Castle Aching

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

I do not know, and there is always the risk that Protestant polemicists are over-egging the inquisition pudding, however, both images depict the strappado, a form of torture that was very much associated with the Inquisition. An apparent reference for this is Inquisition from Its Establishment to the Great Schism: An Introductory Study by A. L. Maycock, Intro. by Ronald Knox, Kessinger Publishing, 2003 ISBN 0-7661-7290-2,ISBN 978-0-7661-7290-6 p. 162. This work is quite old, 1920s, though it is perhaps interesting to learn that Knox was a Roman Catholic priest of some note. 

 

Aren't we lot cheerful this morning?

 

My fault, but the day started with an emphatic condemnation of a whole section of society as sinful and wrong on the inane basis that "that's what the Bible says, so you can't call me a bigot".  I had to vent, and I have no other outlet! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox

[St Enodoc]

44 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

For which, Tolkien coined the word mathom, along with the custom of giving such things on one's birthday (if one is a hobbit) rather than receiving them. 

Not having read Tolkien for about 40 years, I'd forgotten that word. It could be linked to "mammoth", which might suggest a further link to "white elephant".

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, St Enodoc said:

Not having read Tolkien for about 40 years, I'd forgotten that word. It could be linked to "mammoth", which might suggest a further link to "white elephant".

 

I like that - not a connection made in any of the analyses I looked at after posting - from which I did learn that the word is Tolkien's modernisation of a genuine Anglo-Saxon word mathum, used several times in Beowulf and meaning a high-value gift from a lord to one of his followers.

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I like that - not a connection made in any of the analyses I looked at after posting - from which I did learn that the word is Tolkien's modernisation of a genuine Anglo-Saxon word mathum, used several times in Beowulf and meaning a high-value gift from a lord to one of his followers.

That sounds far more plausible.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

5 hours ago, DonB said:

I don't hear the charities complaining...

 

That would be uncharitable ...........

[Edwardian]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I like that - not a connection made in any of the analyses I looked at after posting - from which I did learn that the word is Tolkien's modernisation of a genuine Anglo-Saxon word mathum, used several times in Beowulf and meaning a high-value gift from a lord to one of his followers.

 

Indeed, quite correct; see The Ring of Words, Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary, Gulliver, Marshall & Weiner, OUP 2006, ISBN0-19-861069-6.

 

The authors identify this as a Tolkien revival of an Old English word of Germanic descent, modernising the spelling from the various original forms. The authors opine that Tolkien would find humour in using a word meaning "treasure", and denoting high-status or diplomatic gift-giving, to describe the bric-à-brac exchanged in the Shire.  

[Hroth]

Speaking of words in LoTR, I've just had the pleasure of listening to Petroc Trelawny on Radio 3 announce the weather in Wetwang ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetwang ), without missing a beat....

 

Astute members of the Parish Council will of course know that Wetwang is a village in the Yorkshire Wolds and also a colloquial name for the swamp Nindalf on the River Anduin.

 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Hroth

[drmditch]

Ah - autumn is here! The best time for re-reading 'Lord of the Rings'.

Then winter, and an afternoon with 'Wind in the Willows'.

 

Just at the moment I'm back in the 17th century with the Bill of Rights.

(Tim Harris 'Revolution - The great crisis of the British Monarch')

 

Now I need to wake up and finish a model of an LNER Horsebox originally built in 1938.

Significant year anybody?

 

(Apologies for raising a post-grouping reference. The next rolling-stock project will definitely be much earlier.)

 

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by drmditch
Unfortunate indelicate reference added by horrible predictive text!

[Hroth]

The first time I read LoTR was a Christmas long ago, when I was feeling particularly antisocial.  I had the omnibus edition with an illustration from the animated film on the cover (a scene of the Black Riders in the Shire) which dates it to 78-79 I suppose... 

 

Anyhow, I read through it between Christmas Day and Boxing Day, quick reading even for me!

 

[Annie]

I forget how many times I read LoTR when I was a teenager.  More than likely total escapism for a quiet schoolgirl who found herself getting picked on a lot.

[Nearholmer]

The only part of it that I ever got into was the description of The Shire, then the party and preparation for expedition, all of which I think is the best pre-travel writing I’ve ever read, and always makes me want to load the panniers and get ready to

pedal.

 

The actual adventures/wars etc quickly drove me round the bend, and I didn’t persist beyond about 3/4”.

 

Inventing alternative universes/worlds isn’t all that difficult, and I’ve always found that the invention process shows through the covers too clearly.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

The first time I read LoTR was a Christmas long ago, when I was feeling particularly antisocial. 

 

31 minutes ago, Annie said:

I forget how many times I read LoTR when I was a teenager.  

 

1 hour ago, drmditch said:

Ah - autumn is here! The best time for re-reading 'Lord of the Rings'.

 

 

Yes, time I re-read it. That will certainly improve my winter. 

 

I have read LOTR many times, so it provides for me a measure of how one's perception of a work of fiction changes due to age and experience. I have not read it for, oh, I'd say 10 or 12 years. Too long. Latterly I had found that I became too pre-occupied with the fact that, like Wagner's Ring, it's all about death. That became a bit gloomy, but at my current stage of evolution, I will probably focus on the fact that it's all about redemption, too.

[Annie]

It's been a good many years now since I last read LoTR so it would be an interesting experiment to read it again and see if I'll still fall as deep into it as I did when I was 17.  Fortunately it's been a good few years too since I last watched Peter Jackson's LoTR films so reading LoTR again should be reasonably free of most of my past impressions and almost a new experience.

[Nearholmer]

Maybe I should have another crack at it ..... but I can’t say I’m brimming with enthusiasm.

[corneliuslundie]

"model of an LNER Horsebox originally built in 1938"

I didn't know you had been modelling that long

Hat, coat etc

 

LoTR has a Christian subplot, of course. Just think about the last couple of chapters.

But let's get back to pregrouping - not sure where LoTR fits into that.

Jonathan

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

LoTR? By the time it became popular here I was an adult with problems more significant than dopey teenage angst and post hippy searches for the meaning of everything. I was working for a living. 

 

As far as the meaning of everything went I think I quickly decided that most of what we called problems were actually what one would now call first world problems like which restaurant to try, rather than will I have enough money tomorrow to have the first decent feed I've had in a week.

 

Or that now current nagging first world problem of what gender am I at the moment and how do I express the depth of my outrage that no one has sympathised with my eternal search for self-identity and what gender I am.  Apparently some UK pop singer is now claiming that he/she/don't know should be identified as they because he/she/don't know hasn't decided despite the fact they have incipient male pattern baldness and a beard. Personally I'd suggest a look in the mirror would help but perhaps I'm being insensitive.

 

So to me LoTR falls into that post late 60s period when fairy stories had some existential meaning for people who decided that growing up was not a career option, but smoking marijuana whilst carrying a dog eared copy of the book was considered to indicate you had a first class intellect while avoiding the reality of using that first class intellect to actually achieve something. In any case I prefer well crafted modern crime writing or a decent history or for light amusement a good dose of Trollope.

 

So from that you may see that I think LoTR is for poseurs. 

[Annie]

Gosh Malcolm words fail me..............

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, drmditch said:

post-groping

Sounds like fun...

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

LoTR has a Christian subplot, of course. Just think about the last couple of chapters.

But let's get back to pregrouping - not sure where LoTR fits into that.

 

But not as overtly so as Tolkiens fellow Inkling friend CS Lewis did with his "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" series.  As for the railways, Tolkien probably classed them as works of Mordor,  the Mordor and Osgiliath Light Railway never seemed to get a mention...

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Maybe I should have another crack at it ..... but I can’t say I’m brimming with enthusiasm.

 

Don't let us badger you into it... 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Hroth

[Skinnylinny]

1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

As far as the meaning of everything went I think I quickly decided that most of what we called problems were actually what one would now call first world problems like which restaurant to try, rather than will I have enough money tomorrow to have the first decent feed I've had in a week.

 

Or that now current nagging first world problem of what gender am I at the moment and how do I express the depth of my outrage that no one has sympathised with my eternal search for self-identity and what gender I am.  Apparently some UK pop singer is now claiming that he/she/don't know should be identified as they because he/she/don't know hasn't decided despite the fact they have incipient male pattern baldness and a beard. Personally I'd suggest a look in the mirror would help but perhaps I'm being insensitive.

Well, as a non-binary person who uses "they/them" pronouns, I can see with whom I'm not welcome. It's not that I don't know my gender, it's that I am neither male nor female. It's not outrage, either, just a request that people don't refer to me as "him" or "her" when I'm patently neither. Oh, and if your argument is against using "they" for a singular person for grammatical reasons, then I present to you the following ditty:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Singular "they"'s older
Than singular "you".

Wouldst thou therefore that we treat the English language as immutable?

[runs as required]

12 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Knox

Thank you. That was an interesting link; it took me into several pleasant hours of peripatetic time wasting, via Zanzibar, the Oxfords; Central Africa and the Anson family (Lord Lichfield and the LNW's fake tunnel past Shugborough Hall), the Avro Anson, back into the Seven Years War and procurement of Ships of the Line . 

Phew!

Trouble is tomorrow I shall be unable to regurgitate any of it.

2

Probably too late (at the speed CA flits past) to recall the arguments in detail of the young Maltese curator of the recently restored Inquisitor's Palace in Grand Harbour about his Marxist take on the Inquisition being a defence of working class Christians' vernacular rights in the face of Elites.

Familiar?

dh

 

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

if your argument is against using "they" for a singular person for grammatical reasons, then I present to you the following ditty:

Wouldst thou therefore that we treat the English language as immutable?

 

By no means - English is possibly the most mutable of languages. Being married to a lexicographer makes one very aware of this. "They" is now well-established as the non-gender-specific singular third person pronoun; it's just too useful to do without. 

[sem34090]

At risk of losing every friend I have on here...

 

I can agree with parts of what both of you say. Oxymoronic (Not that this is necessarily the correct term, I may simply be starved of oxygen and therefore just moronic...) though that may seem, there are elements of both that I can extract and agree with. 

 

So, Malcolm - I agree that there does appear to be rather a lot of people who use gender and sexuality to gain attention for themselves, even if this is a genuine part of their lives some of them seem to play it up for attention, air-time and publicity. (assuming that you've observed and intended to refer to this, I don't know who you were referring to) I can't stand this, it actually annoys me rather a lot, and Pride events seem to have rather a similar effect on me. People using their seemingly natural being to gain attention, and indirectly (sometimes directly) reinforcing negative stereotypes. These events, tokenism in the media, people using sexuality and gender to knowingly gain publicity, attention and privilege seem, to me, to do more harm than good - Yes they raise the profile of the LGBTQ+ community, but they also seem to raise, reinforce and play on existing stereotypes. Most people seem to have some form of 'gay' stereotype in their minds, I'm no different, and seeing people acting in deliberately outrageous ways, wearing deliberately outrageous clothing seems only to reinforce that in my mind.

 

But I agree with Linny insomuch as most non-binary people don't seem to do that (in my severely limited experience), and I have nothing against such people living how they feel they need to. I have struggled to accept that some people feel that they are neither male nor female, I suppose this comes from living in a very binary society, and I still don't understand how it can be so. But I've put that to one side -it's not important to me- as I see accepting such people, or at least treating them in the same way as I would treat any other, as the greater issue. I have now got used to using 'they' when referring to non-binary people, though it took a little bit of getting used to I will admit, and so long as people don't expect me to know how to refer to them before they've actually told me I'm fine with it!

 

The majority of people prefer to be referred to by the traditional binary pronouns, so there needs to be understanding on all sides.

 

I should add that I'm not accusing you of trying to gain attention or getting unduly 'offended', Linny, just my view on things currently. I may be wrong - I'm happy for others to present evidence to the contrary. I would rather not be branded as being transphobic, non-binary-phobic (?), homophobic or fascist, nor would I like to be branded a snowflake or neo-lib, as I consider myself to be none of those. I've been called them all before though, sometimes at the same time in a seemingly contradictory fashion, so I doubt it would bother me unduly.

 

 

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, drmditch said:

Apologies for raising a post-groping reference

 

Post groping is probably more socially acceptable than thigh groping, but each to their own...

 

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

Astute members of the Parish Council will of course know that Wetwang is a village in the Yorkshire Wolds and also a colloquial name for the swamp Nindalf on the River Anduin.

Erudite readers with a copy of "The Meaning of Liff" will also know that "wetwang" is a word for a moist pen15.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Regularity
Apparently anatomically correct words are not allowed.