Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Nearholmer]

There are stupid people left, right and centre, and there are clever people left, right and centre, and there are people of middling intelligence left, right and centre.

The only times I’ve ever seen studies that correlated a particular degree of intelligence, or more truthfully a particular level of educational attainment, with political position were one that showed those holding a degree or higher were more likely to be ‘centre-left’ disposed than the population at large, and, of course the post Brexit vote polls, where those holding a degree or higher were more likely than the population at large to have voted in favour of remaining part of the EU.

[Edwardian]

32 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Just an observation : by definition, for anyone standing on the "far-left" end of the spectrum (loudly signalling their own self-rightiousness), almost everybody else is perceived as "stupid" and "right-wing", even those of us in the centre. It's only a matter of degree.

 

No patience with either extreme; both are equally delusional. 

[Edwardian]

50 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Ah, I see. I was thinking of the unthinking right’s inability spot itself being parodied.

 

Hence my comment on the lack of intelligence being brought to bear!

 

Still, if you can believe Loser Don won an election and that it was "stolen" from him ......

[Ian Simpson]

I think Tom Walker's main point (he's the once-struggling actor who plays Jonathan Pie) is that the Left needs to make an effort to understand and engage with opposing points of views. He's not arguing that socialists should accept these ideas, but should at least be able to explain clearly why they are wrong rather than simply resorting to abuse or no-platforming them.

If that sounds a bit po-faced, there's a CNN interview with him here:

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by Ian Simpson

[drmditch]

The problem with all these elections, referendums (*) etc, is that so many people will insist on voting the wrong way.

 

I am reminded of the 'now we must educate our masters' statement made after the passage of the 1867 Reform Bill, which I am sure I have seen attributed to the then Mr Disraeli (**). However, a Google search seems to attribute it to a great many other people.

 

Perhaps the only solution is the 'one man one vote' principal as practiced in Ankh-Morpork by Lord Vetinari, he being the one man with the one vote. 

 

Excuse me. I have a wagon vacuum cylinder to replace.

 

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* I have recently become less inclined to use Latinate plurals in a language whose construction if not all it's vocabulary is basically Anglo-Saxon. It can sometimes result in excessive susurration as in 'octopuses', but on the whole preferable in a language whose irregular plurals are beyond many contemprary speakers anyway.

 

** I have made a quick scan in Blake, but must not get too involved. Early summer was my time for the mid-19th century and I have since moved back to the later Roman era(***).  Of course the politics of Mr Edwardian's era are also fascinating, but the attitudes to social and economic justice, problems of empire etc etc are a little too contemporary to be comfortable.

 

*** With a recent excursion to the naval battles of the opening months of WW1, especially Coronel and the Falklands. They are representative of so much that is good and bad in our world.

 

[sem34090]

2 hours ago, Ian Simpson said:

I think Tom Walker's main point (he's the once-struggling actor who plays Jonathan Pie) is that the Left needs to make an effort to understand and engage with opposing points of views. He's not arguing that socialists should accept these ideas, but should at least be able to explain clearly why they are wrong rather than simply resorting to abuse or no-platforming them.

If that sounds a bit po-faced, there's a CNN interview with him here:

 

Not the interview I saw but sounds as if he says similar; I agree with him wholeheartedly.

[Regularity]

6 hours ago, sem34090 said:

Turns out he's a traditional socialist

What does that mean? It covers most things from just off centre to short of totalitarian Marxist.

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, drmditch said:

 

 

Excuse me. I have a wagon vacuum cylinder to replace.

 

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* I have recently become less inclined to use Latinate plurals in a language whose construction if not all it's vocabulary is basically Anglo-Saxon. It can sometimes result in excessive susurration as in 'octopuses', but on the whole preferable in a language whose irregular plurals are beyond many contemprary speakers anyway.

 

 

 

Be very careful of what you discard with disdain.

 

Most European languages have between 180,000 and 220,000 words.  English - by dint of its roots in Anglo-Saxon overlaid be Normand Latin- Early French has around 400.000.

 

This richness of language means that we enjoy the possibility of expressing ourselves in a way that many other nations in their mother tongues can only dream of.

 

But if you do decide to eschew the Latin part of the language then beware of the limitations that will bring. 

You will no longer have opportunity to criticise any part of our governing system

Government

Parliament

Council 

and even Mayor

All have roots in the Franco-Latin part of our language.

 

You will be descended into a keeper of animals and not an eater of animals

You may keep a:

Cow (Kuh) but not eat beef (bouef)

Sheep (Schaerfe) but not eat mutton (mouton)

Swine (Schwein) but not eat pork (porc). 

 

But whatever you eat it will be at home

The Restaurant and the Café will be barred as being Francophone rooted words.  

Just possible that Greggs has a Saxon root though

 

From the above you might quickly establish the social standing of Anglo Saxons.  No part in the running of the country, kept animals but did not eat them and did not dine out.  

 

 

[Compound2632]

42 minutes ago, Regularity said:

What does that mean? It covers most things from just off centre to short of totalitarian Marxist.

 

That's why it's such a handy term.

[sem34090]

A poor choice of words on my part; I'm now confused by what e actually meant.

 

I'm tired...

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, drmditch said:

The problem with all these elections, referendums (*) etc, is that so many people will insist on voting the wrong way.

 

 

 

 

Give people free will and they choose badly!

 

Trouble is, the cure is worse than the disease.

 

Radio 4's excellent Tolkienesque parody, Elvenquest, has a delicious episode featuring the White Wizard, who is unmistakably Tony Blair, and who just wants the world to be perfect. He, of course, seeks to achieve this by an authoritarian eradication of free will, while continuing to self-identify as the Good Guy.

 

See also the excellently droll Stalone movie Demolition Man.  Beware of Utopians at all costs! They mean well ....

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Most European languages have between 180,000 and 220,000 words.  English - by dint of its roots in Anglo-Saxon overlaid be Normand Latin- Early French has around 400.000.

 

This richness of language means that we enjoy the possibility of expressing ourselves in a way that many other nations in their mother tongues can only dream of.

 

And yet, we have far fewer swear words than Latin...

Quote

 

But if you do decide to eschew the Latin part of the language then beware of the limitations that will bring. 

You will no longer have opportunity to criticise any part of our governing system

Government

Parliament

Council 

and even Mayor

All have roots in the Franco-Latin part of our language.

 

You will be descended into a keeper of animals and not an eater of animals

You may keep a:

Cow (Kuh) but not eat beef (bouef)

Sheep (Schaerfe) but not eat mutton (mouton)

Swine (Schwein) but not eat pork (porc). 

 

We could still do all of those things, just as they did, but with different words, for example cow-meat, assembly, town leader.

Quote

 

But whatever you eat it will be at home

The Restaurant and the Café will be barred as being Francophone rooted words.  

 

Largely a moot point under the lockdown...

But again, we would simply have other words for them.

Quote

Just possible that Greggs has a Saxon root though

The possessive S (without apostrophe) is from Norse languages.

The name Greg is derived from Greek, via Latin, and came to us via Christianisation.

 

[drmditch]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Be very careful of what you discard with disdain.

 

Most European languages have between 180,000 and 220,000 words.  English - by dint of its roots in Anglo-Saxon overlaid be Normand Latin- Early French has around 400.000.

 

This richness of language means that we enjoy the possibility of expressing ourselves in a way that many other nations in their mother tongues can only dream of.

 

But if you do decide to eschew the Latin part of the language then beware of the limitations that will bring. 

You will no longer have opportunity to criticise any part of our governing system

Government

Parliament

Council 

and even Mayor

All have roots in the Franco-Latin part of our language.

 

You will be descended into a keeper of animals and not an eater of animals

You may keep a:

Cow (Kuh) but not eat beef (bouef)

Sheep (Schaerfe) but not eat mutton (mouton)

Swine (Schwein) but not eat pork (porc). 

 

But whatever you eat it will be at home

The Restaurant and the Café will be barred as being Francophone rooted words.  

Just possible that Greggs has a Saxon root though

 

From the above you might quickly establish the social standing of Anglo Saxons.  No part in the running of the country, kept animals but did not eat them and did not dine out.  

 

 

 

You are completely missing my original point. What I object to (after many years and much reflection) are not the words of Latin origin, (and even modern German has a 25% Latin word content.) but the use of attempted plural forms in Latin.

 

Since Latin was, and in vocabulary at least may still be, an evolving language, we end up attempting to decline nouns  in a language which does not normally do so.

 

Whereas I might accept 'forum' and 'fora', as at least being classical in origin, I do not think that a 'referendum'  was likely to be held in Rome before modern times, and therefore a plural form of 'referenda' is unnecessary.  Indeed  I am afraid that many of our 'own' irregular plurals are under threat. I have heard several people recently use 'deers' as the plural of 'deer'.

 

In short I think that the use of unnecessarily latinate plurals is not actually 'classicist', but just 'classist'!

 

Now of course someone will come up with a particular railway-related word and prove me wrong!

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

So, are people to spend their summer evenings on verandums now?

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Regularity]

41 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

So, are people to spend their summer evenings on verandums now?

Would partly depend on the spelling: verandah does not follow Latin rules... ...because varanda is the original Hindi word, so nothing to do with pesky Etruscans imposing their language of government (the lingua Franca of the Roman Empire, for general communication, the arts, etc, was Greek, but most people would have been polylingual anyway).

[Edwardian]

8 hours ago, Regularity said:

Would partly depend on the spelling: verandah does not follow Latin rules... ...because varanda is the original Hindi word, so nothing to do with pesky Etruscans imposing their language of government (the lingua Franca of the Roman Empire, for general communication, the arts, etc, was Greek, but most people would have been polylingual anyway).

 

How splendid that you include the 'h' at the end.  I always have, though computer speller checkers the world over seem to hate it*.

 

I feel that a pink gin as a sun-downer needs a verandah with an H.  Chin-chin!

 

* Though, amazingly, it seems not RMWeb's Websterphone spellchecker. 

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

So, are people to spend their summer evenings on verandums now?

 

In my mind's eye, a verandum is a lean-to porch that doesn't quite have confidence in its status. 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I threw verandahs in to illustrate the point that we are fortunate enough to have words that originate a lot further away than Europe.

 

My father was mad-keen on all this stuff so nobody in our house could escape knowing that the English language is rich because we have at least two, usually more, words for any given thing, each with subtly different meaning and social connotation.

 

We’re not as good at psychological concepts conveyed by compound words as the Germans are though. That was another of my father’s ‘things’!

[Edwardian]

17 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, I threw verandahs in to illustrate the point that we are fortunate enough to have words that originate a lot further away than Europe.

 

 

Our dogs are frequently, and loudly, condemned as "badmash puppies!"

[CKPR]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

We’re not as good at psychological concepts conveyed by compound words as the Germans are though

 

Speaking as a clinical psychologist, we've got quite enough psychobabble nonsense in English without importing any from German, thank you very much.

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

We’re not as good at psychological concepts conveyed by compound words as the Germans are though. That was another of my father’s ‘things’!

Not sure that I agree with that.  In English we simply string nouns together and essentially use them as adjectives.  So an example from my world of experience we might talk of a failure of a rector stirrer bearings housing - where reactor, stirrer and bearings are all nouns but used adjectivally to describe/define the housing.  In German you would simply concatenate reactor, stirrer and bearings - probably not including housing which would be used in the genitive.  

[Edwardian]

On 14/11/2020 at 14:36, Compound2632 said:

 

Go. Now. Before the BTP catch up with you.

 

Eh?

 

 

Will that happen at the next meeting of the G6?

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Grief! I wouldn't say "Alexander McDonnell" to that gang.

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Not sure that I agree with that. 

 

My point was as much about the fact that Germans (possibly Austrians in some cases) have a tendency to identify psychological concepts that we don't even recognise, so never need to give names to, as about how they construct the words.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

My point was as much about the fact that Germans (possibly Austrians in some cases) have a tendency to identify psychological concepts that we don't even recognise 

 

Like schadenfreude