“A congrecyon of people, a hoost of men, a felyshyppynge of women, a bevy of ladies, we must speak of a herde of hartys, swannys, cranys, wrennys, a sege of herons, or bytourys, a muster of peacockys, a watche of nyghteyngalys, a flyghte of doves, a claterynge of choughes, a pryde of lyons, a slewthe of beerys, a gagle of geys, a skulke of foxes, a sculle of frerys, a pontyfycalate of prelates, a bomynable syght of monkes, a dronkenshyp of cobblers, and so of other human and brute of assemblages”
This quote carries a dual dedication: to Sara McPherson for this, and Raynor Ganan of the Ragbag for everything. Their independent preoccupations with animal nomenclature and taxonomy called to mind a book I read in high school, more than a decade ago: Cosmic Consciousness, by Richard Maurice Burke.
The sort of idiosyncratic work I am fortunate to have been given by my dad, Cosmic Consciousness was published in 1901 and billed as “A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind.” It was provocative and grand and fascinating, and it influenced me greatly. But there was something specific I remembered about it:
The word felyshyppynge. In reflections on the nature of language, Burke discusses some deprecated collective nouns from English’s past, some of which were so amusing that despite having forgotten thousands of crucially important things since the late 90s, I’ve never forgotten that word.
In addition to those quoted above (emphasis on my favorites), he mentions the words used for preparing food:
“In like manner in dividing game for the table the animals were not carved, but a dere was broken, a gose reryd, a chekyn frusshed, a cony unlacyd, a crane dyspalyed, a curlewe unjointyd, a quayle wynggyd, a swanne lyfte, a lambe sholderyd, a heron dysmembryd, a pecocke dysfygured, a salmon chynyd, a hadoke sydyd, a sole loynyd, and a breme splayed.”
I would love for Raynor or Sara to arrange these in some delightful graphic for the betterment of us all; I would, but I have a felyshyppnge banging my door down and a hadoke which must be sydyd before we begin our meal. Excuse me.
This is too great to not reblog the whole thing. (via mills)
“Can’t we English-speakers just agree upon a gender-neutral pronoun?” attorney Paul Easton recently Twittered. “Tired of PC grammar gymnastics.” Easton isn’t alone. There have been at least 18 recent tweets about the fact that English has no grammatically correct substitutes for words like “he,” “him,” and “his” that do not have a gender implied. Consider the sentence “Everyone loves his mother.” The word “his” may be seen as both sexist and inaccurate, but replacing it with “his or her” seems cumbersome, and “their” is grammatically incorrect.”
On Twitter, is it ‘he or she’ or ‘they’ or ‘ip’? - CNN.com
I agree that this is a problem. Can’t we just fix this by agreeing that “their” should be acceptable grammar? Everyone uses it this way already.
On a cool, personal note, this article quotes a friend:
While everyone knows that “men at work” means “people working,” studies have shown that gendered words do make a difference in how we perceive things, said Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, assistant professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University.
“If you ask children to draw ‘cavemen,’ they do draw cave men,” she said.
(via jeffmiller)
“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”
—Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662) Lettres provinciales.
I’ve been looking for the source of this quote for a long time and now, via esquareda, this page provides what looks like a pretty thorough collection of the variations and original sources. Here are some of the others:
“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” —Henry David Thoreau
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” —Marcus T. Cicero
“You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.” —Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)
“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.” —Mark Twain
theministryoftruth:
The Interrobang (the mutation between an interrogative point and a bang/exclamation mark) could be the most useful punctuation mark that you don’t use. It was invented by Martin K. Speckter in the 1960s and was designed to be used in a few ways - “(1) asks a question in an excited manner, (2) expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question, or (3) asks a rhetorical question”. I often struggle with what to use in such instances and often use a “!?” or “?!” and even miss them both out sometimes when I’m really troubled by what to do! While the “!?” and “?!” are semi-acceptable in informal writing I’ve always felt a little embarrassed when I’ve use them. Not any more though. I propose that an International Interrobang Appreciation Society (IIAS) should be created to force all typeface creators to include the useful mark and also keyboard manufacturers to include one - maybe in place of the tilde and preferably on an Ektopia Modified Quektopia keyboard. Anyways, I don’t have the time or know-how to save the interrobang (apart from use it here and everywhere else I can) so I offer you the International Interrobang Appreciation Society (IIAS) to use as you will. The International Interrobang Appreciation Society (IIAS) is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence so use the interrobang, create websites, print t-shirts, publish books, hold conventions, protest peacefully or do anything else you feel is fit for getting the interrobang back in business. Good luck…I have a feeling we’ll need it!
I’ll join! Is there an ASCII code for an interrobang? Actually, I just aswered my own question. Here it is: “‽” That’s “‽” in HTML.
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