#the folly of youth indeed

[jonny-versace]

Middle aged? 🤨🤨🤨🤨

oh my god I didn't actually see that part when I reblogged it. How embarrassing! A facepalm moment for me, a 21 year old, for certain

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

The Tragedy of Love, Death and Maggots part 6

Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

We were at the border to the cultists' territory when Mrin stopped us. “Athena was here,” she told us. “Look at the markings on the wall.”

Indeed, there were nasty little marks on the off-white walls, in the shape of rather inappropriate and anatomical figures. The only person who would have the immaturity to do such a thing, as well as the guts to do it in the heart of the cultists' lair, would be that damned girl.

I sighed. “Of course it's her. Who else would draw dicks on the walls of hell?” I shook my head. “Fool child. Do you have any idea how long ago she passed through here?” For all that she had one eye, Mrin's sight served her better than the rest of ours combined. If anyone could figure it out, it would be her. 

“What am I, your blood hound? I can't tell-” she stopped and took a closer look at the markings. “Oh. She was here not long ago. Look, the ink on the wall hasn't dried yet.” 

“Oh, thank the heavens! We might be able to catch her if me hurry,” Brett exclaimed. “Come on, come on! We've gotta get to her before something else does.” His breath hitched, and that sunny smile of his cracked. “If- if ‘thena got hurt, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself!”

Ah, the follies and passions of youth. I shook my head and gave Mrin my signature grin, the one we used to exchange two years ago, back when it was the two of us and she had two eyes. She returned it, hesitantly, showing off yellowing, chipped teeth. 

Before anything could pass between us, Brett put his hands on our shoulders and pushed, sending me careening down the hall. “Hurry up,” he demanded. There was a wildness in his eyes, like an animal being chased down. “There's not much time left.”

Mrin sighed. “There's never any time, Brett. I know you're worried about her, but we can't afford to rush in. The cultists are dangerous, and if we get caught unprepared, we'll be unable to save ourselves, let alone Athena.” 

I nodded in agreement. “Besides, we don't even know where she's gone. Sure, she's here, but here can be in the congregation hall of the cultists or in some random corner, and we need time to work out which exactly it is.”

He held that look of cornered terror for a moment longer, begging us to change our minds. Then he gave up and nodded. “Alright. I take it we're scouting the lair first? Knowing her, that's where she'll be.” 

“Yeah, sure.” I started forward again, keeping up with Brett as we made our way towards the home of the greatest monsters in our little hell.

Taglist:

@coffeeangelinabox, @dorky-pals, @calliecwrites, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @shukei-jiwa

@thewingedbaron, @pluppsauthor, @cowboybrunch, @wylloblr, @possiblyeldritch

@tragedycoded, @finickyfelix, @urnumber1star, @ratedn, @ramwritblr

@vampirelover890, @possiblylisle, @illarian-rambling, @the-ellia-west, @differentnighttale

@evilgabe29, @glitched-dawn, @rivenantiqnerd, @dragonhoardesfandoms, @xenascribbles

@drchenquill, @everythingismadeofchaos, @owldwagitoutofyou, @dimitrakies, @beloveddawn-blog

@riveriafalll, @the-golden-comet, @rascaronii, @trippingpossum, @real-fragments

@unrepentantcheeseaddict, @the-inkwell-variable

(Anyone else who wants to get added can tell me in the comments, pm me, or send me an ask about it!)

[waitingforsecretsouls]

Though Fëanor after the days of his first youth took no more active part in linguistic lore and enquiry, he is credited by tradition with the foundation of a school of Lambengolmor or ‘Loremasters of Tongues’ to carry on this work. -The War of the Jewels, Chapter: QUENDI AND ELDAR

In light of my previous reblog about the issue of the change of þ > s, I posit that it was likely his failure to prevent or reverse its spread among the wider populace that led to Fëanor's resignation from further participation in linguistic discourses.

As had been noted in the original post, Fëanor's position against the shift was the one widely held by all other actual loremasters and linguists, and it was only due to the politicisation of the issue, out of personal dislike and rejection of Fëanor as a political figure (not least out of a support for Nolfinwë in particular, later on), that it was rejected.

Into the strife and confusion of loyalties in that time this seemingly trivial matter, the change of þ to s, was caught up to its embitterment, and to lasting detriment to the Quenya tongue. Had peace been maintained there can be no doubt that the advice of Fëanor, with which all the other lore-masters privately or openly agreed, would have prevailed. But an opinion in which he was certainly right was rejected because of the follies and evil deeds into which he was later led. He made it a personal matter: he and his sons adhered to þ, and they demanded that all those who were sincere in their support should do the same. Therefore those who resented his arrogance, and still more those whose support later turned to hatred, rejected his shibboleth. -The Peoples of Middle-Earth, Chapter 11: THE SHIBBOLETH OF FËANOR

Which would have rankled Fëanor something fierce, not only due to the emotional component of his mother and her memory, but also because he was one of the Noldor's chief linguists, and yet his expertise was rejected due to politics. "In favour" of personalities never associated with linguistic studies in any way and that he was already predisposed to dislike without mangling one of his "crafts".

The change was a general one, based primarily on phonetic ‘taste’ and theory, but it had not yet become universal. It was attacked by the loremasters, who pointed out that the damage this merging would do in confusing stems and their derivatives that had been distinct in sound and sense had not yet been sufficiently considered. The chief of the linguistic loremasters at that time was Fëanor. He insisted that þ was the true pronunciation for all who cared for or fully understood their language.

(While the first experp seemingly suggests that the main "switch" occured only during the Darkening, other parts make clear that it had set in earlier:)

Indis was a Vanya, and it might be thought that she would in this point at least have pleased Fëanor, since the Vanyar adhered to þ. Nonetheless Indis adopted s. Not as Fëanor believed in belittlement of Míriel, but in loyalty to Finwë. For after the rejection of his prayers by Míriel Finwë accepted the change (which had now become almost universal among his people), although in deference to Míriel he had adhered to þ while she lived. Therefore Indis said: ‘I have joined the people of the Ñoldor, and I will speak as they do.’

I also have to scratch my head over how one expected Míriel's son to take this as anything other than a disrespect to her and her (forced) sacrifice, since it says black on white that, while Míriel was still alive, Finwë had respected her position on the issue, but now that she was dead for presumably until the end of the world, 100% due to Finwë's and Indis' marriage, well, he didn't need to bother respecting her wishes anymore, did he? Out of sight, out of mind.

She [Míriel] was therefore called Þerindë (Needlewoman) – a name which she had indeed already been given as a ‘mother-name’. She adhered to the pronunciation þ (it had still been usual in her childhood), and she desired that all her kin should adhere to it also, at the least in the pronunciation of her name.

I don't think respecting someone's wish for their name to be pronounced properly (so according to their preference) is too much to ask, really. Imagine having people, including your father and your step-mother, who got that position through agreement that your mothers eternal death was an acceptable sacrifice, deliberately mispronounce her name to your face.

Fëanor was a saint for not starting fist-fights over this and instead simply moving out as soon as possible, focusing on his own joys. But it's not like a lack of respect for Míriels rights and dignity was something new, afterall.

When it became clear at last that Míriel would never of her own will return to life in the body within any span of time that could give him hope, Finwë’s sorrow became embittered. He forsook his long vigils by her sleeping body and sought to take up his own life again [...]. [Wanders and meets Indis] So it came to pass that Finwë and Indis desired to be wedded, and Finwë sought the counsel of the Valar. [...] It was judged that Finwë’s bereavement was unjust, and by persisting in her refusal to return Míriel had forfeited all rights that she had in the case; for either she was now capable of accepting the healing of her body by the Valar, or else her fëa was mortally sick and beyond their power, and she was indeed ‘dead’, no longer capable of becoming again a living member of the kindred of the Eldar. ‘So she must remain until the end of the world. For from the moment that Finwë and Indis are joined in marriage all future change and choice will be taken from her and she will never again be permitted to take bodily shape. Her present body will swiftly wither and pass away, and the Valar will not restore it. For none of the Eldar may have two wives both alive in the world.’

I can't even read this without getting incensed, the sheer lack of not only compassion but even just theoretic understanding for Fëanor's position and perspective of the matter is genuinely baffling to me, even from a purely "reading-comprehension" standpoint.

Míriel didn't adamantly refuse to ever return and Finwë made the best of it, the Valar repeatedly hounded her to return right now because what even was wrong with her, Finwë was lonely, and if she couldn't be healed RIGHT NOW she was clearly beyond healing FOREVER. Because Finwë had no hope she'd return in a manner timely enough to make him happy, because it was unfair for Finwë to remain without a spouse, so Míriel's rights to take the time she needed to heal before returning (as any elf in the Halls of Mandos is supposed to have, as are arguably their purpose) were suspended, because Finwë wanted to have his marriage and he wanted it now.

The Valar and all the Eldar were grieved by the sorrow of Finwë, but not dismayed: all things could be healed in Aman, and when they were rested her fëa and its body could be reunited and return to the joy of life in the Blessed Realm. But Míriel was reluctant, and to all the pleas of her husband and her kin that were reported to her, and to the solemn counsels of the Valar, she would say no more than ‘not yet’. Each time that she was approached she became more fixed in her determination, until at last she would listen no more, saying only: ‘I desire peace. Leave me in peace here! I will not return. That is my will.’

Instead of being left to recover from her weariness in peace, she got told over and over how much grief she had brought to everyone with her need for rest (apparently seriously expecting that to incentivise her to want to life again?). That's messed up! Her final plea, "I desire peace. Leave me in peace here!" just reeks of desperation, and also makes it clear (in conjunction with her previous "Not yet"s) that it's not to be taken as a definite statement of a desire to never return to life, but a desperate plea to finally be allowed to rest, the need for which caused her death in the first place.

But you want know the kicker of all this, that never fails to get me with its double standard?

During the time of his sorrow Finwë had little comfort from Fëanor. For a while he also had kept vigil by his mother’s body, but soon he became wholly absorbed again in his own works and devices.

Hey. Hey, remember that previous paragraph about how Finwe "forsook his long vigils by her sleeping body and sought to take up his own life again [...]"? Now Fëanor is suddenly depicted as callous for doing the very same thing that was depicted as admirably weathering his grief in Finwë's case, except he didn't even need to throw Míriel under the bus for it.

[ruknowhere]

"It is perfectly possible — indeed, it is far from uncommon — to go to bed one night, or wake up one morning, or simply walk through a door one has known all one’s life, and discover, between inhaling and exhaling, that the self one has sewn together with such effort is all dirty rags, is unusable, is gone: and out of what raw material will one build a self again? The lives of men — and, therefore, of nations — to an extent literally unimaginable, depend on how vividly this question lives in the mind. It is a question which can paralyze the mind, of course; but if the question does not live in the mind, then one is simply condemned to eternal youth, which is a synonym for corruption."

--James Baldwin

Photo by Sedat Pakay

Source: Follies Of God

[invested-in-your-future]

Looking back, its interesting that everything you mentioned about the kingdoms are their flaws, or at least they seemed so from the way that you described them (I could be misinterpreting). Is there any kingdom you've created where you would say their virtues outweigh their flaws?

In a way, so far, the worldbuilding serves as Salem's argument in a metaphorical debate of sorts - as she says, those flaws are the nature of humanity - a cyclical conclusion to civilization's progress.

Each Kingdom faces different issues brought upon by its history - held together by tough decisions and secrets. With communications down and uncertainty creeping upon them all, the Kingdoms are tumbling towards their darkest moments.

Technically, I'd say every Kingdom has good and bad aspects to them. Just like how the first three Volumes had shown this bright and colorful Vale only to tear it apart, there's also good beneath the surface of Mistral.

To me, humanity and the finite time we have within our lives have always been at the core of the show - do a person's actions matter in the face of the inevitable? Can one person's beliefs and convictions make a difference within the larger, mostly indifferent world?

For me, Volume 2 soundtrack, "Die", has always been the epitome of the world post Fall of Beacon. (Even if the show never really does anything with that)

Vale is a mess, the worldwide communications have gone down, uncertainty reigns, and past wounds reopen as a multitude of eyes gaze at the power vacuum, seeing their chance within the decaying status quo.

Till now, the boundaries of safety that the setting of Vale provides had sheltered the four leads(and the audience), but that was torn away, revealing a darker world beneath childhood naivety that Roman spoke of to Ruby, in turn tying the worldbuilding to the character conflict within her.

The four leads all long for simpler days of their youth when it was clear what they were fighting for - something that had been torn away from them as the world around them grew darker and more confusing.

But that doesn't mean that's all there is.

Vale has been shown as an epitome of peace and order, but it's a Kingdom enamored with the said status quo - to a fault. The Kingdom was powerless in the face of oncoming tragedy it desperately tried to avoid noticing. There's hate and anger and all the other ugly parts of humanity boiling beneath the surface, but that doesn't erase all the genuinely well-meaning people the place harbors, too. It's a Kingdom that had committed terrible crimes in its past and had its fair share of tyrants, but no matter how flawed, there's a genuine effort to be better too. Some people genuinely buy into the idea of never repeating the past, while others look to other Kingdoms for an example of what theirs should be. The question is - when the façade of peace is torn apart, which instinct would prevail?

Mistral is mired in class division, obsession with traditions, and bygone days, but beneath that, it's also a place that has weathered terrible tragedies and rebuilt itself again and again. If only the Kingdom were to overcome its obsession with titles and past grievances, it could reach great heights.

Atlas is a rigid society that had shackled itself with rules as it attempted to separate from the shadow of Mantle looming over them. Great minds have dedicated themselves to the betterment of humanity - the kingdom of progress and innovation. And if not for the folly that comes with that progress, lots of what the Kingdom of Atlas is doing could indeed make the world a better place.

Vacuo is a destroyed, scarred wasteland - its government torn apart, never having rebuilt after the Great War. The population is scattered amongst a few fortified cities as it struggles to survive with limited resources and rebuild. Even against the harshest conditions and anarchy, humanity still survives and thrives, and Vacuo's citizens have developed a pretty unique worldview when it comes to the issues prevalent in other Kingdoms.

I don't think there are "bad" and "good" Kingdoms - just like humanity as a whole, it's an ongoing conflict between the self-destructive ugly nature that Salem believes defines humanity and that flicker of hope and progress that Ozpin clings to.

For now, the world is on the brink of collapse, though. And the darker, flawed aspects of each Kingdom become more prevalent as order falls apart.

Will the better, more positive sides of those Kingdoms shine through? That remains to be seen.

[thedailytao]

Passage 76

The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry.

Those who are stiff and rigid are the disciples of death. Those who are soft and yielding are the disciples of life.

The rigid and stiff will be broken. The soft and yielding will overcome.

The word translated here as ‘soft,’ in Chinese is róu (柔), which can also mean flexible, gentle, yielding. When combined with the character for the Tao or the Way, you get 柔道, which in Japanese is pronounced ‘Judo.’ Yes, Judo as in the martial arts style. It literally means, “the way of softness,” or “the way of yielding,” and was heavily influenced by Taoist philosophy and this passage in particular, partially through Jujitsu, which it was based off of (Jujitsu meaning “the art of softness”).

One of the main principles of Judo practice is ‘maximum efficiency, minimum effort,’ a conservation of energy based on being flexible and yielding to one’s opponent rather than trying to combat them directly. It’s more efficient to evade a punch than it is to block it. This was illustrated by the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, with the phrase “softness controls hardness.”

Indeed, in modern medicine we know that flexibility and suppleness is a sign of health in most body systems. Ancient Chinese scholars may not have known about hard arteries, but they could clearly see that bodies in general became stiffer and less agile with age. They related this concept, as this passage does, to the way that young plants are tender and become hardened with age. Flexibility, therefore, was a sign of youth, vigor, and life, while rigidity was a sign of illness and death.

After so many passages discussing the folly of fearing death, the return to the source, and death’s place as part of the natural cycles that we all must go through, we should also discuss why it is suddenly cast in such a negative light here. Taoist philosopher Derek Lin has a wonderful explanation for this: in this instance, death specifically represents the loss of possibility that comes with death. It is more to do with the Uncarved Block than resisting the natural ebb and flow of life. When someone is alive, there are endless possibilities and opportunities for growth. Once they are dead, their possibilities (specifically within the bounds of their life) are finished. Their block is carved.

As the Uncarved Block is used as a metaphor for indecision, though, this leads to an interesting thought: death as a final decision. To remain alive is to live in a perpetual state of indecision, not yet knowing what the whole shape of your life will be. Even the choices that you make in your life can be undone so long as you are living and yielding to new experiences.

In death, the sum of your choices, every one you’ve ever made, is finalized. Rigid.

[helenofsimblr]

Ozen: Francine was conceived her on the islands then.

Stella: She was indeed. In another 10 years or so I will be REALLY old and wrinkly, she laughs.

Morrigan listens quietly.

Ozen: I bet time slows for you on the island. Everyone here ages well.

Stella: Well I like to think so, Kevari seems to have done well here, despite all the drinking and smoking she does! Or maybe that's her secret! she laughs.

Morrigan: Mama Kevari has been here for a long time. I wouldn't use her as a standard. She talks of when father was a youth.

Stella: Oh dear gods she must be old as the sand.

Ozen: Yeah, no one really knows how old she is. There's no record that can confirm it... and she won't give me a straight answer.

****

Stella: Should never ask a ladies' age Ozen.

she looks at Morrigan and nods.

Morrigan: I taught him that, but he has never listened well. Always asking inappropriate questions.

Ozen looks away and then winks at Stella, 

Ozen: Yes yes, the horrid little Prince who doesn't listen... that's me.

Stella: Just determined and independent Oz. Right?

Ozen: Right!

Morrigan: I merely tried to teach him the traditions and laws he needs to know as a Prince. He preferred racing me... and hide and seek.

Elita: Stella understood that Ozen had needed  a mom, and Morrigan had tried to be that for him. But he wanted her to be his playmate. Stella found herself wondering if she had stayed, maybe everybody would have been happier. Her, Triton, Morrigan, Ozen, and Francine of course… 

****

Ozen: How long were you on the island with Father? After the ruffians and your ability to see through his siren call?

Stella: Definitely  a week. I was there for 2 weeks, and I met your dad at the start of the second week and so we had 6 or 7 wonderful nights and too much information, I'm sure. Talking about this with his kids, I'm not sure she wants to hear about it, I sense you still don't entirely trust me Morrigan.

Morrigan shakes her head, 

Morrigan: As long as you don't go into the details of the physical bits, I think we'll be ok... and yes. I don't trust anyone entirely. It's nothing personal. My country, my family and my islands are my responsibility to protect. If I trusted everyone, it would be folly. I'm sure you understand that as a lawyer of renown.

Stella: Indeed I do.

Ozen: Yeah, long as you skip the uh, naked bits. We'll be good.

Stella: Perhaps if I just tell the story from the start, as in the bit where I decided to visit Sulani that'd be a good idea…

[despair-to-future-arcs]

There was a lot of tension!

...Well, I think me and Kojikoji will go on ahead; will wait for you to finish talking to your teacher then, Teruteru.

Oh right... yes, I guess so well go on ahead; I'll deal with this...

Sure thing dude, will get going...

*As then Yokoyoko and Kojikoji walk away which Teruteru and the teacher watch them then they continue*

So that's your younger brother and sister? I remember that Hope's Peak enroll them as the Ultimate Male and Female Escort...

Yeah... they are, I'm honestly surprise that those 2 even got into Hope's Peak...

But...they're also, you know, people who've made mistakes due to the folly of youth. Jeez...it has to be a mistake for them to admire a job like that.

Indeed so, having a job like that really is disgusting, isn't it? After all, all they are doing is whoring themselves out...

Indeed, the thing is that I haven't seen them for a while so I don't really know, but it sounds like they're being scouted by restaurants but still the fact the 2 got enroll by those talents... I swear, they probably only care about money because that's all they talk about.

Jeez...it's obvious they're just exploiting their youth to make a quick buck! So what if they make a hundred million annually or whatever...? That much money doesn't mean a thing...

I have to agree, I bet they want to prove that they are better then you and I think if they listen to you then maybe they wouldn't be stuck with such horrific talents.

That's right, who cares about money! After all, those 2 don't get the bigger picture and it really feels like I have to keep them in line!

In any case, I better continue that tour so I best be off... At least someone finally sees how bad their talents are.

Then maybe you can try to get them to drop out and re-consider their future or it wouldn't be a good image that your relying on whores to keep your business a float.

I might try to do that, thank you miss...

Well... I better head off then...

*walks away*

[a300lbman]

Six Decibels of Separation: The Big Lebowski Soundtrack

I can toe-tally understand the cult mentality of The Big Lebowski, a movie that can be both adored and completely overlooked by so many people. “You want a toe? I can get you a toe. Believe me. There are ways, dude. You don’t want to know about it.  Believe me. Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o’clock this afternoon.... with nail polish.”

Forget about the fucking toe. This movie is one of my favorites and I am slowly realizing that I have probably already written a fanboy piece about this movie. This is probably due to the fact that I drink when I watch this movie and I write when I drink. This is like a G-rated Burroughs scenario and I am down for a time. 

For the sake of argument, I would like to focus on the music in the movie. It is in this comfy space that I think we might all find some common ground. 

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Lets start out with some Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lookin Out My Back Door, a classic song, but if you only have a minute and you want something to laugh at, the video above will check those boxes. 

Being a huge fan of Santana, I always enjoy the musical backdrop to the punch line of an amazing joke in the movie. If you haven’t seen it, the smashed out windshield and Jeff Bridges visual frustration aren’t nearly as comical, but this loop of the guys riding to Oye Como Va cracks me up every time!

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Nobody fucks with tha jesus. You know this or you don’t, but if you’ve seen The Big Lebowski, you know that given his pedo backstory, tha jesus might not be someone you want to fuck with. In either case, I’d like the share an anecdote from my youth. To properly date myself, I had asked a friend to burn a CD for me and I asked that he put Hotel California on there for me. I ended up getting the cut by the Gypsy Kings and while I might have been pissed at first, I have come to love this version more than any other... 

https://youtu.be/61NJnUL7Fcs

Arguably the intro song would have been the poetic beginning, or even end, to this foray into Musical Lebowskianism, but do you see what happens? Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass? The Man in Me is not an appropriate answer to this question, but it does make sweet ear candy for the lazy malaise of the film. Bob Dylan was a chameleon and this song is but one example.  

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It is important to respect the classics. While I won’t pretend to have known the song made famous by the Sons of the Pioneers, Tumbling Tumbleweeds has a soothing nature about it and I’m here for it. Add to it Sam Elliot’s baritone twang and you’ve got the setup for an epic movie indeed.  

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Impossible it would be to talk about classics and not mention Requiem in D Minor, a song you’ve heard a thousand times and might not know the name. After you rewatch this movie, or based on this musical journey decide to watch for the first time, do yourself a favor and grab a book off the shelf, loop this song and shock yourself at how much better you read with this music in the background. Say what you want, but you’ll feel like a genius. For those looking only for a tune and a laugh, click to watch the scene below and enjoy The Dude’s ability to say ‘fuck it’ better than anyone (sorry I can’t post the video directly, evidently you can only post five video’s per post... probably should have learned that by now). 

The Big Lebowski (clip 10) "What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?"

Well I hope you enjoyed your journey through the musical folly and forte of the soundtrack to the cult classic Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski. I would highly recommend it, whether it stands the test of time or not, but at the very least I hope you come to appreciate the soundtrack.

“Look, I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin Eagles, Man.” 

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

by William Jay

Morning Devotion for October 7th

According to His mercy he, saved us. - Titus 3:5

We are here reminded of the source of our salvation. In common things we observe a distinction between mercy and grace. Mercy is exercised towards the miserable. Grace is favour bestowed upon the guilty and the undeserving. But in the Scriptures grace always includes mercy. When Pharaoh’s daughter saw the infant Moses in the ark of bulrushes, her compassion was excited towards him: this was pure mercy. When Joseph saw before him his brethren, who envied him, and hated him, and, in intention, murdered him, instead of punishing them he not only promised them supplies, but assured them of his forgiveness: this was pure grace. And how fully does this apply to ourselves!

We were not only miserable but guilty, and not only guilty but undeserving, yea, ill and hell-deserving creatures. Therefore to this source the sacred writers attribute our recovery from the beginning to the end. Thus Peter says, “According to his abundant mercy he hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection from the dead;” and Paul here says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that, being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” The whole design of our salvation originates in and is secured by the purpose and grace of God. The plan was formed and accomplished long before we had a being. His love was, therefore, “preventing and free.”

Thus, while it gives us abundant encouragement, it excludes boasting, and disposes the believer to exclaim, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, be all the praise.” Thus, in our approaches to God, we must come not as buyers, but as beggars, bringing nothing in our hands, but obtaining all we need of mercy and grace, for time and eternity, “without money and without price.” Thus the Publican sought and found mercy. Thus it was with the Prodigal: when he came to himself, he said, I will arise and go to my father, and say, Father, I have some claim upon you as a child, and you should overlook my youthful follies. No; but he says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy child: make me as one of thy hired servants.” And how is he received?

When the father “saw him a great way off he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him,” and we find he was not only clothed but adorned, not only fed but feasted, and the whole family was filled with ecstasy, and the house with joy and gladness. Indeed, the whole design of revelation is to encourage the hope of the penitent. Thus, “what things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Prison, in my experience, is every rotten thing that all the books written by prisoners say it is. However, it is not my purpose here seriously to attempt any real contribution to the literature of this genre. By and large—and I don’t mean the observation to be perjorative—I find books by prisoners to contain much the same general message as do books by infantrymen, which is, “Consider now this deadly folly, which I have managed to survive.”

Certainly such books are worth the writing; but I would rather my purpose be understood as being simply anti-war; the writing of a tract, if it must be, but an anti-war tract, and one dealing with prison only as I for a time was prisoner through being pacifist.

This much having been said by way of disclaimer, a few personal observations then about pacifists in prison and myself, once, as one of them, and since.

And since …

To this day I can hear a sound of metal on metal—a certain pitched and timbered hollow-sounding clang—that will turn my blood cold. I am, also now, always a little uncomfortable in the halls of any government building, while the silence, the air of captivity peculiar to schools, can make me downright uneasy. In my youth I was in no way claustrophobic, but I can not now enter an elevator or ride in a compact car without severe disquiet. It has become impossible for me to sleep in a pup tent, no matter that its walls are of canvas.

Small scars; but scars.

Imprisonment is a physical thing; it is being caged. I think that one necessarily must have been caged for a time fully to understand it, what it feels like, what it is. Nothing in our common experience anticipates it, or lets us easily imagine it; as, for instance, we can imagine quite accurately, I believe, drowning or suffocating or being beaten; but not so, I think, imprisonment.

It is the force—and for its duration it is merciless and unyielding—which society exercises upon its individual transgressors; to have felt it is, indeed, to fear the law.

Today, only with the greatest reluctance and possibly not at all would I seek recourse through the law if cheated, robbed or assaulted. It is not yet in my experience or inclination to perceive the law and its power as other chiefly than the tool of the privileged, an instrument equally for the suppression of the dissident and the oppression of the poor.

Surely the law must be more than this; but I have known, and I know it to be, at least this.

It seems to me obvious that there are similarities between armies and prisons, in the way each is operated and in their functions generally; certainly these rigid and authoritarian institutions have more in common than that their members find the wearing of uniforms obligatory.

I suggest, for instance, that they also have this in common. That they are the two most prevalent institutions in modern society that are everywhere, and hugely, failures; that each not only fails to serve the purpose for which ostensibly it exists, but in fact serves a purpose quite the opposite; prisons being, more than anything else, training schools for criminals; and armies— as the targets of other armies—being the occasion, if not precisely the cause, of the destruction of large segments of those populations which they are supposed to protect.

With the exception of the United States—spared by a happenstance of distance, a happenstance no longer in effect—the various nations involved in World War Two took non-combatant, civilian casualties, of both sexes and all ages, in the thousands and hundreds of thousands; and in America it is a young criminal today—the barest child—who does not have a prison record.

Prisons and armies, as with insect societies, are run by fiat, unquestioned decree. (With insect societies, of course, the decree is biological and quite beyond appeal; which can appear to be the case, at times, with human societies as well.) But what works for a bug would not seem to work too well for a man. The car thieves, bootleggers and bank robbers that I came to know in Chillicothe and Ashland prisons left these institutions—to my firsthand knowledge—not better citizens but better car thieves, bootleggers and bank robbers, a decree and imprisonment to the contrary notwithstanding; as I, in fact, left Ashland a more iconoclastic, if not a better, pacifist.

Having lived in prison for a time with a group of pacifists, I am of the opinion that most of us would have made lousy soldiers under any conditions. It was in our natures, in any authoritarian, conformist environment, to be trouble makers. Simply put, we wouldn’t march well.

Strangely, I am not certain if it was at Ashland or at Chillicothe—I believe it was at Ashland—when for a brief time we were required to march in lock step. It is one of my more vivid, if isolated, prison memories. Beyond the obvious imposition upon us of a demeaning and excessive ritual conformity, it was the ridiculous intimacy of the lock step march to which I objected. I recall thinking at the time that even circus elephants are not so forcibly ass-to-groin paraded, but circle the arena trunk-to-tail, having room at least decently to breathe or pass wind.

(Interestingly enough, the official justification of the use of lock step was that it enabled the authorities immediately to detect any troublesome behavior on the part of an inmate, any ‘stepping out of line.’)

I remember especially how at first we were tightly lined up … and then made endlessly to wait. Then, at the blowing of a whistle, row upon row, as mechanically as men can be made to function, we moved about as though on conveyor belts; we were as lines of robots, blind-shuffling through the halls, twisting the same along the outside walks, no matter that it rained or snowed, or that a wind blew.

I remember moving in lock step across a prison yard through a crashing, sky-splitting electrical storm. I was amazed that we were spared. Any decent God would have wiped us out in contempt, flattened us all in a row, like dominoes."

- Donald Wetzel, Pacifist: Or, My War And Louis Lepke. New York: Permanent Press, 1986/2016. p. 103-105.

[suatatan]

Quotes from the book Kato Lomb - Polyglot_ how I learn languages

Kato Lomb - Polyglot_ how I learn languages-TESL-EJ (2008)

One text that relates personal language-learning experi-ence is Dr. Kató Lomb’s Polyglot: How I Learn Languages (2008; Hungarian: Így tanulok nyelveket [1995, 4th ed.]). A collection of anecdotes and ref l ections on languages and lan-guage learning, it belongs to a select group of similar texts by polyglot linguists such as Bloomf i eld (Outline Guide for the Practical Study of Foreign Languages, 1942), Pei (How to Learn Languages and What Languages to Learn, 1973), Pimsleur (How to Learn a Foreign Language, 1980), and Stevick (Success with Foreign Languages, 1989)

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Because Lomb recognizes that the amount of time required to learn a language is considerable, she stresses a pragmatic approach, which in fact may help stimulate the motivation she sees as essential to language acquisition

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Despite her own high level of achievement, Lomb claims that she is not a perfectionist in language learning. “I like to say that we should study languages because languages are the only thing worth knowing even poorly,” she writes.

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“Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value.

Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. Asking in broken Italian which train we are supposed to board at the Venice railway station is far from useless. Indeed, it is better to do that than to remain uncertain and silent and end up back in Budapest rather than in Milan.”

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nally, I would like to give thanks to a young writer, Mr. S. Pál, for his view that “T h e optimism of the writer is the most important point in the book. And we, the readers, from now on will have a more hopeful perspective and are more likely to over-come our original inhibitions and look upon learning a new language as a personal goal of high value, w

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“Enthusiasm is contagious,” wrote János Selye.

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h is new edition has strengthened my conviction that self-assurance, motivation, and a good method play a much more important role in language learning than the vague concept of innate ability, and that dealing with languages is not only an ef f ective and joyful means of developing human relationships,

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I was still regarded, and I re-garded myself, as a foreign language fl op

--

Örnek cümle

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Juventus ventus… (Youth is folly…

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Latin adage docendo discimus (we learn by teaching), treading

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If someone can devote an unlimited number of hours to language learning, a concentrated program can be followed; such programs are outside the scope of this book. If, on the other hand, someone can’t devote even 60–90 minutes a day to language learning, this book is not really for them either. In neither case do such students qualify as ALLs.

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pounced

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h e great advantage of the method is the opportunity to repeat the material frequently. And I must stress that repeti-tion is as an essential element of language learning as a knife is to a lathe or fuel is to an internal combustion engine.

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Repetitio est mater studiorum—“repetition is the mother of studies”—as our ancestors said.

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Oftentimes, the foreign language pat-terns are taught by endless repetition, in the form of several hours’ long drills every day, without revealing any theoretical connections. Th inking is a sin, which only hinders success.

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Yet you are not aware of it, and therefore cannot build on your knowledge in any intel-lectual way.

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It is not a mission of this book to speak about what TV programs mean for villagers and shut-ins. It cannot be denied, however, that TV doesn’t only draw young people away from reading in terms of time.

Images are easier to follow than letters;

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To understand your partner’s speech and to express your of great help. Th ese of course are the inventions employed by the audiovisual method.

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It is a bitter lesson but it has to be expressed once: the time spent on language learning is lost unless it reaches a certain—daily and weekly—concentration.

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Serious people tend to avoid generalizations, but one claim seems appropriate here: the ALL needs to study a minimum of 10–12 hours a week. If one cannot or doesn’t want to invest this much time, he or she should think twice about the enterprise.

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Serious people tend to avoid generalizations, but one claim seems appropriate here: the ALL needs to study a minimum of 10–12 hours a week. If one cannot or doesn’t want to invest this much time, he or she should think twice about the enterprise.

(An interesting question is if someone who invests, say, four times as much on learning will be able to acquire last-ing knowledge in a fourth of the time.) T h e 10–12 hours a week is, of course, an average. Still, let’s start from this average when we look at the language learning method of a working adult.

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Persistent attention—one of the preconditions of all suc-cessful learning—is assured.

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Whenever I am asked how I was able to succeed in many languages in a relatively short period of time, I always make a bow in spirit to the source of all knowledge: books. My advice to learners can thus be expressed in one word: read!

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Apart from a conversation with oneself, which I keep advocating so frequently (and which I named autologue be-cause neither monologue or dialogue covers the concept), there is one situation I fi nd suitable for conversation: a relative, friend, or acquaintance visiting you in your home country, who—out of gratitude for showing him around— will allow you to practice with him. What’s more, he might even warn you—possibly tactfully—of your mistakes

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What I would like to add to this well-known fact are only two points: fi rst, that you should dare to include reading in your learn-ing program at the very beginning, and second, that you should read actively. You need to meet linguistic phenomena frequently so that you can fi nd a way through a language’s twists and turns.

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at summer, my only thought was having a rest, playing ball, and swimming. Th erefore, I didn’t bring along anything to work with. At the last minute, I threw a Portuguese book into my baggage.

…in the open, by necessity, I resigned myself to the book, and in the prison of my solitude, formed by dolomite rocks on one side and vast forests on the other, between the sky and the wa-ter, I started to make the text out. At fi rst, it was dif f i cult. Th en I got the hang of it. I resolved I would still get to the bottom of it, without a mas-ter or a dictionary. To spur my instinct and cre-ativity, I imagined I would be hit by some great trouble were I not to understand it exactly, or maybe an unknown tyrant would even condemn me to death.

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at summer, my only thought was having a rest, playing ball, and swimming. Th erefore, I didn’t bring along anything to work with. At the last minute, I threw a Portuguese book into my baggage.

…in the open, by necessity, I resigned myself to the book, and in the prison of my solitude, formed by dolomite rocks on one side and vast forests on the other, between the sky and the wa-ter, I started to make the text out. At fi rst, it was dif f i cult. Th en I got the hang of it. I resolved I would still get to the bottom of it, without a mas-ter or a dictionary. To spur my instinct and cre-ativity, I imagined I would be hit by some great trouble were I not to understand it exactly, or maybe an unknown tyrant would even condemn me to death.

It was a strange game. Th e fi rst week, I sweated blood. Th e second, I intuited what it was about. Th e third week, I greeted the birds in Portuguese, who then chatted with me..

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at summer, my only thought was having a rest, playing ball, and swimming. Th erefore, I didn’t bring along anything to work with. At the last minute, I threw a Portuguese book into my baggage.

…in the open, by necessity, I resigned myself to the book, and in the prison of my solitude, formed by dolomite rocks on one side and vast forests on the other, between the sky and the wa-ter, I started to make the text out. At fi rst, it was dif f i cult. Th en I got the hang of it. I resolved I would still get to the bottom of it, without a mas-ter or a dictionary. To spur my instinct and cre-ativity, I imagined I would be hit by some great trouble were I not to understand it exactly, or maybe an unknown tyrant would even condemn me to death.

It was a strange game. Th e fi rst week, I sweated blood. Th e second, I intuited what it was about. Th e third week, I greeted the birds in Portuguese, who then chatted with me...

…I very much doubt if I could ever use it in my life or if I would be able to read any other Portuguese books. But it is not important. I did not regret this summer’s steeplechase.

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I mention the library only as a last resort. I recommend buying your own books for language learning. Th ey can be spiced with underlines, question marks, and exclamation points; they can be thumbed and dog-eared, plucked to their essential core, and annotated so that they become a mirror of yourself.

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What shall one write in the margins? Only the forms and phrases you have understood and fi gured out from the context.

Ignore what you can’t immediately understand. If a word is important, it will occur several times and explain itself anyway. Base your progress on the known, not the un-known. Th e more you read, the more phrases you will write in the margins. Th e relationship that develops between you and the knowledge you obtain will be much deeper than if you had consulted the dictionary automatically. Th e sense of achievement provides you with an emotional-af f ective charge: You have sprung open a lock; you have solved a little puzzle

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It is also a special danger in large groups that you will hear your fellow students’ bad pronunciation more than the teacher’s perfected speech.

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Th e traditional way of learning a language (cramming 20–30 words a day and digesting the grammar supplied by a teacher or a course book) may satisfy at most one’s sense of duty, but it can hardly serve as a source of joy. Nor will it likely be successful.

Man lernt Grammatik aus der Sprache, nicht Sprache aus der Grammatik (One learns grammar from language, not language from grammar)—this truth was stated at the end of the 19th century

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Language learning consists of internalizing such patterns

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h e precondition of internalizing them is to face the correct forms as much as possible until they become au-tomatic.

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h is is why I am such an enthusiastic fan of monologues in foreign languages. If I talk with myself, I am relieved that my partner will not be indignant at long hesitations, gram-matical agreements dif f i cult to manage, and vocabulary gaps completed in the mother tongue. All I suggest is that mono-logues be silent. Th is is to avoid learning bad pronunciation from yourself and to prevent passersby from thinking that your tongue has been loosened by some alcoho

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Returning to books, the question arises: what shall we read? Answer: A text that is of interest to you. Interesse ist stärker als Liebe—as they put it in German. (Interest[edness] is stronger than love.) And interest beats the fi ercest enemy: boredom.

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Speaking skill is developed most by reading today’s plays and colorful modern short stories and novels that have a good pace. “Situational elements,” as they call them, are built into the background of the story so they steal into your memory along with the background.

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ose venturing to learn a foreign language should be prepared to learn to understand not one but at least two forms of it: the written and the spoken. Th e ALL who has chosen my method will cope with the former more easily and the latter with more dif f i culty.

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culty.

Books have descriptive parts. In these, writers quote themselves and since they are good stylists by profession, they roll out nice, regularly formed sentences in front of you. Also, teachers are educators because they are supposed to speak in a clever and precise way. Unfortunately, all this has nothing—or not always has anything—to do with ac-tual situations in life.

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It is much more likely that the conversation will sound something like this:

“Hey, how ’bout getting a cup of joe around here?”

“Oh, slower please, I don’t understand. Getting what?”

“A cup of joe!”

“What is it? A cup of cof f ee?”

“Of course!”

“Sorry, I can’t, I have to go back to the…uh, what do you call it?”

“To the hotel? Well, see you!”

I admit that a course book cannot teach and an instruc-tor cannot recommend using the words “hey,” “oh,” “well,” “y’know,” “huh,” “kind of” and the like. However, they oc-cur much more frequently in everyday chats than well-bred “dictionary words.” So I return to my soapbox: until you naturally begin to acquire such words through usage, you can learn such colloquialisms from today’s prose in the most painless way.

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Conscientiousness is a nice virtue but at the beginning of language learning, it is more of a brake than an engine. It is not worth looking up every word in the dictionary. It is much more of a problem if the book becomes fl avorless in your hands due to interruptions than not learning if the inspector watches the murderer from behind a blackthorn or a hawthorn.

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Conscientiousness is a nice virtue but at the beginning of language learning, it is more of a brake than an engine. It is not worth looking up every word in the dictionary. It is much more of a problem if the book becomes fl avorless in your hands due to interruptions than not learning if the inspector watches the murderer from behind a blackthorn or a hawthorn.

If the word is important, it will come up again anyway and its meaning will become apparent from the context, as it is called. Th is kind of acquaintance, which needs some thinking, leaves a much more lasting mark than reaching for the dictionary automatically and acknowledging the mean-ing of the word absent-mindedly.

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It is proven by experience that initial dynamism is a good way to start reading in a foreign language, since a habit can be made of it like every other human activity. Th e main thing is to not get discouraged by the unfriendly medium of the foreign language text.

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It is proven by experience that initial dynamism is a good way to start reading in a foreign language, since a habit can be made of it like every other human activity. Th e main thing is to not get discouraged by the unfriendly medium of the foreign language text.

Who hasn’t felt a mild shiver when throwing oneself into the cool waters of a lake? Who hasn’t desired to climb back to the sunlit sand? And who hasn’t been happy after a minute or two, after getting used to the cold of the water, for resisting the temptation? An interesting foreign language text should help the “swimmer” over the initial aversion and discouragement of reading

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To those who don’t dare to embark on original, un-abridged literary works immediately, I can recommend adapted texts with all my heart. Th e classics of world lit-erature have been rewritten, for language-learning purposes, into simpler sentences with a reduced vocabulary. Th ey are available in every bookstore, and they can be borrowed from libraries for free, but I don’t recommend the latter. Course books are for scrawling. When they have come apart by too much use, they can be bought again.

Language is present in a piece of work like the sea in a single drop. If you have the patience to turn the text up and down, inside out, break it into pieces and put it together again, shake it up and let it settle again, you can learn re-markably much from it.

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To those who don’t dare to embark on original, un-abridged literary works immediately, I can recommend adapted texts with all my heart. Th e classics of world lit-erature have been rewritten, for language-learning purposes, into simpler sentences with a reduced vocabulary. Th ey are available in every bookstore, and they can be borrowed from libraries for free, but I don’t recommend the latter. Course books are for scrawling. When they have come apart by too much use, they can be bought again.

Language is present in a piece of work like the sea in a single drop. If you have the patience to turn the text up and down, inside out, break it into pieces and put it together again, shake it up and let it settle again, you can learn re-markably much from it.

Lajos Kossuth,58 whose orations are given as models in 20th-century English rhetoric books, learned English in an Austrian prison. He used 16 lines of a Shakespeare play as a starting point. “I literally had to surmise English grammar from them. And once I had and perfectly understood the 16 lines, I knew enough English so that I only had to enrich my vocabulary.”

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making yourself understood

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Pronunciation is one of the most dif f i cult tasks of lan-guage learning and one of the most important touchstones of your language mastery. Although it isn’t worth very much without a fair knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, this is what your knowledge is judged by when you fi rst speak. It plays approximately the same role in representing your skills as looks do for women. A pretty woman will def i nitely be right at the moment she appears. Later on, she may turn out to be stupid, boring, or even malicious, but she has won the fi rst battle anyway.

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It is another delusion that in order to learn good pronun-that by diligently watching world champion fi gure skaters on TV you will manage to do the three-turn loop or the double axel jump on the ice rink the next day.

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I heaved a deep sigh of envy.

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You should fi ght forgetting with repetition. Th e pre-condition of repetition is that the phrases to be memorized should be commonly used by speakers of the language.

However, this cannot always be ensured even in the very center of a foreign-language environment, let alone thou-sands of miles away from it!

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It is even more important that you learn the correct in-tonation of words and sentences. You can ef f ectively ingrain them in your mind by recording radio and TV programs and playing them repeatedly.

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It is even more important that you learn the correct in-tonation of words and sentences. You can ef f ectively ingrain them in your mind by recording radio and TV programs and playing them repeatedly. Th e eternal rule holds here as well: you should do this for a short time but with full inten-sity rather than sitting around beside the radio or the tape recorder with your thoughts wandering among yesterday’s experiences or tomorrow’s hopes.

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Videos can enrich our vo-cabulary and improve our sentence construction skills, but only if we watch them over and over. According to my own informal surveys, this is not typical of fans of videos

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Th e meaning of a sentence depends on what building blocks you move about on the chessboard of your thoughts.

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Surely all of you remember a situation when you had to start speaking a language you hadn’t used for years. Th e wheels of the mind creak with dif f i culty. You shake your head in anger: you knew the words but now you’ve forgot-ten them. Even the simplest words don’t come to you. When they fi nally do come to you, however, they are not from your guage you have studied. You are annoyed and surprised, and after 10–20 minutes the words and forms from the “right” language start to fall into place. Your partner wonders and you think to yourself with a silent rapture that you may still seem to be a language genius—although it was but the power of words recalling each other that pulled the context into place.

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Like most simultaneous in-terpreters, I usually work at such conferences with my eyes closed so that I exclude all visual impressions and can con-centrate entirely on the spoken

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Understanding high-level, written texts is easier. As you learn the vocabulary of everyday life, however, words be-come more and more context-specif i c. Th ere is nothing to do: you have to learn them. You can’t weave a fabric without thread.

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Probably all of my fellow ALLs have noticed that some words stick easier in the mind than others. Th is depends on subjective and objective factors. Th e subjective factor can be simply expressed like this: you memorize the word that you have a personal connection to. An expression, a number, a name, or an event will become more fi xed in your mind the more meaningful it is to you.

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T h at is why colloquial language is more dif f i cult than academic discourse. Th at is why it is easier to understand a technical text than to correctly ask for a glass of water.

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But woe to he who asks “what is the time” by translating the Hungarian expression.87 It is expressed in German as: How late is it? (Wie spät ist es?), in French: Which hour is it (Quelle heure est-il?), in Russian: Which hour? (Который час?—Kotoryy chas?), in English: What is the time?, in Swedish: How much is the clock? (Hur mycket är klockan?), in Hebrew: What is the hour? (Mah ha shaah?)

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You read a word or a rule but your mind only glides over it: it hasn’t become your own, it hasn’t become a tool that you can use as you please whenever you need it. You are lucky if you can passively recognize it the next time you see it.

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Let’s not be angry then with mistakes. Many a valu-able thing were born out of them—among other things, the French, Italian, and Spanish languages. All three developed from the vulgar (common) use of Latin.

Of course, we shouldn’t create new languages. But we can acquire the existing ones better by comparing the prop-erties of the starting (mother) language and the new lan-guage.

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WE ARE sometimes told, in connection with learning a foreign language, that we should think in the language. I’m not comfortable with that piece of advice.

How can you state what language you are thinking in? How and when can you penetrate into the exceedingly com-plex mechanism of brain activity?

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h e terror of “I don’t remember it” always hovers over you whenever you are speaking a foreign language. You won’t remember a term, however, as long as you keep galloping frightened around the mother-tongue term. (“Oh my God, what is it called…?”) With practice and discipline, you can reach a stage where you banish the mother-tongue expression from your mind and you fl ash upon an accompanying word in the for-eign language that you usually hear in conjunction with the fugitive term.

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If I have recommended learning words in bunches, it is for two purposes. First, you can be more certain that you aren’t wrong in interpreting a word because its relationships def i ne its meaning better. Second, you will have imprinted it in your memory in context, which will help you retrieve 89. Five-year plans were national economic development plans in the Whoever glances into the depth of the shoreless sea of vocabulary will be surprised at how many such embracing word pairs there are in the world. Learning them is a task of the fi rst rank, something that I wholeheartedly recommend to ALLs with an aversion to rote learning. For example:

An obstacle is overcome A duty is fulf i lled A news report is announced A role is played A standard of living is raised A demand is satisf i ed A message is delivered A condition is created A wall is built (or knocked down) etc.

T h e ALL who learns word pairs like these can count on the fact that when he or she is supposed to talk about a par-ticular topic, they will appear in the viewf i nder of his or her camera. Intelligible sentences can then be produced.

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Speaking a foreign language always means a compromise, Kosztolányi said

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If you are in especially bad shape and this method won’t help, you have a last resort: circumlocution. “How poetic “when you spoke about the humble little fl ower that is re-vealed by its scent from far away.” “I had to say that because I forgot the word for ‘violet’ in Italian,” she replied.

Synonyms, antonyms, and circumlocution are kind helpers when starting to speak a foreign language. Th ey have, however, enemies and pitfalls as well: false friends.

Th at is the name for words that appear identical or similar but mean something dif f erent.

Because they often entail common words, false friends are worthy of our attention. I have compiled a small group out of the many hundreds of examples. I have presented them the way others related them to me or the way I en-countered them myself.

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A one Señor Gonzalez wished to spend a weekend in London. He brought with him the addresses of many board-ing houses, yet he had to spend the night in a London park.

Why? Th e reason is that although there were signs saying “Vacancy” on the doors of most of the boarding houses, he confused the word with the Spanish word vacación, which means “vacation,” “shutdown,” or “cease of activity.” And so he only knocked on the doors where he didn’t see such a notice. He was unfortunately rejected at those places.

It was in Sevilla where Signore Rossi fared badly. Trusting in the similarities between Spanish and Italian, he asked for butter for breakfast by saying “burro.” After some delay, his hotel produced a beautifully harnessed donkey (what “bur-ro” means in Spanish). [I note in passing that a Hungarian wishing to ride a donkey from Capri to Anacapri can safely order a somaro because it is indeed called that there.90] False friends have caused even more serious trouble. A Frenchman submitted a demande (request) at a meeting.

However, a “demand” means more than a mere request in 90. Capri and Anacapri are townships on the Italian island of Capri. Th e of f ensive and immediately vetoed it.

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Titles, ranks, and school types are indicated dif f erently in dif f erent countries. A Hungarian akadémikus (academi-cian, member of the Academy of Sciences) doesn’t corre-spond to a German Akademiker because the latter only sig-nif i es that someone graduated from a university or college. Th is institution is called Hochschule only in German since “high school” refers to a secondary school in America—roughly like gimnázium in Hungarian. Gymnasium, on the other hand, means a sport facility in English and it comes from the Greek word gymnos (naked).

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First of all, I try to get my hands on a thick Azilian dic-tionary. Owing to my optimistic outlook I never buy small dictionaries; I go on the assumption that I would fathom them too quickly and then the money I invested in them would end up being wasted. If an Azilian-Hungarian dic-tionary happens not to be available, then I try to get hold of an Azilian-English, Azilian-Russian, etc., dictionary.

In the beginning, I use this dictionary as my textbook. I learn the rules of reading from it. Every language—and consequently every dictionary—contains a lot of interna-tional expressions. Th e bigger the dictionary, the more such expressions there are in it.

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I do not memorize the words; I just scan and study them as though they were some crossword puzzle to be solved. By the time I glean the rules of reading from the above-cited vocabularies, my dictionary will have revealed a lot of other things, too, about the Azilian language. I can see how it morphs the parts of speech into one another: how it nominalizes verbs, how it forms adjectives from nouns, and how it forms adverbs from adjectives.

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Following this fi rst assay, I buy a textbook and some works of Azilian literature, all together. Of the fi rst, I always buy one with answers provided for the questions in the ex-ercises, as I am an ALL: i.e., because of time constraints, I mostly have to teach myself.

I go through the lessons and do all the written exercises in sequence, as they come in the book. I write breezily, leav-ing ample room for corrections. Th en I look up the correct answers in the key and write them beside/above my own incorrect variations. In this way, I get a very visual represen-tation of “the history of my folly.”93 I scold myself for the errors made and then prompt-ly forgive myself. (T h is is very important; see the 10th Commandment below.) I always leave enough space in my notebook to be able to write fi ve –six correct words or sen-tences, similar to the ones I got wrong. Th is is very helpful in imprinting the correct formulas.

*****

reading Azilian plays or short stories. If I get lucky, there will be adapted texts available. If not, I just start on any literature published before 1950. (I can have trouble understanding the style of modern novels, even in Hungarian.) I always buy books in pairs: this increases the chance that at least one will be comprehensible.

I start on the comprehensible novel immediately. To go from incomprehension to half-understanding to complete understanding is an exciting and inspiring journey of dis-covery worthy of the spirit of a mature person. By the time I fi nish the journey, I part with the book feeling that this has been a prof i table and fun enterprise.

*****

At fi rst reading, I only write out words that I manage to understand, that is, words whose meaning I have been able to fi gure out from the context. Naturally, I do not write them out in isolation, but in the context they appeared. It is only after a second or third reading that I look up words unknown to me. Even then, I do not look up each and every one. With those that I record in my notebook, I include the context that was supplied by the book or by any contempo-rary dictionary worthy of the name.

*****

in-ternational events of the day in their main outlines. For this reason—even if the news items are selected according to the probable interests of Azilia’s inhabitants—they are usually listen to the news in some other, familiar language as well.

Th us I am given a key—almost a dictionary—to what I can expect, in advance. If an unknown word crops up along the way, I write it down. After the broadcast, I look it up im-mediately in my big dictionary. Th e reason for this is that at that time, immediately after the broadcast, the word still resounds in my ear with its entire context and if I misheard it (which happens many times), the context, still fresh in my memory, helps redress the error.

If I fi nd the word in the dictionary, a little self-congrat-ulation is in order again, and this makes learning a pleasant pastime instead of a burdensome task.

*****

Once a week, I tape the broadcast. I keep the recording for a while and play it back several times. On these occa-sions, I always concentrate on pronunciation. Alas, I must admit that based on the announcer’s native pronunciation, sometimes I have to reacquaint myself with words that I thought I already knew from books.

*****

At fi rst, I write free compositions because it’s easier. Often these are disjointed texts, made up of elements not connected with each other, just loose sentences that I use to hang new, just seen/just heard words and grammatical phrases on. From the teacher’s corrections I verify whether I grasped their meanings and functions properly. When I reach a higher level of knowledge, I begin to translate. At this stage, an already given text compels me to give up using well-practiced formulas and, under the pressure of translat-ing discipline, employ others that I am not so certain of.

*****

Uncorrected mistakes are very perilous! If one keeps re-peating wrong formulas, they take root in the mind and one will be inclined to accept them as authentic. Written trans-lations pinpoint one’s errors ruthlessly, while a listening ear might be prone to just glossing over them.

*****

We expect 50–60 phrases of a hotel receptionist, but then those have to be perfect; an ALL, however, must learn how to expand the framework and then fi ll it. A savvy French colleague once told me, “In conversation, say what you know; in translation, know what is required.”

*****

s on mastering Azilian might fi nd two things lacking in them. Any self-respecting language manual would now say something like “I make an ef f ort to familiarize myself with the history, geography, social, political, and economic con-ditions of Azilia as thoroughly as possible.”

*****

Th e ideal solution, of course, is to maintain active re-lationships with native speakers of one’s ilk and interests, with lots of shared activities—especially if these natives are willing to correct your mistakes, and if one is resolved not to get mad when they do.

*****

Always memorize idiomatic expressions in the fi rst per-son singular. For example, “I am only pulling your leg.” Or else: Il m’a posé un lapin—He stood me up.

*****

Do not let the fear of making mistakes keep you from speaking, but do ask your conversation partner to correct obliges you—a remote possibility, anyway.

*****

Be fi rmly convinced that you are a linguistic genius. If the facts demonstrate otherwise, heap blame on the pesky language you aim to master, on the dictionaries, or on this book, not on yourself.

*****

Do not postpone embarking on learning a new language—or restarting such a study—until the time of a prospective trip abroad. Rather, try to gain access to native speakers of your target language who are on a visit to your country and who do not speak your language. Th ey could be relatives or friends. If you accompany them and show them around, they will help you solidify your knowledge of their language out of gratitude; they will enrich your vocabulary and over-look the mistakes you make.

*****

Do not expect the same behavior from your compatri-ots. Do not practice on them because they will be prone to giving prime time to your errors—or at the very least, they will be inclined to employ meaningful facial gestures—to demonstrate how much better they are at it.

3.

*****

In your browsing, do not get obsessed with words you don’t know or structures you don’t understand. Build com-prehension on what you already know. Do not automati-cally reach for the dictionary if you encounter a word or two that you don’t understand. If the expression is important, it will reappear and explain itself; if it is not so important, it is no big loss to gloss over it.

*****

Do not be deterred from speaking by the fear of making mistakes. Th e fl ow of speech creates a chain reaction: the context will lead you to the right track.

*****

Do not forget a large number of fi ller expressions and sentence-launching phrases. It is great when you can break the ice with a few formulas that are always on hand and can help you over the initial embarrassment of beginning a con-versation, such as “My French is kind of shaky” or “It’s been a while since I spoke Russian,” etc.

*****

Do not leave newly learned structures or expressions hanging in the air. Fix them in your memory by fi tting them into dif f erent, new settings: into your sphere of interest, into the reality of your own life.

*****

In this attempt, I have tried to keep in mind the adult who strives to gain a balanced, comprehensive knowledge of a language, rather than the acquisition of a specif i c skill. Th e ALL’s goal is not to understand the foreign language publi-cations in his or her fi eld or how to bargain for a sweater; it is most likely just how to speak the language normally.

Let’s look at the grades used in schools fi rst.

*****

First, a certain sedimentation does no harm to language ductors will practice a piece inside out nearly every minute. Th en they will put it aside and not touch it before the con-cert one or two weeks later. Th ey notice that it helps the per-formance. In language learning, the amount of a language learned while abroad will often not show up until well after arriving home.

*****

No one is “just” good at languages. Success in language learning is expressed by a simple equation:

Invested time + interestedness = result

*****

Yet, I believe that there is something to be put into the denominator on the left side of the primitive equation men-tioned at the beginning of the chapter: maybe I would sim-ply call it inhibition:

Invested time + motivation ______________________ = result inhibition Inhibition is shown when the fear of making mis-takes prevents you from speaking and also when you are consciously aware that you are transferring the structure of your mother tongue to the new language (or transferring the structure of a previously learned foreign language, which can play the role of the mother tongue at these times).

*****

How could anyone not like this kind scholar?

Mezzofanti once wrote in the notebook of one of his admirers that “Anyone who can comprehend, analyze, judge, and memorize the essence of languages can equal my achievement.”

*****

TO PREVENT depression, psychologists advise us to fi nd a hobby. Admitting bias, I believe that those who choose languages as their obsession never really feel depres-sion. In fact linguaphiles may achieve a spiritual balance if they can make a living of f of languages. G. B. Shaw says as much in Pygmalion: “Happy is the man who can make a liv-ing by his hobby!”

*****

According to linguists, languages have both separated and conjoined throughout history. A high mountain or a river with a swift current once posed an obstacle to commu-nication: two neighboring tribes would become separated and after a time could no longer understand one another.

Today, however, I believe that the integration process is un-stoppable. A voice can be received in a split second across an ocean. In the modern world, linguistic isolation is an anachronism.

*****

English plays the role of Esperanto in science and tech-nology. With its simple morphology and short words, it is very suitable for experts from around the world to use.

Sometimes I wonder what a native speaker of English thinks when he hears two colleagues from, say, Norway and Croatia happily using highly technical (but broken) English that he can hardly understand. “What is the most widespread lan-guage in the world?” I am often asked. “Broken English,” I tend to answer.

*****

I CANNOT thank those who patiently roamed with me in the realm of languages with more beautiful words than those of Cicero in “Pro Archia Poeta” (7.16):

…haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, res secundas ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impe-diunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.

…this study nurtures our youth, delights our old age, brightens the good times, and provides a ref-uge and comfort in bad times; literature brings us pleasure at home, does not hamper us at work, and is the companion of our nights, our travels, our country retreats.

[lingshanhermit]

Lingshan Hermit: The Exemplary Women of the World

Apart from Kang Min, the wife of Ma Dayuan, all the women Duan Zhengchun of the Dali Kingdom encountered in his life were exemplary women of this world. I consider them exemplary for two reasons: firstly, their profound and enduring affection from beginning to end; secondly, though jealous, they never overstepped boundaries. For instance, Qin Hongmian, Gan Baobao, and Li Qingteng - as young girls, they chanced upon Duan during his travels in the Central Plains, and from that single thread of affection sprouted an entanglement that bound them for life until death. Later, though Gan and Li reluctantly married others, their singular affection never faded nor forgot their former love. They also had sharp tongues yet soft hearts. Toward women like Xiuluo Dao, Qin Hongmian, Ruan Xingzhu, and Li Qingteng, before meeting they spoke of each other through gritted teeth, but shortly after their first encounter, they addressed one another as sisters and traveled together - evidently their innate kindness enabled this. Though normally jealous and resentful of each other, even drawing swords when face-to-face, during major events they could set aside past grudges to collectively protect their shared husband. This was a testament to their virtue. Jealousy is the innate nature of women, yet they never transgressed boundaries nor did anything unforgivable, hence all can be called exemplary women of the world. Even Li Qingteng (Wang Yuyan's mother), whose love bred anxiety and foolishness, whose possessiveness brought great calamity upon Duan Zhengchun and others, when she realized the catastrophe was beyond redemption, she felt immense remorse and regret. Seeing her beloved turned demonic and descending into madness, she impaled herself on Murong Fu's long sword, only closing her eyes after being forgiven by Duan Zhengchun. Li Qingteng's whole life was lost to the delusions and compulsions of love; though she erred, it was a moment's folly, not at all comparable to the likes of Kang Min. Thus, she can still be pardoned. As for Dao Baifeng, Duan's principal wife and princess of the King of Zhennan, in her youth she resented Duan's philandering ways and offered herself to Duan Yanqing, a stain on her life she forever regretted. When she witnessed Duan's demise at the Mandao Mountain Villa, she followed him in death to atone for her mistake. Though her conduct was flawed, her final act redeemed her past errors.

In my youth reading The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, inexperienced in worldly and romantic matters, I thought all women of the world were like those portrayed and thus failed to appreciate their rarity. I only knew the two Duans of Dali as philandering scoundrels. But now, no longer clouded by youthful folly, re-reading this classic makes me realize that Duan Zhengchun was a man of profound affection, not mere libertinism. As he said, he loved Dao Baifeng deeply, loved Qin Hongmian equally, and the same for Li Qingteng and Gan Baobao. Later when Duan and his companions were captured by Murong Fu's ploy, his wives and concubines were killed one by one by Murong Fu, and Duan too perished resolutely alongside them.

A woman like Qin Hongmian, who fell for Duan in her youth and could not suppress her feelings, then gave birth to a daughter alone in a remote valley without seeing another man for years, became known as the Valley Recluse. Such a woman, having been through so much, is indeed rare to find. Any man blessed with such a wife to warm his bedroll, grind his ink, and brew his tea beneath the bamboo would have no regrets in life. The two Duans of Dali had five women who accompanied them - born together, their affections unsevered, their coffins laid together in the end. How many men in this world could attain this?

Written by Lingshan Hermit on April 14, 2024.

Copyright Notice：All copyrights of Ling Shan Hermit's articles in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English, and other languages belong to the natural person who owns "Ling Shan Hermit". Please respect copyright. Publishers, media, or individuals (including but not limited to internet media, websites, personal spaces, Weibo, WeChat public accounts, print media) must obtain authorization from Ling Shan Hermit before use. No modifications to the articles are allowed (including: author's name, title, main text content, and punctuation marks). We reserve all legal rights.

灵山居士：世间好女

大理段正淳一生所历之女，除马大元之妻康敏外，皆世间好女也。余谓其好女者，一者为其用情至深从一而终，二者为其虽妒而不逾矩也。如秦红棉甘宝宝李青萝，其少女时偶遇游历中原之段正淳，一缕情丝就此黏扯不断，纠缠一生，至死而方终。后甘氏李氏二女虽无奈下嫁他人，而终一情不泯，不忘旧人。又为其多口利而心软也，修罗刀秦红棉于阮星竹李青萝诸女，未见时，提及对方皆切齿，及见面之后，未几即以姐妹相称携手同行，盖因其本性善良方能如此。诸女虽平素互妒互恨，见面即拔刀相向，然遇大事之际，皆能不记前嫌，共护夫君。此其德之使然也。妒者，女子之天性也，然其虽妒而不逾界，不做不可挽回之事，是以皆可称世间好女也。即令如王夫人李青萝（王语嫣母）者，由爱生忧怖，由爱而致愚，为独享至爱而惹下大祸，令段正淳等一众人罹难，然见事发至不可收拾之地步，亦生大悔惧，见心上人见怪，心神大乱，撞慕容复长剑自戗，后得段正淳谅解方始瞑目。阿萝一生为情所迷，为情所驱，虽做错事，乃一时糊涂，非马夫人康敏之辈可比，是以尚可原囿。又如刀白凤者，乃段正淳正妻，镇南王王妃。少年时恨段正淳风流，遂献身于段延庆，后成其毕生污点恨事，其于曼陀山庄见段郎殒命，亦随之而去，以弥其过。其德行虽有亏，然临终之举可补其过。

余少时读天龙，未经世事，亦未历情关，自以为世间女子多如是，是以未感其稀有。只知大理段二风流成性，乃浮浪之人。今不惑之年再读天龙，方感段正淳其人至情，非风流浮浪。如其所言，其对刀白凤如是用情，对秦红棉亦如是用情，对李青萝甘宝宝亦如是，后段正淳一干人为慕容复设计所擒，诸姫妾为慕容复一一杀死，段正淳亦不独活，慨然赴死矣。

有女如秦红棉者，少年时遇段正淳，情起而不可自抑，后生得一女，独居幽谷，不见男人，号幽谷客。如是之女，历事多方知稀有。人生得一如是之妻，添衣磨墨，竹下煮茶，无憾矣。大理段二有五女同行，生时不昧其情死时同眠棺椁，试问世间男子有几人能得如此？

灵山居士写于2024年4月14日。

[wellnesswisp]

Age: Just a Number or a Mental Cage?

Many of us have heard the saying, "Age is just a number," yet how many truly live by it? The reality is, age often becomes more than a mere digit—it transforms into a mental barrier that confines our dreams, desires, and our very zest for life. This invisible cage is not forged by the passing years but by the societal norms and hidden associations we subconsciously adhere to. It's about time we challenge this notion and reclaim our vitality and enthusiasm for life, regardless of the date on our birth certificate.

The idea that our best years are numbered and that certain activities or ambitions are age-inappropriate is a societal construct that limits our potential for joy and fulfillment. Think about it: who decided that certain sports are off-limits after 40, or that chasing new career ambitions is folly past 50? These are arbitrary lines drawn in the sand, which, unfortunately, many of us accept as unchangeable truths. But the only truth here is that you're as young as you feel and as old as you let yourself believe.

Get back your vitality, life energy and your youthful mentality! Enjoy life to the fullest!

Our hidden associations with age affect not just how we live our lives but also the people we surround ourselves with. We gravitate towards friends who reinforce our age-related limitations, often commiserating about what we can no longer do instead of inspiring each other with what we still can achieve. This cycle of negativity saps our life energy, dimming the vibrant light of possibility that resides within each of us.

It's crucial to understand that regaining our vitality and youthful mentality doesn't mean denying the reality of aging or its physical implications. It means embracing each phase of life with enthusiasm and an open heart, continually seeking growth, learning, and new experiences. Age should be an asset, not a liability; it's a collection of wisdom, experiences, and insights that can and should empower us to live more fully.

To break free from the mental cage of age, start by challenging your own perceptions. Seek out stories of individuals who defied age norms to achieve remarkable feats—people who started new ventures, learned new skills, or embraced new passions well into their later years. Let these stories inspire you and remind you that the only real limits are the ones we impose on ourselves.

Get back your vitality, life energy and your youthful mentality! Enjoy life to the fullest!

Revitalize your social circle by connecting with people who share your desire to live vibrantly, regardless of age. These connections can provide motivation, inspiration, and a support network for pursuing your passions. Together, you can challenge each other to step outside your comfort zones, try new things, and view each passing year as an opportunity for growth rather than a step towards decline.

In conclusion, it's not age that stops us from living our lives to the fullest but our perceptions and associations with it. Age, in its essence, is indeed just a number. It doesn't dictate our capabilities, our potential for joy, or our capacity for adventure. When we stop letting age define what we can and cannot do, we unlock a world of possibilities. Let's reclaim our vitality and enthusiasm for life. After all, the best time to enjoy life to the fullest is now.

Affiliate Disclaimer: This blog may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

[magnusmodig]

INHERITANCE CYCLE QUOTES / @bvrriers / Accepting ! ╰┈➤ "But I do have power, and I will wield it as I see fit."

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐁𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐈𝐌 , for it was said in haste and without the knowledge of the world and its ruin. what childish folly , to see POWER as an endowed right , and not a heavy circlet that bore down upon the head. it mattered little if the young man was of noble birth or of humble origin. all great power had a STEEP COST. and it should only leave one's soul resting uneasy.

❝ — indeed. that you may. for it is true that there may be little to stand in your way of wielding your power as you see fit...  in some regards. ❞ thor said , eyeing the boy - surely still in his youth by the look and the sound of him. ( thor too once courted war in his foolish youth. the things he did not know then , he knew now , for he had long since grown. )

❝ but true power is wielded not in might but in temperance. wise it may be to be ready for war , but it takes an even wiser man to seek it not. ❞

[crossover-enthusiast]

It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main, if not the sole reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such courses the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson -- the noblest and most liberal commoner at Oxford -- him whose follies (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy -- whose errors but inimitable whim -- whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance?

I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning -- rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus -- his riches, too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with a gambler's usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite écarté. The rest of the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating -- he proposed to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than a single hour he had quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning, gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all, should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

(Stopping so ya can read)

Atticus mention