wrote on both; 3, bills and tales are among their characteristics; and 4, because they both stand on their legs, conceal their steels (steals), and ought to be made to shut up.
• Roy Davenport: Because without them both Brave New World could not have been written.
• Peter Veal: Because one has flapping fits and the other fitting flaps.
• George Simmers: Because one is good for writing books and the other better for biting rooks.
• Tony Weston: Because a writing-desk is a rest for pens and a raven is a pest for wrens.
• Noel Petty: Because they are both used to carri-on decomposition.
• Francis Huxley: 1, Because it bodes ill for owed bills; and 2, because they each contain a river--Neva and Esk.

Two days slow: by various extrapolations, it is clear that the book, Alice, takes place on her seventh birthday, May 4.  According to A.L. Taylor (quoted from Martin Gardner), "on May 4, 1862, there was exactly two days' difference between the lunar and calendar months.  This, Taylor argues, suggests that the Mad Hatter's watch ran on lunar time and accounts for his remark that his watch is 'two days wrong.'  If Wonderland is near the earth's center, Taylor points out, the position of the sun would be useless for time-telling, whereas phases of the moon remain unambiguous.  The conjecture is also supported by the close connection of 'lunar' with 'lunacy,' but it is hard to believe that Carroll had all this in mind."

The three little sisters:  Because of a published couplet referring to Carroll and the Liddell family, we know the proper pronunciation of the name: "I am the dean and this is Mrs. Liddell // She plays the first, and I the second fiddle."  This is the second pun drawn between "little" and "Liddell."  In this case Elsie (pronounced L.C., of course) is for Lorina Charlotte (older sister), Lacie is an anagram of Alice, and Tillie is short for Edith's family nickname of "Matilda."

Why not M: Treacle is molasses -- M for molasses; mot to mention the March Hare's potential interest in putting himself in the story, as his name begins with an M, as well as the fact that it is he who calls out "Why not?"

Issues of Language (what are your thoughts (and these are pretty basic)):

• "The Hatter's remark seemed to her to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English"
• Living on treacle
• Can't take more or can't take less
• In the well or well-in
• Drawing treacle

Alice in Wonderland IV -- chapter 2: JUST KEEP SWIMMING

1. Unavoidable, but highly speculative: in extension of yesterday's brief discussion on Alice's growth as representation of real world growth through childhood and adolescence (the idea (and that as supposedly subconscious inclusion by Carroll) and its connection to Tenniel's illustrations are credited to Richard Ellmann and Selwyn Goodacre, respectively) and in tandem with the odd conjoining (meta-story: they are one and yet separate) of story-Alice and Carroll (who is not exclusively the same as Dodgson), this growth away from her feet could be looked at as further evidence of predicted separation anxiety on the part of Carroll.  Alice will grow up and away from Carroll, who will miss her--and misses her terribly--once it finally happens.
2. The attribution of the male "Esquire" to this girl's foot may come Latinate languages' (French, of course, is most likely in this case) masculine gender pie or ped for foot--pied in French.
3. What of the rabbit, symbolically speaking and as contrast/foil to Alice?  Carroll intended him to be "elderly, timid, feeble, [and] nervously shilly-shallying" (from Carroll's "Alice on the Stage").
4. "...'Who in the world am I?'  Ah, that's the great puzzle!"
5. Math puzzle!  (Hint: the secret is in the bases.)
6. Many of the poems that show up in Alice are parodies of popular rhymes of the time.  Certainly they're better in contrast against the originals than alone.  Copied below is Isaac Watt's poem "Against Idleness and Mischief" (aren't you glad you didn't have to memorize these for "lessons"?).  What interests me here is not the fun (though tremendous fun it is) of Carroll's parody, but his placing it into the mouth of poor and now much frustrated Alice.  This is another change wrought upon her without her foreknowledge or consent.  I just can't let myself believe that it's simply some bizarre symptom of Wonderland on the brain, but an effect of its creator; but why then, if he's so fond of Alice, would Carroll do this to her, for she clearly is uncomfortable with it?  Thoughts?  (While reversals are a common and influential motif in Looking Glass such is not the case for Wonderland.)
7. The notion of swimming in tears has always repulsed me.
8. I wonder if Carroll was ever concerned that he might be smothering Alice, or that he maybe worried that others might have thought so.  Thankfully, in Wonderland, Alice survives the sea of tears.  Are they exclusively hers (okay, that beggars an obvious answer: Carroll, of course; but what of it?)?
9. (Not an issue for this reading: an alternative approach to this book could easily be that of inter-lingual translation.  Supposedly the mouse came from a childish misreading of "muse" in the brother's Latin grammar book, and then the subsequent faux pas of cat and mouse, not to mention (what a stupid colloquialism: "not to mention," when it's always followed by the very this it claims will not go mentioned) the foot from earlier.)
10. Interested in John Tenniel and political humor?  Well, lucky you, they go right together!  Tenniel illustrated a political cartoon in the magazine, "Punch."  Search for some of the cartoons online; they're hilarious.
11. Carroll makes his first visible appearance here at the end of chapter 2 as the Dodo.  Dodgson (have I even mentioned that Lewis Carroll is the pen name for Charles Dodgson?) stuttered and was labeled by himself and others "Dodo-Dodgson").  The other members of the party at the shore are Reverand Robinson Duckworth as, duh, the duck; Alice's older sister, Lorina, as the Lory; and her little sister, Edith, as the Eaglet.

Against Idleness and Mischief
by Isaac Watts


How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!

How skillfully she builds her cell!

How neat she spreads the wax!

And labours hard to store it well

With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill,

I would be busy too;

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,

Let my first years be passed,

That I may give for every day

Some good account at last.

If you have questions about jargon or context through any of the passages, just post a comment and I'll find the answer for you.

I teach English, and, really, I'm not even all that good at it!

The more you know, the more you know how little you know.

In the following two areas, I fail about 75% of the time
(to say nothing of all the other areas):

ONE:  While not a constant problem, using literally figuratively still catches me out probably half the time.  (I've been a proponent of Sentence First by Stan Carey since starting this blog.  While his is not the first I've seen discussing this issue, it is excellent and thorough.)  Of course, that half comes generally, though unfortunately not exclusively, from my total English usage, most of which is casual speech, during which times my grammarian self, weak as he is, is less vigilant.  Though figurative literals is not an issue of which I haven't before been aware, seeing it spelled out so precisely and exhaustively fascinates my inner and pathetically dominant nerd.

TWO:  This issue is brand new to me, and I am a little bit embarrassing to admit that, despite its glaring obviousness, I screw this up, as far as I can tell, 100% of the time.  *groan*  Regardless of my pride, however, it's exciting--and by this I mean, I love--to learn this crap, even, or especially, so late as my tenth year teaching.  This is not the first English usage item I've learned via another's blog that will change the way I speak and write ("MISS NOT," at the ever-brilliant Language Log), and certainly, especially considering my general and ever-growing lack (a self-awareness issue, I know) of expertise in my professed area of expertness, will not be the last.

Cheers to learning.

Huck Finn meets Oscar Wilde, and they talk about Accent

It seems that every blog out there that has anything to do with literature or language is posting opinions on the recently publicized and new edition of Huck Finn.  How could I pass up this opportunity to conform, and late, to the writing norm?  Well, I'm passing.  I just saw on my little feed updater (technical term) that The Economist's blog, Johnson, has now made public their stand.  Well, I have already stood (via Facebook, email, and a comment at unmoderatedcaucus.blogspot.com, not to mention a pertinent post on the issue at hand here at The Wall).  However, I heard a bit of local news recently (local to here in Utah) that reminds me, obliquely, of our current culture's particular tendency to change things in the name of correctness (and isn't this stupid coming from the same industry that invented shock value?).

A local theater troop is putting on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of being Earnest (or maybe it was An Ideal Husband).  Anyway, as it will be a local production, most auditioners will surely have an accent with dominant influences almost certainly Western, and likely Utahn, not to mention linguistic quirks specific even to just Utah County.  Despite this, the ad in our local paper says that interested parties must be capable of speaking with a British accent.

(Now allow me to step upon my soap box.)

...uh....   Really?

Maybe it's just me, but I think this is spectacularly stupid.  Aside from the fact that there's no such thing as a "British accent," the likelihood of a consistent accent is so slight as to render to product utterly muddled to distraction from the actual intent of this (either) brilliant play.  Of course, maybe the audience wouldn't notice; and not that I'm some expert in accents, and not that the local audience is so stupid.  Quite the contrary (either).  But if the audience is unlikely to notice discrepancies in accent, and if said accents are implemented, and also if said accents fit the pathetic stereotype United Statesians hold for Britons' accents (though apparently this director thinks there's but one), then would they notice if the actors simply spoke with their own "American" accents, or at least some other standardized accent?

I see this as precisely the opposite problem of the demonized changing of the "n-word" for slave, done in effort to palatize a book with otherwise distasteful words to our modern palate; that is using an accent one believes to be British to make more "authentic" a play that, well, can stand on its own two amply strong, well-balanced, and -proportioned feet without some misguided director's decision.  If that director wanted truly to be accurate in re-representing the accents from the time and location of the play's original and intended performance (and does anyone really think Oscar Wilde would have had such limited purview?),  that director would have to train all his actors in using accent (the noun "accent" left deliberately indefinite and abstract) not only from a specific part of England, but of the specific time.

BUT ACCENTS CHANGE WITH TIME!

Okay, I'm stopping.

I had to get that off my chest.

It's POINTLESS!

DO IT IN STANDARD ENGLISH!  Words = important.  Don't change the words.  The words alone are more than adequately representative of time and place and culture.  Accent = unimportant (well, accent nationality), unless the intent of an accent is to represent archetypes of education or social status, in which case, consider how the movie Airplane (though I've never seen it, I know the story) was translated into Italian: in the original there is a scene where an actor uses a heavy "Ebonics" accent (time and place, people).  In the Italian translation, instead of having the voice actors overdub with Italian words in an "Ebonics" accent (not only absolutely absurd, I'm sure you'll agree, but--I'm pretty sure--impossible), a deep Southern Italian accent was implemented and to equivocal effect.

So:

Dear Utah County Director of Oscar Wilde's Play, An Ideal Husband (or The Importance of being Earnest): there is a wide array of American English accents available and ample enough to supply all the linguistic needs of economic, educational, and social stereotypes present in the play.  Our English is good enough!

Okay.  Now I'm really done.

English Evolution Test -- I FAILED! (even the easiest of the levels)

I consider myself a pretty decent speaker of my native language, English.  I even consider myself a pretty decent speaker of one other language, as well.  According to a recent Facebook post citing an article discussing at what point one might reasonably say that he "speaks" a language, I felt modestly proficient at both. 

--uh, well, until I took this test:

Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices

I didn't notice until after the test started that this test is apparently intended for native speakers of Brittish English. 

Well, that, or I'm not as sharp as I thought I was. 

  

As likely the latter as anything, I'm sure.