How come we can have showers throughout the day and
we can go through time but not throughout? Or can we?

OK, so it's silly but it's a depressingly rainy Saturday and *nobody's *posting and I'm *desperate.
Anybody out there?
Hello? Hello?

There's nobody here but us chickens. At the Take Our Word for It site they had a genre I'd not seen before. E.G. a bit of French poetry: Reine, Reine, geuex éveillé. When read aloud, it sounds like "rain,rain, go away."

Hmmm...interesting, wow. T.S. Eliot's quote, "Only through time time is conquered" seems to confirm the second.
But, then again, do we say "all through history" or "all throughout history," especially in speaking of geological time?
And then there's the song with the famous refrain, "All through the night." So why can we go "though" night, but must go "throughout" the day? But then if "through" is "out" it's not really "through," is it? So should we throw out the out from throughout?
Oh, yes, wow!...as you can see, it must be a rainy day! All through and throughout!

wow, here in Oregon we've gone from record-breaking ( and baking) heat to rain in just five days. The sun did poke through, but not throughout the day. I equate such vagaries of weather as Mother Nature's puberty. Fall is her menopause.

wow asks,
How come......
we can go through time but not throughout? Or can we?


I am so fascinated by the concept of time so much so that I have started a new hobby of collecting anything in the literature that has something to do with it.

I just have a few items in the collection as yet. My favorite so far is an excerpt from the introduction to Iveta Geramsimchuk's prize-winning essay "Dictionary of Winds" as quoted in an article written by Alan Riding in the New York Times, December 1999.

"The Dictionary of Winds", an excerpt


"The ancients understood that it is impossible to separate one day from the next, one year from the next. It is impossible to liberate the past from the future, in the same way that it is impossible to liberate the right hand from the left and the left from the right. And herein lies the highest idea of the Lord. To divide time meant to destroy it, as Zeno of Elea demonstrated in the very same chase after answers to the unresolved questions.
However, Zeno of Elea was only one of many. In any human society there are always people inclined to undertake a similar vivisection of time. Thank God that they have never managed to do do successfully.
Some having armed themselves with Homer's lotus-eaters, strive to "liberate" the future from the past. The "Dictionary of Winds" refers to thems as "anemophiles." They firmly believe that time is infinite, and they are not interested in how much of it has already passed; after all, there is no limit to infinity and there is no limit to the changes of the world in it.
Others value time as higher than everything else, or they believe that it is a gift of God and to waste it thoughtlessly is the greatest sin. The "Dictionary of Winds" refers to them as "chronists". "Chronists" are not sure of the future, nor are they sure that time is infinite. However, they are sure of the past, and hence strive even more to liberate the past from the future, which brings changes.
Anemophiles and chronists live together --in the real world and the in the world of the "Dictionary of the Winds," in each of us. They love , suffer, pursue scholarly and other research, conduct incessant arguments among themselves; in some there are no vanquished or victors--they all seek answers to the very same questions posed so very long ago, sensing intuitively that these answers exist. And they find them--sooner or later. Often, what they find does not satisfy them. They doubt and search again."






chronist

>>How come we can have showers throughout the day and
>>we can go through time but not throughout? Or can we?

For what it's worth...
The day is a fixed period of time or a portion of time. You can also say throughout the ages. When you go through time it is like going through money (well besides one never seeming to have enough to spend on one's hobbies). Time in this case is a concept; you are not refering to particular points in the continuum.

As to the weather side of things, we too have had an abundance of rain this year, but such is life. It is either too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry for someone, somewhere which is why when I was in training we were admonished to never say there was good weather in the forecast because everyone's definition of good is different. Personally, the only weather I dislike is hot and humid. As it is, I've been so snowed under (bad weather pun intended) that I the only weather I've had time to notice lately in on a chart.

I am so fascinated by the concept of time so much so that I have started a new hobby of collecting anything in the literature
that has something to do with it.

May I suggest that you include Mircea Eliade's book, The Sacred and The Profane? It deals with sacred, or cyclic vs profane, or linear time.

a new hobby of collecting anything in the literature
that has something to do with it.(time)

Browse through secondhand bookstores until you find the novel "Time and Again" copyright 1970 by Jack Finney ISBN 0-671-24705-0 and 0-671-24295-4 PBK Simon and Schuster, pub.

I read it years ago, loaned and lost several copies, found one in Bermuda of all places and discovered that it has become what's called a "cult classic." Don't know if I like being in a cult but if one must .... it's has an interesting concept. Also contains supposed pictures of characters in book. An off-beat addition to your collection and a fun read.

Reine, Reine, geuex éveillé. When read aloud, it sounds like "rain,rain, go away."
Bill, this is from "Mots; D'Heures; Gousse; Rames" or its sister book. I have made references to this in the past. There is a German version as well. I think they are all out of print now. The delight is in the foot notes as well, for example; "Un petit d'un petit" - the inevitable result of a child marriage.

Rod

Which seems to be on the same lines as a series of "translations" from French to English that were current when I was a youngster: for instance -

Couop de grace = lawnmower
hors de combat = a war horse
hors d-ouevres = work horse
Tant pis = show Auntie to the bathroom

I don't remember any others, of hand (probably just as well, come to think of it!)

Coup de grace = lawnmower

Hilary, I made a call for some more of those recently, but it was hidden away in the Europants thread in Information and Announcements.
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=27269&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&vc=1#Post27269
[edited highlight]
Does anyone remember the "Fractured French" phrases such as:
coup de grace = lawnmower? I made a fractured translation of La Marseillaise about a year ago. Too big to post so send me a private message if you want it.
[/lowlight]

I have a few more (most, I think, originally from or at least captured in a book (c. 1960?) called Fractured French):
pied a terre = the plumbing is out of order
Monparnasse = my father's country seat
pas de deux = father of twins
Jeanne D'Arc = the light in the bathroom doesn't work

but, as RhubarbCommando says, that may already be too many.

Rod

I always liked the schoolboy howler

hors d-oeuvres = horse's eggs.

Browse through secondhand bookstores until you find the novel "Time and Again" copyright 1970 by Jack Finney ISBN 0-671-24705-0 and 0-671-24295-4 PBK Simon and Schuster, pub.

So surprised to see this book mentioned. It is one of my favorites, though no one else seems to have heard of it. It is an excellent book and the time travel is very believable, with all of the details tied up at the end. I have found several used copies of the book and given it to friends and family. All of them have become immediate fans of the book. I heard a rumor several years ago that some actor had bought the rights to the book, but haven't heard anything else about it.

texasteri

Welcome aBoard, tberg, nice to have you.
I, too, liked "Time and Again", enough to keep it all these years since I bought it. An interesting concept, and I especially enjoyed how it points out how the tiniest,
unimportant-seeming things can have such drastic effects on our future (HI, A & F!!).

The day is a fixed period of time or a portion of time. You can also say throughout the ages.
This comes close to the way I see it: You can only say throughout when it refers to a period with a known end (that's when it's out). The beginning does not matter. "Throughout the past" looks ok to me, wheras "Throughout the future" - well...

Jackie muses: it points out how the tiniest, unimportant-seeming things can have such drastic effects on our future (HI, A & F!!).

Indeed. Chaos theory at its bestest.
(having said that, I want to read this book!)

it points out how the tiniest, unimportant-seeming things can have such drastic effects on our future Unless, of course, history fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. (courtesy to Ford Prefect.) I hope so, or all that work will push me out of existence

jimthedog