#reference books

[curiouscatalog]

Diderot, Denis, and Jean Le Rond d’ Alembert. Recueil de Planches, Sur Les Sciences, Les Arts Libéraux, et Les Arts Méchaniques, Avec Leur Explication. Paris: Briasson [etc.], 1762.

AE25 .E53

[stone-cold-groove]

Letter perfect!

[machetelanding]

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Its fun to meme about how the dragons all look like birds doing poses in Adam's concept art, but its very clear that Adam was working directly off real reference photos of avians as he was designing the dragons.

There's a piece I've not posted yet which is a super cute plan view sketch of Adam's office and one of the things he labels is a shelf full of reference books. I'd bet real money there was a picture book of birds on that shelf. God I'd love to see the actual bird pictures he borrowed his dragon poses from.

[archaeologysucks]

Niche questions for folks doing environmental science in the Pacific Northwest:

It seems like the taxonomy for some species in Franklin & Dyrness’ Natural Vegetation of Oregon and Washington (1988) is out of date. Can anyone recommend a reliable reference guide that is more current?

I am also looking for a similarly comprehensive guide to fauna of the PNW.

[namedictionarypublishers]

Introduction to "What Does My Brilliant Name Mean?"

https://ko-fi.com/namedictionarypublishers

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[petermorwood]

I see you are an arms and armor fan.

Do you know of/have a copy of Stone's Glossary?

If so do you know how to look up specific things in it?

I have a copy but I can't figure out how to look anything up.

Yes, I have a copy. The entries are in alphabetical order so I look them up by name.

But...

The difficulty about looking up "specific things" is that if without their specific names - and Stone seems to assume his readers DO know most of them - there's a page-turning slog ahead.

The best way is to start with general terms like "Armour", "Axe", "Bow", "Dagger", "Sword" etc., then look up all the sub-names listed at the bottom of each entry.

*****

The problem is that George Cameron Stone was an Orientalist and especially Japanophile (a weeaboo, if the word existed back then) so his book has hundreds of entries for esoteric Asian stuff unlikely to be seen elsewhere - and unlikely to be needed for general reference, either.

Despite its grandiose all-inclusive title: "A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armour in All Countries and in All Times", Stone was so concerned with putting in esoteric Asian stuff that he left out obvious European stuff.

One of the most notable omissions is "Gladius", the short sword used by Ancient Roman legions for about 500 years. Does it have an entry in Stone's "All Countries and All Times" book?

It does not.

But is there room for an obscure armourer who made fancy embossed costume armour during the peaceful Edo period?

Oh yes.

I've posted about Stone a few times before: this one is him being wrong about the origins of the Scottish Basket-hilted Broadsword; this one is a side-comment about the pictures; this one touches yet again on inclusion vs exclusion of entries.

*****

"Glossary" is certainly a book any A&A fan should have on the shelf; just bear in mind that:

It's 90 years old, many entries are superseded by new information;

Despite its title, it's biased towards some regions more than others;

Because of that bias, it contains a lot of very limited-interest detail;

Because of that bias, it leaves out some major topics;

It's often wrong in matters outside the author's field of expertise;

It assumes knowledge of terminology, so isn't friendly to newbies.

All of the above is IMO, of course. Y (and others') MMV.

Hope this helps! :->

[riesenfeldcenter]

Happy Solar Eclipse day! 🌑🌒🌞

Here is our copy of the 4th edition, volume 1, of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1773) and Johnson's definitions of "eclipse" and "ecliptick." This is one of our larger books, which is especially evident next to our smallest book (The Inaugural Address of John Fitzgerald Kennedy).

ECLI'PSE. n.

1. An obscuration of the luminaries of heaven; the sun is eclipsed by the intervention of the moon; the moon by the interposition of the earth. The word originally signifies departure from a place, to which Milton alludes.

2. Darkness; obscuration.

To ECLI'PSE v. a. [from the noun]

To darken a luminary.

To extinguish; to put out.

To cloud; to obscure.

To disgrace.

You might spot some words you don't know within eclipse's surrounding entries. A new one to me was "eclegma," "A form of medicine made by the incorporation of oils with syrups, and which is to be taken upon a liquorice stick."

[lightlyknitted]

Building a reference library

I love a good craft or hobby related book. I love looking at them, I love collecting them and I love finding all the different kinds that have been published. Old crafting books are also a great place to see old trends and styles to inspire your current projects.

This guide will be tailored specifically to knitting and crocheting because those are my main hobbies. Books are a great resource to add to the internet and can be helpful in learning new techniques.

[misforgotten2]

Look - November 17th 1964

[garlicslut]

[stone-cold-groove]

Sun and Planets. Goode’s World Atlas - 1953.

[peach-artblog]

my sister went to a used book store and found me more how to draw manga reference books! the most expensive one outta all of them is the sketching manga style one! *100$*;;; she pretty much said early birthday gift XD;; hahaha still collecting since I was 12 :)

[spaceintruderdetector]

Ultimate Spy : H. Keith Melton : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

[deramin2]

"The Queens' English, The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases" by Chloe O. Davis is by far one of the best dictionaries I've ever read. Slang dictionaries are always important folk history documents, but often don't trace where the words came from. This one does from multiple angles.

A lot of language widely used in the queer community is appropriated from POC, especially Black and Latine ballroom culture. It's excellent advice to white people in particular to mind where the words they're using come from, but actually looking it up somewhere is increasingly difficult.

So I was delighted to find a dictionary by a Black queer woman who includes term, related terms, cross referenced terms, clear definitions, examples of usage, hire to think about the term, usage notes (including community origin), and historical or other information.

I can flip to any random page of this book and find a whole crash course on queer history and culture from any term. It also serves as a conscious language dictionary, which I always enjoy. Hell yeah I do want to be more aware of the weight and legacy of my words to increase precision.

Apparently there's also an illustrated young readers edition published earlier this year. I loved exploring the world's through reference books as a child and I'd have loved that. Great context for kids watching a lot of TikTok and streamers and picking up new language that way without a lot of context.

Please check out this book. It's such a necessary tool for our community to understand each other more fully.