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I dreamed a troubled dream last night of a language that consisted entirely of words. No constituent phrases, no sentences, no compounds, no derivational morphology of any kind: just words. In fact, there were no paragraphs or chapters or books: just words. The works of Shakespeare would be translated into this language as a single word. No homonyms, no synonyms, no metanyms: each word was unique. In fact the dictionary consisted of a single word. (No, it was not aum.) No libraries: just a word. I awoke and shook off the silly notion of finding just one word per concept, and in the light of the breaking dawn, I accepted that some things need more than one word to express. The freedom was invigorating.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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enthusiast
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In a recent popular Hindi film, ॐ is transliterated simply as Om.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, the same thing. It used to be my mantra in the mantra days.
No, it wasn't aum. Sjeereem (phonetically)and I never knew what it meant.
But I still try to imagine what that language from the dream would be like and I can't.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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simply as Om
Force of habit on my part. I prefer the alternate transliteration of ॐ (called in Sanskrit प्रणव pranava for those who like names for sounds) that emphasizes the three sounds (akāra, ukāra, and makāra) which constitute the syllable.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I've had some pretty weird dreams, but I dunno.
My mantra was oon jellimon.
Oh, oops, I wasn't supposed to let anyone know. Y'all just forget I said that.
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addict
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addict
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But if we were all happy to use lowly descriptive phrases to describe things, there wouldn't be much to do here, would there? Your "person who is an adept conversationalist at table" would be just as good as my "one who cultivates learned conversation at meals" and there'd be no deipnosophists to speak of.
You're right though; there is a mentality that it takes a word (especially a fancy-pants word) to legitimize a thing, but at the end of the day, finding some of those words is just fun and doesn't necessarily lead to logocentrism.
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It's just a curious trend I'd noticed that folks are usually grailling after the single lexeme for a concept when two or more may be necessary or preferable.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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>grailling
today we examine the whole question of grasping and grailling, frothing and flailing, nattering and nailing, jeering and jailing, screaming and wailing, brawling and mauling, falling and hauling, trawling and squalling, and zalling.
-joe (what do I mean by the word sorry*) friday
*as in, apologies to MP
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