Hiatus Fail
Order of business: Dear Portuguese anon, I saw your comment, which was summarily deleted because you did not sign it, as is my policy. Also, should there be any other lurkers without LJ accounts: I DON'T LIKE ANONYMOUS COWARDS. NO UNSIGNED COMMENTS. EVER. If you don't have an LJ account, I'm not going to make you get one, but I delete comments when people don't leave their names.
I'm in this place where I really like being not-online all the time, and being free of pressure to Respond To This Immediately, but miss you people. I don't know what I propose to do about this. To forestall having to make an actual decision, I give you yet another example of how it is my mind works.
I'm reading vol. 1 of the collected works of Edward Sapir (this delightful little offering is called General Linguistics. I think you would be a lot happier if you didn't know how I pick what to read, so I'll spare you my selection process and why I chose this). For the most part, it's yawn city (and I like linguistics mind you), but part of Sapir's essay "The Grammarian and His Language" stands out to me, so I'll share it with you.
But when Achilles has bewailed the death of his beloved Patroclus and Clytaemnestra has done her worst, what are we to do with the Greek aorists that are left on our hands?
At university, I used to obsessively visit the 9th floor (where the classical language-and-literature material is kept) and work my way through the many Festschriften to be found there. (I still do this, actually.) I started on the Festschriften about a year or two before I actually started learning Greek, so I read a lot about the aorist in this fashion. When I actually got to learn the aorist tense, I was pathetically excited because I'd read so much about the aorist and the uses thereof that it was kind of like getting to hang out with a celebrity.
I used the word "aorist" three times in the above paragraph, not counting where I was quoting Sapir. God damn me.
Anyway, Sapir then goes on to say:
There is a traditional mode of procedure which arranges [the Greek aorists] into patterns. It is called grammar. The man who is in charge of grammar and is called a grammarian is regarded by all plain men as a frigid and dehumanized pedant.
LOL PWNT. The little joys of scholarly monographs are without number.
Totally unrelated to the above, I grilled pork chops outside tonight and did not overcook them. WIN. We had grilled balsamic pork and peaches for dinner, except we had no peaches and no ready cash to go get any, so I used nectarines. It wasn't bad, but the nectarines weren't ripe enough for emotional satisfaction and peaches are higher in sugar so would have caramelized more satisfactorily. Still, not bad. Also, I'm not sure what my position on "gourmet herbal salad mix" is.
I'm in this place where I really like being not-online all the time, and being free of pressure to Respond To This Immediately, but miss you people. I don't know what I propose to do about this. To forestall having to make an actual decision, I give you yet another example of how it is my mind works.
I'm reading vol. 1 of the collected works of Edward Sapir (this delightful little offering is called General Linguistics. I think you would be a lot happier if you didn't know how I pick what to read, so I'll spare you my selection process and why I chose this). For the most part, it's yawn city (and I like linguistics mind you), but part of Sapir's essay "The Grammarian and His Language" stands out to me, so I'll share it with you.
But when Achilles has bewailed the death of his beloved Patroclus and Clytaemnestra has done her worst, what are we to do with the Greek aorists that are left on our hands?
At university, I used to obsessively visit the 9th floor (where the classical language-and-literature material is kept) and work my way through the many Festschriften to be found there. (I still do this, actually.) I started on the Festschriften about a year or two before I actually started learning Greek, so I read a lot about the aorist in this fashion. When I actually got to learn the aorist tense, I was pathetically excited because I'd read so much about the aorist and the uses thereof that it was kind of like getting to hang out with a celebrity.
I used the word "aorist" three times in the above paragraph, not counting where I was quoting Sapir. God damn me.
Anyway, Sapir then goes on to say:
There is a traditional mode of procedure which arranges [the Greek aorists] into patterns. It is called grammar. The man who is in charge of grammar and is called a grammarian is regarded by all plain men as a frigid and dehumanized pedant.
LOL PWNT. The little joys of scholarly monographs are without number.
Totally unrelated to the above, I grilled pork chops outside tonight and did not overcook them. WIN. We had grilled balsamic pork and peaches for dinner, except we had no peaches and no ready cash to go get any, so I used nectarines. It wasn't bad, but the nectarines weren't ripe enough for emotional satisfaction and peaches are higher in sugar so would have caramelized more satisfactorily. Still, not bad. Also, I'm not sure what my position on "gourmet herbal salad mix" is.