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| Thread: To Read |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV |
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 04, 2013 07:19 PM |
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Well yes, analyzing serious things with amateurs has always little hope to end well. 
Seriously, I join very few threads and only those where I actually have something to say, from my experience. You, on the other side, are everywhere: music, religion, game, writings, economics, morals, sexuality and so on. And always re-defining universal vocabulary and history, when trying to look as having a valid point. One says black, you say white, if he says white, you say black. Just because you enjoy skirmish, otherwise there is little to hear from you which actually can stand up.
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Era II mods and utilities
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 04, 2013 07:28 PM |
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Fortunately, in this case I don't need to make any more points because you managed to make them all yourself, thank you very much for your honesty, explains a lot.
Edit:
I took the time to check the OSM, first ten threads except the 3-answer thing, and lo and behold, you, Sal, have something to say in ALL of them - not me, though, not that I would be far behind, because I'm keeping out of the Syria thread. So this:
Quote:
Seriously, I join very few threads and only those where I actually have something to say, from my experience. You, on the other side, are everywhere: music, religion, game, writings, economics, morals, sexuality and so on.
looks a bit like a seriously off-kilter perception.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 04, 2013 08:06 PM |
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Easy guys, you are both smart and interesting people with a lot of perspective and insight to offer. I'd hate to see you cross each other just because of difference of opinion.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted September 04, 2013 11:09 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 23:15, 04 Sep 2013.
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artu said:
(a poet once, defined poetry as "the untranslatable").
Egad, only if he meant "translating one poem between 2 lingos"; languages can have hard expression in another tongue.
However, in your own native tongue?...Bah.
Of course any opine is 1 POV but here's my "Stolen" definition that I think is very close to the best;
Poetry is a "felt change of conciousness"
I would add "by the reader, no matter how slight". i.e. If the reader is not thinking about trees and also lives near no trees, a poem about trees may re-energize his/her memory full of trees and even call the mind the smell of Pine etc.
Here's my belief about what "some" poets are trying to do when they write; this was published in 1997 by some dude named Mark Paul Davis.
I don't know how well it would translate to non-English but inside English, my intent was that most folks should be able to grab a new way of seeing and thinking about poets and poetry. In addition; this Poem was also a confession/explanation of what my efforts in poetry are to me.
“THE POETS BLOOD” 1997 by Markkur
They search their hearts and minds,
for the perfect words to share.
Painting pictures of many kinds,
of the various thoughts they bear..
Mental needlepoint of verse and rhyme,
joys and sorrows of the soul,
life's essence flowing within a span of time,
projecting passionate hues, the goal.
Molding meaning with words of clay,
in hopes of a heart-felt laugh or cry.
Sharing what the loner will not say,
with companionship the reason why.
From the highest calling to the lowest falling,
they pursue the values they hold dear.
Young enough to hear imagination calling.
Old enough to keep experience near.
Snapshots within the Human race.
Poets seek to give away self.
Within humanity an eternal place,
forever, off the shelf..
I forgot to add; <imo> I think all of you are right in your own way. This topic is vast and it's very hard to hook-up on some parts. My pov rather unites the two main positions but I'll keep out. From my experience I think "exposure" is the uniting concept.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 05, 2013 03:23 AM |
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Markkur, I will go as simple as I can on this.
Veni Vidi Vici
I came I saw I won, does not tune the same now does it? That's just the melodic part. Even if we skip the melody, and I love this example:
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
That's not the shape of my heart
Four puns in an organic row, it's pop, it's deep, it's untranslatable. The clubs are sinek in Turkish, means fly, the hearts are kupa which means cup, spades is maca and I dont even think it means anything other than "spades" as in a card deck. Now, this is a good example but it does not take much work. Compare it with this:
Rape of the Lock
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted September 05, 2013 08:09 AM |
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artu said:
Markkur, I will go as simple as I can on this.
Veni Vidi Vici
I came I saw I won, does not tune the same now does it? That's just the melodic part. Even if we skip the melody, and I love this example:
Agreed, "won" is way too limited; a victory cannot rival a "crushing defeat that puts all resistance to an end at the time of the victory". I love word-play it's great fun for me.
artu said:
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
That's not the shape of my heart
Four puns in an organic row, it's pop, it's deep, it's untranslatable. The clubs are sinek in Turkish, means fly, the hearts are kupa which means cup, spades is maca and I dont even think it means anything other than "spades" as in a card deck. Now, this is a good example but it does not take much work.
I enjoyed the "play on suits". Which I guess in English "Suits" means how the card is "dressed."<L>
So, why "fly" for a spade? "Cup" for Heart is very interesting, since it is a vessel that can contain; like the Heart is often said to be "Full." Fyi, there is an 60's song by Ed Ames (I think) that goes like this; "My CUP runneth over with Love. He must have heard a Turkish saying or song?
The Rape of the Lock was very interesting, thanks for sharing the Link. I have some poetry by that author but I never read that one.
On a topic that's not a poem but related to reading & learning and the ever-lasting argument about "quality"; see if you can find "Battle of the Books",(iirc Swift) I think you may enjoy it a lot.
The author makes an interesting debate between men of both the Old and Modern schools of Literature. I don't think it would defy translation, I think you've mastered English well enough to enjoy the content, the problem for you would likely be the time & work to translate.
Learning English must be hard. When I think of Bear & bare, hair and hare, no and know etc. and other silly stuff like uh-huh (yes) Huh!-uh (NO_ it must be a nightmare. Congrats to all who have learned another tongue! Loads of Respect!
Btw, Since you love lang; I have a link to an awesome Documentary on the birth & development of English that is a masterpiece of historical education...interested? As I'm sure you know
English is loaded with stolen words from all over the globe. As a low-German language of Saxon (and others) it absorbed Latin, French, Ancient-Briton, Danish and many others.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 05, 2013 08:19 AM |
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Edited by artu at 08:21, 05 Sep 2013.
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Link it. Today, I wont be able to focus though. All that music discussion reminded me to listen to it and music always sailors me to drink.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted September 21, 2013 07:22 PM |
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First of all, I don't read to compare myself to others.
Secondly, there's a difference of quality reading and quantity reading. If you read a Donald Duck magazine on 100 pages, it's not similar to reading 5 pages of a math book.
Finally, there's a problem with using the internet as a source, because it becomes an external memory. If you don't train your memory your ability to use your external memory also goes down.
Reading could probably be optimized by stimulating more senses than your eyes, especially when reading complex math, it'd be nice to be able to feel many of the things.
But I mainly would like to know if when you read, do you pronunciation the words in your head? How large a row of words do you read at a time?
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted September 22, 2013 12:06 PM |
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@Artu
Sorry for the delay. Here's the 1st link. doc I think there are 6.
I thought about sharing this with you not because "hey man, it's English" but because this teacher is very good at explaining how this (or any language) unfolded over the centuries. Also, I found the history of the development of English to be very interesting in a number of ways.
I think your English is advanced so you "might" enjoy this account of the language and how it came to the present form. I also know you enjoy scholarly stuff so this could be a cup o' tea.
Btw, when I put myself in your place and the others here at HC, I think that this language must have been difficult to learn because even though I speak it naturally I still think many aspects make zero sense. The speaker does a very good job of explaining how some of the silly stuff came to pass.
Cheers
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 22, 2013 12:42 PM |
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Thanks Markkur, I am indeed very interested in linguistic evolution and etymology. Since modern English has a vocabulary of over 500k words with like 60 percent being foreign words [any language with imperial background and trade is like that, Turkish is full of Arabic (through Islam), Persian (high-culture language of the region in mediaval times and afterwards till like 17th century), French (19th Century lingua franca of Europe during westernization), Greek (fish names, navigation terms, most stuff about sea and many other things) and of course, these days English (most of the computer talk)].
Learning English wasnt very hard for me because raher than studying it I learned it through things I enjoyed. I had formal education of course but the real lessons were the Beatles songs I tried to decode at twelve or thirteen or the Spider-Man comics I bought around the same time. In this age English is everywhere so you pick things up quite well, especially if you have a tendecy to grasp linguistic things easily (like some people are better with numbers or faces). From what I hear, they say the hardest ones to learn are Chinese and Arabic. I can decode some Arabic templates on word level since there are too many in Turkish but I cant read their alphabet or form sentences. Arabic is really different, for example one of the many template of plurals are
Sey (thing) esya (things, stuff like furniture in modern Turkish)
mulk (property) emlak (properties, real estate in modern Turkish)
taraf (side) etraf (sides, around in modern Turkish)
As you can see, the consonants stay put and an e + a fills the blanks, usually that's how it goes.So when you see efgan (screams) for the first time in an old book with aged language, you guess its plural of figan and go dictionary hunting and bingo. It's like solving sudoku and quite fun.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted September 22, 2013 06:06 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 18:08, 22 Sep 2013.
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That you Artu, for the glimpse into your language background; the whole post was well-crafted and enjoyable to read.
We are very much alike, except my strong-suit was always "design or function". I was ok with faces and horrible with names and numbers but I could figure out how things worked very easily, and saved myself a lot of cash over the years. Here's a couple from years gone by of quick fixes, etc.
In the summer of 73, a friend and I were two 18 year-old hippies on a two-lane blacktop (btw, a movie about drag-racing w/ a young James Taylor)in a 64 Impala and headed to a music festival in Camdenton Missouri. All of a sudden the Alternator-light comes on and my friend pulled off the road. We pop the hood and find the alt had fell and the belt was hanging.
The car belonged to Mike's older brother Andy and he was a ladies man and not mechanical, so no tools in the trunk. We were out in the middle of nowhere with very little passing traffic; regardless, we did not have money to fix the car anyway.
My friend was both angry and a bit scared. I scrounged through the entire car, including the glove-box and found a #2 pencil and ball of kite-string. 
I saw that the bolt that had went into the engine block had somehow fell out. So, I stuck the pencil through the alt-bracket and into the block and had Mike hold it "up" to put the needed tension on the belt. I took that ball of string and tied numerous times to the pencil and the spot on the bracket and tied strings in all directions, including the hood spring-brackets to replicate Mike holding the Alt in its needed position.
We drove that car the entire weekend and got home safely. 
One more incident I'll share that involved my daughter. I had an old Ford riding-mower and she was at the age when I thought she should help-out & cut the grass. The lawn was huge as it was not a city home but an old farmstead.
After returning home after a short vacation the grass was very high. I put her to mowing but within 10 minutes she had hit something. She was supposed to stay within "my existing cutting area" but she drifted into the tall grass and a loud clang shut-down the mower.
Rolling the mower away from the spot, I saw the cutting blade lying in the grass. Blade keepers are made of pot-metal for this reason and made to give way; ofc I saw a couple of pieces if it also.
I went into the house to call the local Ford dealer (15 miles away)to order another keeper but to my dismay it would be two-weeks before they could get it in. The grass was already high and it was late spring, so I knew waiting would create a jungle.
I went back out to the spot and searched through the grass to find all 6 pieces of the Ring. Carried them to my workbench and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle. I then took some electric fence-wire (much like bailing wire) and went around the ring with one strand. I then did the twist-bit to cinch the wire tight and clipped the extra. For good measure I took some world famous Duct-tape and went around the Ring a few times, only keeping the bolt-hole clear.
I put my "repair-job" back on and did not replace it till the following summer.
The thread's "to read" so I thought I would write.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted September 22, 2013 08:01 PM |
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It must have been cool to be a hippy during those times. I love the 1963-1973 Era, people say it's a cultural decade and I agree. I wasnt around back then though (born in 1977). Btw, its also interesting too see people your age (I'm guessing Elodin is around your age, too) who are into computer games. Over here, I've never seen anyone above fifty who plays stuff like H5 or X Com Enemy Unknown, the tiny minority who plays computer games at all, plays things like Bridge on-line or Tetris or word games, etc...
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted September 22, 2013 11:03 PM |
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artu said:
It must have been cool to be a hippy during those times. I love the 1963-1973 Era, people say it's a cultural decade and I agree. I wasnt around back then though (born in 1977).
Short term it was incredible, just before that era, society in general was not at all like a family or a small local community. But during that time it was very common to ramble and meet total strangers that treated you like old friends. Using one word to describe the time, hospitality would be it. The sharing back then was truly remarkable. I was given drugs of course but also food many times, maybe a place to sleep or a "lift" either by transport or by a sympathetic listener. <imo> The U.S. society will never rival that era in those ways, and that's been sad to see, even if most of us were very naïve and really didn't understand how things worked. I suppose it was the old adage" ignorance is bliss" <imo>I fear nowadays it would be very difficult for younger generations to be innocent or naïve as I was, mainly because so much is put in their minds to deal with that's long before the needed maturity.
The huge downside I think, was that it was a time that proved more illusion and myth. I lost many friends and acquaintances in the years that followed when RL did it's thing and the social drug experiences of the past became abusive killers that basically enslaved many. I had my own battle with pot, the harder stuff I understood early that the grim-reaper was always standing nearby. Bottom-line, as I'm sure you know; if a man has to put something chemical into him to be someone else...he's playing a fools game that he cannot win. I have some great music memories and the like but they rather fade when you also remember various nasty events like trying to keep a stranger alive that you found stumbling about alone in an unseen world of terror because "he's riding the storm out."
artu said:
Btw, its also interesting too see people your age (I'm guessing Elodin is around your age, too) who are into computer games. Over here, I've never seen anyone above fifty who plays stuff like H5 or X Com Enemy Unknown, the tiny minority who plays computer games at all, plays things like Bridge on-line or Tetris or word games, etc...
iirc I'm a few years older than Elodin but to me age is "nearly"a non-issue at times. i.e. I was once blown away by the fact that my kids and later young folks knew my old tunes so well. Now I understand that a lot's changed.
About my gaming, I think two things helped my way; one was my guitars and electronics. I think that made it more likely, my getting wired in a different way.<L> The other was that as a Father, I was wise enough to play with my kids as they grew up, so Zelda became this princess that I had to help rescue too.
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"Do your own research"
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