h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yesterday, I saw a yellow triangular sign in a car's rear window, and when I got close enough, I saw that it said "This is a silly yellow sign".

Thanks, Ivan. Another interesting thing that I learned is that Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible in spoken form, but not in written form. (But you probably know that)

Yep! I studied Mandarin, but I only ever hear Cantonese spoken around here... *shrug*

>>I personally think that the whole concept of abrevving words is caused by laziness

I don't think that laziness is a factor in language change at all.

Similar arguments are made for spoken language: "People are too lazy to speak clearly." I (taking my lead from professional linguists) doubt it. It is no more difficult to make one set of mouth movements than another. Changes in speech arise because of a general Human tendency to mumble and elide - especially when speaking fluently. This is found across all languages and always has been. French even makes a virtue of elision!

In writing, I'd say the factor is 'convenience', rather than laziness.
Something like SPQR is both less time-consuming to carve into a block of marble and can be written in much less space than "Senatus Populusque Romani". And imagine the money saved when the mason was payed by the letter!

Similarly Txt. It developed out of a desire to type - quickly - on a 10-key keypad which is less than ideal.

Has anyone produced a bible in txtspk? "N th bgnnng Gd crtd th hvn & th rth. & th rth ws wtht frm, & vd; & drknss ws pn th fc f th dp."

Following the original Hebrew convention!

Shouldn't that be cr8d?

*shudder*

Aagh . . . you're right. & dnss ws pn the f th dp . . . What, no smiley?

Sorry to be picky again, Edwatd, but shouldn't that be 'Romanus' so the adjective agrees with the noun.

I'll have to check....but I believe that it's 'Romani' because it dosn't mean 'Roman' but 'of the Roman people'.

If it was "of the Romans" wouldn't it be "Romanorum"? Is it not simply the plural -- (both) the Roman Senate and people?

Your version gets more Google hits...but that proves nowt! (Gnomon will recall a debate over the phrase 'De gustibus non disputandem', which appears in various incorrect forms on the www.)

One of the web sources suggests that 'Romani' might be nominative plural to agree with both Senatus and Populus....but note that it's also genitive singular or Romanus.

I'm veering towards your version, though. 'Romanus' can mean a Roman person, but a) It would have to be plural genitive and b) there'd be no point, since it follows 'populus'.

Mi dispiace, as the Romans say. My O Levels were a long time ago!

Populus (singular) plus Senatus (singular) = two bodies (plural).

Romanes Eunt Domus (sorry, knee-jerk reaction).

What did the Romans ever do for us?

Furthermore:

"The Romans would never have found the time to conquer the known world if they'd had to learn Latin first" (Heine)

"Is this Conk City?" --Brian that is called Brian, getting up the nose of Mr Big Nose in The Life of Brian.

Ever wondered why a big nose is called a conk?

Well neither did I, but the other day, browsing through my old Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (*that's* what they had before the Net was invented) I came across an entry called "Conqueror's nose" -- it's down the page here http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/283.html

Sorry, to conclude this question: "It would have to be plural genitive and . . . there'd be no point, since it follows 'populus'."

No, nominative plural; it's "Roman" (adjective), not "of the Romans". Agreeing with Senatus Populusque. Senate and Populace *are* Roman, so *are* Marcus and Gaius, there's not only agreement with the populace because it's last.

Enough of this foreign language?

I've checked the inscription on the Arch of Titus and it is spelled out as SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS. Just Google for "titus arch inscription".

>> Do Canadians interpret wastes as different from wide open spaces? <<

Glad you asked. You are quite correct. The use of the word 'wastes' is an inaccurate description for any area other than an industrial dumpsite. To see open plains, marshlands and the polar ice fields as 'wastes' is just plain wrong.

But to 19th century European imperialists, anything that didn't look like the green hills of home or have the potential for plantation development was labelled a 'wasteland' if only to justify future mineral and oil exploitation that would defile the land.

Similarly, the word 'wilderness' was inaccurately applied by explorers in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Unspoiled, un-exploited, un-cultivated yes; but one man's 'wild'-erness is another man's happy hunting ground. The native peoples did not consider their home 'wild'. (Nor were they 'savages'.)

But Europeans did. So it is to be expected that by the time the industrial revolution peaked and the Victorian garden was set as the new world standard for what 'nature' should look like, they would apply the same ethnocentric imperialist values. And so the cliche 'frozen wastes' was happily applied to all of Canada's wetlands, tundra, prairie and even (almost correctly) to the scrubby second growth evergreen forests that grew up where earlier exploiters had clear cut all the oak for European navies and merchantmen.


~jwf~

PS:
And the New England Yankees took all the maple and fruitwoods to make New England Antique furniture. Then the railroads took all the cedar... And the steamships took everything else.
There isn't a birch left that's big enough to make even a small canoe to explore the wilderness wastelands.
All we had left lately was the softwood second growth which makes fine paper for newsprint and bog rolls. But with the new 'paperless' computer technologies and the rising popularity of the bidet the market for our forest products is quickly disappearing.

~jwf~

Times change. Our concerns are no longer colonial concerns. But you can't help people who cling to their pastoral myths. I think Eliot was referring to an interior wasteland, the wasteland of the modern soul in search of ... something. Meaning? Connection? The usual truth and beauty? But we are no longer modern either. Ani.