Birthday Present

My birthday was this month (I don't care either). If you've read my book, instead of buying me a used wargame on ebay, leave a review at my Amazon page.

Brazilian Stoats

A few times a year for as long as I care to remember, I think about stoats. If you're American you may not know what a stoat is...maybe a kind of cigar, like a stogie or a cheroot? Good guess, but no: a stoat is a short-tailed weasel. In winter, the stoat's fur becomes white, and is called ermine. It's still associated with European royalty.

That's a good-looking Queen. By the way, the black bits are the tails- they don't change color.

So yesterday during a discussion of playing trivia in pubs, an English friend said he clinched a recent round "through identifying a weasel, stoat, otter and ferret." That being the first time I've ever heard stoats mentioned in conversation, I said I think about them regularly. To which he replied "...what?" I explained that decades ago I read a story based on Orwell's 1984. Couldn't remember its name, but in the story the political apparatus was so dilapidated that there were no rats available for Room 101. The interrogators asked Winston if he might be afraid of stoats, they had one of those. He said he didn't much like them, so they brought in the stoat. But it was an old stoat and not very scary.

A few minutes' online searching turned it up. Was it 1985 by Gyorgy Dalos? No! Was it 1985 by Anthony Burgess? No! It was "Owing to Circumstances Beyond Our Control 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained" by Alan Coren. Here's the critical bit:

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 "Ah, Smith, Winston," cried the white-coated man at the door of Room 101. "Won't you come in? Rats, I believe, are what you, ha-ha-ha, fear most of all. Big brown rats. Big brown pink-eyed rats..."

"NO," screamed Smith, "NOT RATS, ANYTHING BUT RATS, NO, NO, NO."

"...rats with long slithery tails, Smith, fat, hungry rats, rats with sharp little..."

"Oh, do shut up, Esmond," interrupted his assistant wearily. "You know we haven't got any rats. We haven't seen a rat since last December's delivery."

"No rats?" gasped Smith.

Esmond sighed, and shook his head. Then he suddenly brightened.

"We've got mice though," he cried. "Big, fat, hungry, pink-eyed..."

"I don't mind mice," said Smith.

They looked at him.

"You're not making our job any easier, you know," muttered Esmond.

"Try him on toads," said Esmond's assistant. "Can't move in the stockroom for toads."

"That's it!" exclaimed Esmond. "Toads, big, fat, slimy..."

"I quite like toads," said Smith.

There was a long pause.

"Spiders?"

"Lovely little things," said Smith. "If it's any help, I can't stand moths."

"Moths," cried Esmond. "Where do you think you are, bloody Harrod's? We can't get moths for love nor money."

"Comes in here, big as you please, asking for moths," said Esmond's assistant.

Smith thought for a while.

"I'm not all that keen on stoats," he said at last.

"At last," said Esmond. "I thought we'd be here all night. Give him a stoat, Dennis."

So they put Winston Smith in Room 101 with a stoat. It was an old stoat, and it just sat on the floor, wheezing, and as far as Smith was concerned, things could have been, all things considered, a lot worse.

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But that's not why I think of stoats. I think of stoats because I think of Brazil:

 

 

No, not Brazil; Brazil:

 

You know, the movie:

Brazil (1985) is a satirical take on George Orwell's 1984. Being the brainchild of Terry Gilliam, who did all the whimsical graphics on Monty Python's Flying Circus, it's a visual spectacle. And there are no stoats in Brazil in case you were wondering. But it still reminds of stoats, because in Brazil, the government is buffoonish, bumbling, intrusive, and incompetent. For all that silliness though, it's no less dangerous to its citizens than 1984's Big Brother. So Brazil has always reminded me of Alan Coren's shortstory, and by extension, stoats. I've always assumed that the story was the inspiration for the movie. That would make sense beyond the similar concepts: "Owing to Circumstances Beyond Our Control 1984 Has Been Unavoidably Detained" was first published in Punch magazine in 1974. It's no stretch to imagine Terry Gilliam reading Punch.

But I haven't been able to find any connection between the story and the movie.

Thank You Note

Lisa Mladnich's link to this post reminded me of my favorite Catechism Class Thank You Note. Homemade, it simply reads "God loves a cheerful giver," which was first said by that famous grump St. Paul, of all people; and which by coincidence is my favorite exhortation to my brother Knights of Columbus.

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It makes my day. Every day.

Who What When Where Whow

  Lascaux? Uh-uh. Altamira? Uh-huh.

Who would disagree with the idea that the more cars you can drive, the easier it will be to drive yet another one? Bueller? Bueller? OK, nobody.

The same is true for languages, especially within language families, such as the Indo-European family (IE). IE languages have so much in common that like cars, the more of them you drive, the easier it is to drive another one. Here's a quick (not the only by any means) example:

Check these basic English interrogative particles: who, what, when, where, why, whow. I add a w to how to clarify that "how" belongs to the family of wh- interrogatives.

I had two profitable years of highschool Spanish, followed by two explosive years of Latin. Latin was the first foreign language where I noticed that like English, the interrogative particles shared a common initial sound, kw: Qui, Quod, Quando, Quo, Quid, etc. Not the same sound as in English, but still nice to know the pattern.

Over the next few decades, due to education, travel, and adoption, I learned some more languages; not fluently, but enough to not need English or gestures to communicate. Because the main benefit of speaking a language is to be able to ask questions, a good learning shortcut (among many) was that any language's interrogatives were all likely to start with the same sound, and it's usually true:

Wer, Was, Wenn, Wo, Warum, Wie, in English's lovely and creative cousin, German.

Qui, Que, Quand, Quoi, Comment, Où, in Latin's daughter, French. Note that comment starts with the same k sound as the q- words. And où is short for Latin ubi, which I suppose is itself contracted from an older proto-Latin word starting with q, something like "quobi".

And in Russian: кто/ Kto, что/ Chto, когда/ Kogda, где/ Gdye, куда/ Kuda, как/ Kak. The exceptions in Russian are worth some digression: Kto means who; Chto means what. I'm guessing that distinguishing between people and things created Chto- simply altering the k-sound enough to make a new word. By the way, it's pronounced shto, not chto due to the speed at which the word is said.

Gdye (gd-YEH), where, may be a newer, voiced version of the unvoiced Ktye, an imagined word I'm backfiguring to fit the k- pattern.

These, and many more, Indo-European languages are assumed to spring from a common tongue which left no written record; what Germans call an Ursprache (ur- primeval, original + Sprache, language) My guess is that all of these interrogative particles originate in a single interrogative proto-particle, khuh. Khuh would sound like huh, but with a kh sound like the ch in loch. Here's how over time we get from khuh to the other words:

For some peoples, kh would sharpen to k or kw. Depending on their own aesthetic sense, others would soften kh or kw to wh. From wh, speakers may further soften to h (as in who), or w (even as we do today in saying wite instead of white). W could shift to v as it has done in German. You may think I assume too much, but listen to my Russian-adopted son Michael. When he was first learning English, he could not say 'house'. He said khouse. But 'hospital' was gospital. Why not khospital? Dunno...Russian has its reasons. And 'dinosaur' (dinosawr) was dinosavr.

Now a little digression. You know the intonation for "I don't know" when the note rises on don't and is lower for both I and know: iDUNno. Sometimes we will hum mmmMMMmmm and be understood. Of course without already knowing the English words, the humming won't communicate a thing.

Now you also know what this means: huh?

And huh...they aren't the same.

And this: uh-uh.

And: uh-huh.

Unlike mmmMMMmmm, none of them is based on English; but they can also be hummed or grunted because we know the "words" already. Those sounds aren't words from any language, any Sprache. They don't enjoy the status of "word;" but they're language, and we understand them. My guess is that those sounds are vestiges, living fossils of the oldest human oral communication which predates Proto Indo European. What the Germans might call a Vorursprache, before an original language. Communication so old and basic it's simply nuanced grunting. And huh? would be the root sound from which the word khuh developed.

Maybe the the first word. It'd be just like humans to make their first word a question.

Review on the Fly

 Maybe not that fast

How catechectically wonderful is it when the kids don't remember something that you've already covered? Don't tell me. But my experience has been that with a bit of review at the instant of forgetfulness, they can even remember things that haven't come up for months. Of course, time can be saved by giving the answer, but a minute or two of review on the fly after a wrong answer may actually be more productive than a correct answer. Like so:

We cover Melchizedek in early September. Then he might not show up again until February or March. That's a long time for kids to remember an odd name and a small story. So when we discuss the Last Supper, I've learned not to be surprised if the kids can't always recall that information. But by answering pointed questions, they can find their way back, and then forward again.

"So here's Jesus and the Apostles at the last Supper, what kind of dinner is this? Passover? Yes, so they'll be eating....Lamb! Uh-huh. But does Jesus pass around grilled lamb kebabs? Umm...no, they have bread! Yes, and....wine! Yes. Tell me about bread & wine. What? Where have you heard about it earlier this year? And the guy whose name starts with an M. Methuselah? No, he was just old. Matthew? Matthew? No. OK, tell me about Christmas. Christmas? Yes, new topic. Who was there? Angels. Yes. Shepherds. Yes. Wise Men. Yes, what did they bring? Gold, frankincense, & myrrh. Yes. Gold is for...a king, yes, and...incense is for a priest, yes, good remembering. So Jesus...is a priest? Yes, we'll sort that out some more later. What do priests do? Sacrifice! Yes, and..offer stuff! Yes. Tell me about Sarah's husband...Abraham! Yes, tell me. God told him to go to Israel. Yes, Canaan. Yes, what? Their baby was Isaac and it means laughing! Yes, they were so happy to have a baby. Did the people in Canaan welcome Abraham with a camel-sausage pizza and say please be our king? No he had to fight people. Yes. When things went well for Abraham he'd build an altar and offer God a sacrifice...what kind? A thanksgiving sacrifice! Yes. But do y'all remember after one battle he didn't offer his own sacrifice, someone did it for him...the M guy! Yes, c'mon. Methuselah! No! That was wrong two minutes ago and it's still wrong! But close. Mmm...Melchizedek! Yes! What was he? A priest. Yes. What did he offer? Umm...bread & wine! Yes. So why does this matter? Because Jesus is copying Melchizedek! Yes! Y'all are too smart!"

Now in this case the punch line, Melchizedek and his offering, is the oldest part of the thread, so we went backward in time to Genesis, then returned to the present in one jump. I don't always do that; it just depends on the topic, what isn't remembered, and available time. Regardless, it's best for the kids to review an entire concept, not just the fragment that applies at the moment. For example, any time miracle bread comes up during the year, we source back to manna, then move forward until we hit the most current bread miracle.

By the way, once the children have firmly connected Melchizedek to Jesus at the Last Supper, they will always remember him when he comes up in our Mass classes.   

Book Review Review

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

 

Sha-zayum! Maximum Catholic Media Generalissima Elizabeth Scalia says nice things about my book...or about a review of the book. I link/ you decide.

Book Review

I know what you're thinking...did he use 6 verses, or only 5?

Like a gunslinger, Christian Le Blanc’s gentle drawl belies an explosive quick-draw capability that has the Catholic townsfolk wide-eyed and Bible ignorance on the run....

The Bible Tells Me So: A Southern Gent Wows Catholic Kids with the Bible