Language
Category archives for Language
Norse Saga About The Buddha
Posted by Martin R on April 8, 2013 I found something pretty wild in an essay by J.L. Borges this morning. There’s a 13th century Norse saga about the Buddha. And the story has other fine twists as well. This all revolves around a legendary tale of the Buddha’s early life. In the 6th century BC a son was born to a petty…
Hedge-Wizards and Hedge-Parsons
Posted by Martin R on March 16, 2013 The Grey Mouser, along with Fafhrd the Northerner hero of Fritz Leiber’s genre-defining sword & sorcery story cycle, is the archetype of the Dungeons & Dragons thief. He began his career however, Leiber informs us, as apprentice to a “hedge-wizard” who taught him some simple magical cantrips. I never understood what a hedge-wizard was, until…
Quaint Local Pronunciation
Posted by Martin R on January 12, 2013 My boss at the Academy of Letters used to head the National Archives. Here’s a story he told over coffee the other day. Some decades ago a delegation of Swedish archivists was driving across the American Midwest to visit a Mormon microfilming facility. Stopping in a small town for lunch, they noticed that it had…
Easter Cryptogram
Posted by Martin R on April 7, 2012 In order to find her easter egg, my daughter first had to solve a +1 transposition cryptogram with appended translation table. It gave her the location of a note with a +9 cryptogram where she was given the offset but had to write her own translation table. This led to a +9 cryptogram that resolved…
Dungeon Dudgeon Gudgeon Bludgeon
Posted by Martin R on January 29, 2012 Dungeon: a massive inner tower in a Medieval castle or a dark usually underground prison or vault. Traceable back to Latin dominus, lord. Dudgeon: a wood used especially for dagger hilts or a fit or state of indignation. Traceable back to Anglo-French digeon. Gudgeon: a pivot or a small European freshwater fish (Gobio gobio, Sw.…
Rue Poirier de Narcay
Posted by Martin R on January 14, 2012 When I was 16 in 1988 I spent a couple of days in Paris with a language school. I brought the address for a game store, one that advertised in White Dwarf magazine. It was on Rue Poirier de Narcay, which turned out not to be a central location, and so I never went there.…
Curiosity Rover’s Message To Finders
Posted by Martin R on December 5, 2011 The Curiosity rover, a science robot the size of a car, is on its way to Mars where it will use a new landing system and hopefully spend several fruitful years trundling about. One of the coolest instruments on it is a laser gun coupled with a spectrometer: Curiosity can zap a rock from a…
I Don’t Fear For The Swedish Language
Posted by Martin R on November 1, 2011 Year after year, the Swedish language is spoken by a smaller percentage of the world’s population. And year after year, the geographical area where Swedish is spoken shrinks a little. But year after year, Swedish is spoken by an increasing number of people. How does this work? Although Swedish speakers in Sweden and SW Finland…
The Beauty Is Not Luxurious Imagination
Posted by Martin R on September 11, 2011 My wife just returned from Beijing where she’s been collecting interviews for a TV project. And I find that her beauty is not luxurious imagination.
Bellman’s Pale Rhenish
Posted by Martin R on September 10, 2011 Dear Reader, please try saying “ENSKTBLEH”. Yes, six consonants in a row. ENSKTBLEH. OK? Now sing it, loudly and happily. Go! I’ve spent three happy days at the first ever Picture Stone Symposium in Visby, listening to papers, moderating some bits and giving a presentation of my own that went down pretty well. And one…
