“~ A ~ A, The first letter of the European alphabets, has, in the English language, three different sounds, which may be termed the broad, open, and slender. The broad sound resembling that of the German a is found, in many of our monosyllables, as all, wall, malt, falt; in which a is pronounced as au in cause, or aw in law. Many of these words were anciently written with au, as sault, waulk; which happens to be still retained in fault. This was probably the ancient sound of the Saxons, since it is almost uniformly preserved in the rustic pronunciation, and the Northern dialects, as maun for man, haund for hand. A open, not unlike the a of the Italians, is found in father, rather, and more obscurely in fancy, fast, &c. A slender or close, is the peculiar a of the English language, resembling the sound of the French e masculine, or diphthong ai in païs, or perhaps a middle sound between them, or between the a and e; to this the Arabic a is said nearly to approach. Of this sound we have examples in the words, place, face, waste, and all those that terminate in ation; as, relation, nation, generation. A is short, as, glass, grass; or long, as, glaze, graze: it is marked long, generally, by an e final, plane, or by an i added, as, plain. ”
—A dictionary defining the letters of the alphabet circa 1755.
“All money is a matter of belief.”
—Moral philosopher Adam Smith, pioneer of political economy, was born 289 years ago today. Celebrate with The Ascent of Money – BBC’s financial history of world.Sarah seems to think I am good at summarizing books and history...
Can that be my job? Can I just make comical and crappily done sparknotes and spend the rest of my life making history and literature fun to high school students?
Is that an option? Cuz that would be awesome.
“Bertha managed to escape her attic prison and was all ‘set fire to
the raineverything!!!’ Then, in true form, she jumped off the roof.”Or.
Robespierre was all ” Kill ALL the traitors!!!” and Danton was all “Killing the citizens will not bring you peace.” To which Robespierre replied “I do what I want!” and proceeded to kill everyone anyway.
At least that is my basic understanding of the Reign of Terror.
Not many people realise that it is, in fact, the suffering of the child inside them. Everybody tries to protect this vulnerable two three four five six seven eight year old inside, and to acquire skills and aptitudes for dealing with the situations that threaten to overwhelm it. So everybody develops a whole armour of secondary self, the artificially constructed being that deals with the outer world, and the crush of circumstances. And when we meet people this is what we usually meet.
Ted Hughes gold (via explore-blog)
“2012 was a big year for the world. Let us see the ways.”
—The biggest international news events of 2012 in photos
Rashid Boudjedra on History and Literature
“All great literature has incorporated history as a fundamental element of the interrogation between the real and the human, operating in a more subjective mode than one would think in so far as it is the one fruitful and interesting mode of inquiry, becoming far more than just a reading of the past that is immediate, official, fossilized, academic, mechanistic and opportunistic, always co-opted, distorted, and travestied for the sake of the cause.”
