One of the fun things about learning another language is that you understand your native language better, and find weird holes and gaps in both.
Here's one of my favorite examples: English, as far as I know, has no positive, active way to say "to not know"; it can only be formulated as a negative (not knowing) or a passive (I am ignorant). It does has a word for the condition--ignorance--but to "ignore" something is definitely not the same as not to know it.
In Spanish, however, "ignorar" means "to not know", expressed as a positive declaration. Interestingly, Spanish does not, as far as I know, have any single word that expresses the English meaning of "to ignore", and the phrase that translates it best, "no hacer caso", is formulated as a negative.
Very curious!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Poem of the Day
Sailing to Byzantium, W.B. Yeats
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
***
Stanza 2 in particular is a favorite of mine. "Perne" means "to spin" or "to move in a spiral motion", and apparently Yeats is the only writer, or almost the only writer, to have used it; the online Oxford English Dictionary gives the definition above specifically "in the works of W.B. Yeats, or in reference to [his work]."
That Yeats.
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
***
Stanza 2 in particular is a favorite of mine. "Perne" means "to spin" or "to move in a spiral motion", and apparently Yeats is the only writer, or almost the only writer, to have used it; the online Oxford English Dictionary gives the definition above specifically "in the works of W.B. Yeats, or in reference to [his work]."
That Yeats.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Burdies
As Robert Burns would call them, have been seen in profusion 'round Chez Indessed, and Lady J has chronicled their antics. There are many birds 'round my apartment complex as well; it is next to the campus quad, and it's a nice green space for them. Pigeons and crows abound, and there is also a sort of non-pigeon dove which lives here and calls at night and in the early morning. (I have no idea why it would call at night; I don't think they're nocturnal, and to call from your nest seems like saying "Come and get me!" to nocturnal prowlers.) I only discovered what kind of bird it was that made that call a few days ago; it is not a very dovelike call.
We used to have a hawk who would come and perch on the light fixture next to the building, but the construction next door seems to have frightened it away. One of my favorite bird memories out here was seeing a red-tailed hawk circle at low altitude (~40 feet) over the park as we played softball and our high-school neighbors carried on their football practice. Urban wilderness!
We used to have a hawk who would come and perch on the light fixture next to the building, but the construction next door seems to have frightened it away. One of my favorite bird memories out here was seeing a red-tailed hawk circle at low altitude (~40 feet) over the park as we played softball and our high-school neighbors carried on their football practice. Urban wilderness!
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