amashelle

[amashelle]

When you get up the energy to make yourself a special treat to help yourself feel better and then you don’t have the energy left to enjoy it 😩😖😞😭

[amashelle]

I feel like this is a case of modern English eroding the richness of old word definitions.

delectable(adj.)

c. 1400, "delightful to one of the senses, highly pleasing," from Old French delectable delitable and directly from Latin delectabilis "delightful," from delectare "to allure, delight, charm, please," frequentative of delicere "entice" (see delicious). The earlier form in English was delitable (late 13c.). Since c. 1700 "rarer, more or less affected or humorous, and restricted to the lighter kinds of pleasure" [OED]. Related: Delectably.

From etymology online https://www.etymonline.com/word/delectable

I'm obsessed with the idea of the Delectable Isle in Palomides and the Red City. Why is the island delectable? Do they have great agricultural practices? Is there a chef's college there? Is the dirt delicious? Did someone eat the dirt? I have so many questions

[amashelle]

just had a thought

[amashelle]

My cat enforced a curfew. If I was not home to give her tuna by 10:00, she’d wake my mom up to tell her I wasn’t home. When I moved out, I’d come home to her pawing at the front door, apparently certain I was dying and in need of rescue because there could be no other possible reason I wasn’t home in time to feed her.

That cats are both good at learning by imitation and deeply concerned with procedure and routine can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it means that cats will pick up on a lot of things that other animals would need training for simply by watching you model appropriate behaviour. On the other hand, sometimes a cat will infer a rule you maybe didn't intend to follow and take it upon itself to enforce that rule, and now you're a grown-ass adult with a fixed bedtime.

[amashelle]

Hey! I was wondering, do you speak any old Irish, and if so, how did you learn it? Im interested in learning!!

I can read and, to a certain extent, write in Old Irish. (Most people don't speak it, but we are taught how to pronounce it...which was actually an impediment to me learning Modern Irish, because I'd had the older stuff first.)

There are a couple of options! The easiest, if you have the time + money, is always to take courses, which is how I did it. As part of my MA, I was required to take classes in both Old Irish and Welsh, and I've continued taking courses in my PhD. Now, if, for some reason, you don't have the ability to casually drop a few thousand Euros on a MA degree, there are a couple of sources I can point you to. If you do this, I can also try to walk you through it to the best of my ability, and I can assign you homework.

First off: Quin's Old Irish Workbook and Strachan's Paradigms. With most copies of Strachan's paradigms, like the one you see on Archive.org, it's kind of neat because people add notes to it over time, so it's also deeply personalized to the Celticist, like a family bible.

I'll tell you immediately: the current editions of both of these are quite frail. They fall apart quite easily, since they're softcover. (I eventually had mine custom-bound together.)

Stifter - Sengoidelic: Old Irish For Beginners. It's VERY in-depth, slightly intimidating, but there are lovely cartoons of sheep to make it slightly less scary.

Ranke de Vries - A Student's Companion to Old Irish Grammar

Antony Green - Old Irish verbs and vocabulary

Rudolf Thurneysen (trans. D.A. Binchy): A Grammar of Old Irish. I'm going to tell you now: This book is DENSE. It is technical. It is OLD. It is EXPENSIVE (especially if you want a good copy, since the one I got was so thick that it was actively falling out of its hardcover binding; I ended up buying an older copy.) BUT...it will help your Old Irish. It's still considered to be the definitive book on Old Irish, even though it's eighty years old at this point. So: I recommend it, but I'd recommend it after some of the others. De Vries is probably the most beginner friendly.

Now, after all that, you will need places to practice your Old Irish.

I highly recommend anything from DIAS' Medieval and Modern Irish series -- they tend to have very good dictionaries, so it isn't like you're being tossed into the deep end. Most of these are technically later than the Old Irish period, but they ought to give you a taste for the basics. (The problem with Old Irish is that Middle Irish was basically creeping in even from the time of some of our earliest texts.) One of these, which you can get online, is Compert Con Culainn and Other Stories, ed. Van Hamel.

Also: Thurneysen's Scéla Mucce Meic Dathó.

Ernst Windisch: Irische Texte mit Wörterbuch

If you can get ahold of it, Vernam Hull's edition of Longes mac nUislenn is also excellent.

When you're reading these texts, I recommend you to make a note of the case, number, and gender (nouns) or the classification, tense, number, whether it's adjunct or conjunct, and whether it's deuterotonic or prototonic, etc. (verbs). Mutations, including invisible mutations (nouns and prepositions). Every bit of information you can parse out, so you can instantly recognize words as you come across them and what they are doing in a sentence.

Finally:

I'm sure you've heard this before, but Old Irish is notoriously difficult as a language. Having Modern Irish helps (particularly re: vocabulary, where you'll see a lot of familiar words), but the language has also radically changed. The verb in particular has totally changed the way that it's formed, going from a predominately synthetic language to a predominately analytical language (Munster Irish is closest to Old Irish in terms of verb formation, though each dialect preserves little bits of it.) Old Irish is significantly richer as far as vocabulary, and it had many more declensions (stems), each of which has its own way of doing things. You had more tenses. You had a neuter gender (though that was already going by the wayside). The definite article was totally dependent on the case, number, and gender of the noun (preserved these days in 'an' and 'na', but it used to be much more comprehensive). You had a full dative and accusative case (no ablative, thank God.) You had infixed particles, and those were divided into three classes depending on the classification of the verb. And adding to all that is that the language was already changing, so the Old Irish that you will be learning in the textbooks is not 100% what will be reflected in the editions. I've been doing this for six years and I still need to use a dictionary + paradigms. (Keeping in mind, though, that my Old Irish has also actively decayed in the States.)

The point isn't "don't do it" -- I'm not in the business of scaring people off. BUT I'm saying that it's okay if it takes a while, or if it seems overwhelming or even impossible. (It's also okay if it comes naturally; some people ARE naturally good at it.) The best piece of advice I have EVER gotten about Old Irish was what an older gentleman told me my first day of my MA program, which is: "Old Irish becomes a lot easier when you remember you'll be learning it your entire life." Take your time, enjoy it, let it sink in, play with it. Pursue the texts you want to read, read the texts you already enjoyed in English in Old Irish, even if it's a couple of lines at a time. ENJOY the process, and don't feel pressured to learn everything at once.

You have a lifetime to learn it.

[amashelle]

The post-job interview anxiety of all the things you could have said but didn’t 😣😖😫

[amashelle]

Okay you guys.

IF YOU PRIMARILY DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH reply with what you mentally call it, if you have a nickname for it or something

[amashelle]

It’s actually so ridiculous that so many authors combined Lancelot/Bedwyr, call him Bedwyr, as if they were going to draw largely on the Welsh myth… then Agravaine is there. Every. Single. Time. PICK A STRUGGLE

[amashelle]

Knight on thy lap

Tip jar

[amashelle]

I know we like to say “Arthuriana has no canon” but actually I’m thinking it’s more accurate to say “Arthuriana has many canons.”

I’m very much in the habit of specifying which version of a character I’m discussing since my interest has so many forms (Medlit, retellings, movies, tv, etc) but I think it can apply for everyone. Like specificity helps people differentiate the unique versions.

Thoughts?

[amashelle]

I used Scrivener to write my dissertation and I don’t understand how people get by using anything else.

For starters, I could have my whole project in a single window, with a ‘binder’ on the side divided into sections.

I had a section for my working document, with a separate file for each chapter (you can break this down further if your project is large or your chapters are long). Scrivener lets you take snapshots of a doc before you edit it, and you can view versions (or even different chapters) side by side.

There’s a built-in research folder I could drop frequently referenced pdfs, random quotes I knew I’d want to go back to, brainstorming docs, and all sorts of extras.

Seriously, you can download it for a 30day free trial. Full version is a flat fee of less than $50 (I paid $40 a decade ago). NO SUBSCRIPTION FEE!!!!

I am not usually one to push products on people but I genuinely can’t recommend this program enough.

dissertation writing advice

[amashelle]

This is also helpful for smaller, lower-stakes projects: when working on that big essay or important work thing, have something fun going on the side.

For example, when I was writing my thesis, I had a for funsies novel open in another window and I’d swap over to it when I needed a break or was feeling stuck. When I was doing my practicum, I knit myself a sweater.

Especially helpful if the side quest complements but contrasts the main task. If one is very analytical, the other should be more creative. If one is physically demanding, the other should engage your intellect. But really, as op said, the most important thing is to take pride in the work. If it isn’t bringing you joy, it’s the wrong sidequest for you at this time.

the key to surviving grad school (also maybe life but definitely grad school) is to pick a side quest every few months or so. something that brings you joy and that you can get better at over time, independent of whether or not your research or classes are going well. put your need for academic validation to use in a non-academic setting and everything will feel less dire and you will learn you are more than your work

[amashelle]

Jackpot!

ATTENTION!

FEUDALISM RESTARTING IN 10 SECONDS. CLASSES WILL BE RANDOMLY ASSIGNED

[amashelle]

Had another dream last night. Wike up with this advice in my head:

The hardest and most important role you will ever have to play is Yourself. To do so, you MUST open yourself up and let others see the You that can be hurt by their rejection, but also the You that can be strengthened by their acceptance. If you do not do this, you will always doubt the love that comes to you, and you will deny your friends the chance to ever know You, which would be a tragedy.

Don’t know who needs to hear it. In the dream, it was directed at a young actress who spoke in soliloquies because she was afraid to use her own words.

[amashelle]

Living (and specifically writing) in Canada is so weird. ‘Both of these spellings are correct. We get one from British English and one from American English: you can choose which you like best! XOXO 😘’

[amashelle]

Last night I had a dream in which everyone was supposed to try to do impossible feats, and if you died while doing them, time would reset for you, and people were using it to do the things that scared them (like telling others how they feel, coming out, etc) with the intention of deliberately resetting time if it went badly.

Anyway, I was pondering this when I got up, and I think we, as a society, should puck a day (I suggest groundhog day, for obvious reasons) and treat that day as though it is a timeloop. Anything that happens on Timeloop Day stays in Timeloop Day. Make a fool of yourself, test the waters of things that could have irrevocable consequences but won’t because on the next day everyone has to act like nothing happened.

[amashelle]

Today, while writing, I had the brilliant deduction that ‘such’ might have originated as a contraction of ‘so much’ and I was absolutely certain this was true. But, because I am a responsible writer who fact checks stuff, I looked it up and am very saddened to report that this is not technically the case.

BUT the proto-Germanic compound it IS derived from was *swalikaz, which literally means ‘so like’, or, dare I suggest, ‘so [much] like’ and therefore I was also not entirely wrong.