“….we are generally powerless to interpret reincarnationspeak and yogababble.”
Via Ann Althouse
The Limits of Linguistics
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Monthly Archives: August 2008
Microsoft’s Contribution to the Olympics
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About those driving directions….
The kilt as an Irish garment
….originated in the late 19th century. It is not traditional Irish dress. See What is Traditional Irish Dress by kass_rants (Kass McGann), a well known expert on historical clothing. I have checked and confirmed her references on the subject. Also see this letter from Patrick Pearse.
And that is why I will not be wearing a kilt to the local Irish Fair (A fine event, BTW) this weekend.
Revising Theology
People for the Ethical Treatment of Hadrons
“You’ve got these subatomic particles accelerated at great speeds for the sole purpose of being destroyed. No one thinks of the ethical implications of this….There’s a limited supply of hadrons in the universe. Do we just want to go around destroying them? What if we run out? What if the hadrons can feel pain? Will we look back at this hundreds of years from now and regret it? Kinda like we do with the killing of bacteria with antibiotics now.”
From BBspot via Bad Astronomy.
Monday Night Irish Class, August 4, 2008
Irish Class, August 4, 2008
Irish Class, August 4, 2008
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
Nick had spend much of July at an advanced Irish course in Dublin,
and tonight he gave us a couple samples of what he had learned.
Old Irish
This was a gloss in the St. Gall Priscian 9th
century codex mss in Switzerland, as printed in Thurneysen’s
Old Irish Reader. There some web formatting issues with the notation. It does not display correctly in all browsers. FireFox 3 is fine, but IE 6 and the version of Opera on the Nokia 770 have problems.
| Is acher in gaith in-nocht fu.fūasna fairggæ findḟolt: ni.ágor réimm Mora Minn dond láechraid lainn ūa Lothlind. |
The wind is rough tonight tossing the white combed ocean. I need not dread fierce Vikings crossing the Irish Sea. |
The translation is from The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael.
The monks of Skellig Michael certainly would have appreciated the sentiment of “A Stormy Night”,
even though the author may not have been one of them.
The golden age of Gaelic Scotland
A note on classical literary Gaelic/Early Modern Irish
In last Monday night’s Irish class we talked about Classical Gaelic Poetry from the
early modern (1200-1650 AD) period. I mentioned that I had run across a description
of some of the rules. I found it in
Gàir Nan Clàrsach – The Harps’ Cry: Anthology of 17th Century Gaelic Poetry. The
book is about Scottish Gaelic, but this form of poetry, and the language was common to
both Gaelic Scotland and Ireland in the period. The poets who produced these works had been trained in the genre for years. Their work was aimed at the Gaelic elite, and traditionally they were supported as court poets by the clan chiefs and great lords. Here is a verse from Niall Mòr Mac
Muireadhigh’s Do Ruaidhri Mòr, Mac Leòid (“To Ruaidhri Mòr”), followed by the analysis in the
introduction to the book.
| Fiche meisge linn gach laoi – nochar leisge linn ná lé; fiú i neart ar mbeathaidh do bhí ceathair, a trí, a seacht le sé. |
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 