Thursday, April 22, 2021
Super-random sloppy thought chain
Speaking of smartasses having fun, I'm having fun trying to "retrobuild" an analog computer that could have been used by the astrometeorologists. As with all animations, whether for real courseware or 'courseware without a course', a lot of study is needed along the way. I'm learning the symbols and patterns and geometry of astrology.
One of the small pleasures of reading old library books, whether physically or virtually, is seeing evidence of previous readers. This astrology book was read and notated intensively by one reader. She asked questions and tried to answer them.
Why do I say she? I'm never PC. I know it was she because she made notes in shorthand.
She was easily mixing the astro symbols with the squiggles and curls of shorthand. Humans are miraculous creatures.
Here's where the sloppy thought chain started.
Shorthand reminded me that women in the 20s had special skills from office work. They wrote and read shorthand, typed like an AK-47, and knew the peculiar legalistic boilerplate of business correspondence. Yrs of 14th ult to hand and similar cryptic phrases.
This in turn reminded me that those women used some of the boilerplate as slang. They especially used the legalistic said and same.
This led to an observation.
Same is a reflexive pronoun, and those former flappers used it actively as a reflexive pronoun. Standard English doesn't have a reflexive pronoun. Russian retained the Indo-European se in its full use. Latinate languages retained it but use it ambiguously.
We missed the chance to regain a useful bit of grammatical mechanism.
Footnote: The text visible in the screencaps above is typical of this book. The author classifies all the possible human types by planetary aspect, and all of them are ferociously negative. Only a few types might halfway deserve to live for a while in secure captivity. The exact opposite of the usual newspaper horoscope or fortune-teller who gives out vague and pleasant descriptions that could apply to anyone.
She was easily mixing the astro symbols with the squiggles and curls of shorthand. Humans are miraculous creatures.
Here's where the sloppy thought chain started.
Shorthand reminded me that women in the 20s had special skills from office work. They wrote and read shorthand, typed like an AK-47, and knew the peculiar legalistic boilerplate of business correspondence. Yrs of 14th ult to hand and similar cryptic phrases.
This in turn reminded me that those women used some of the boilerplate as slang. They especially used the legalistic said and same.
This led to an observation.
Same is a reflexive pronoun, and those former flappers used it actively as a reflexive pronoun. Standard English doesn't have a reflexive pronoun. Russian retained the Indo-European se in its full use. Latinate languages retained it but use it ambiguously.
We missed the chance to regain a useful bit of grammatical mechanism.
Footnote: The text visible in the screencaps above is typical of this book. The author classifies all the possible human types by planetary aspect, and all of them are ferociously negative. Only a few types might halfway deserve to live for a while in secure captivity. The exact opposite of the usual newspaper horoscope or fortune-teller who gives out vague and pleasant descriptions that could apply to anyone.Labels: Language update, se-lu, skill-estate
¶ 8:55 AM
