Telling time in antiquity
David Friedman
roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
noon?
Several possibilities:
1. There is a sun dial outside the window. Hard to see very precisely
from inside, and only works if sun is out and the window open. Or
perhaps he went out to check the sun dial, saw it was close to noon, and
went in to wait. Or perhaps he has a slave watching the sun dial for
him, instructed to tell him when it gets close to noon.
2. Water clock or hourglass. But both are designed to measure a length
of time, not what time it is, and it would be a good deal of trouble to
use them for the latter purpose.
3. Bells. Someone is using one of the previous methods and ringing a
bell in some predetermined pattern on the hours, or more often. I
associate that method, however, with modern chiming clocks and medieval
church bells, not with classical antiquity.
My guess is that there isn't any practical way of timing things very
precisely, so "meet at noon" means plus or minus half an hour or so, and
is judged by familiarity with the shadows outside the window, position
of the sun, and the like.
Comments? Suggestions?
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
R.L.
> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> noon?
>
> Several possibilities:
>
> 1. There is a sun dial outside the window. Hard to see very precisely
> from inside, and only works if sun is out and the window open. Or
> perhaps he went out to check the sun dial, saw it was close to noon, and
> went in to wait. Or perhaps he has a slave watching the sun dial for
> him, instructed to tell him when it gets close to noon.
>
> 2. Water clock or hourglass. But both are designed to measure a length
> of time, not what time it is, and it would be a good deal of trouble to
> use them for the latter purpose.
>
> 3. Bells. Someone is using one of the previous methods and ringing a
> bell in some predetermined pattern on the hours, or more often. I
> associate that method, however, with modern chiming clocks and medieval
> church bells, not with classical antiquity.
>
> My guess is that there isn't any practical way of timing things very
> precisely, so "meet at noon" means plus or minus half an hour or so, and
> is judged by familiarity with the shadows outside the window, position
> of the sun, and the like.
>
> Comments? Suggestions?
Unless there is some kind of city bell/horn system, I'd expect that most
appointments that need precise timing would be set for sundown, dawn, or
some position of the rising or setting sunlight on the mountains (if any).
R.L.
or moonrise, of course, or perhaps constellation-rise
Dirk van den Boom
> Comments? Suggestions?
It depends on the social status of the appointees.
In old Rome, rich people had a slave whose sole task it was to announce
the hour to his owner - like a walking wrist-watch. In addition, there
were actually pocket-size sun-watches available and in use, so it was
NOT uncommon for someone with some means to obtain and use one. Those
could only be used if you were not travelling, as they were only
functional in specific locations.
Of course, there was always the horologia ex aqua, but it was conceived
as highly unprecise (in fact, there is a number of Roman jokes about the
precision of the water-clocks at that time). They were mainly used by
judges during sessions to measure the time of proceedings and know when
to call lunch break :o)
David Friedman
Dirk van den Boom <spam...@sf-boom.de> wrote:
> David Friedman schrieb:
>
> > Comments? Suggestions?
>
> It depends on the social status of the appointees.
In my case, very high--a grandson of the current Emperor.
> In old Rome, rich people had a slave whose sole task it was to announce
> the hour to his owner - like a walking wrist-watch.
How did the slave know?
> In addition, there
> were actually pocket-size sun-watches available and in use, so it was
> NOT uncommon for someone with some means to obtain and use one.
I don't think it would be very expensive. But it also wouldn't be all
that accurate, given the scale. And you still have to be somewhere in
direct sunlight.
> Those
> could only be used if you were not travelling, as they were only
> functional in specific locations.
> Of course, there was always the horologia ex aqua, but it was conceived
> as highly unprecise (in fact, there is a number of Roman jokes about the
> precision of the water-clocks at that time). They were mainly used by
> judges during sessions to measure the time of proceedings and know when
> to call lunch break :o)
The Athenians used them to time speeches in court--I didn't know about
the Roman use.
Dirk van den Boom
>>In old Rome, rich people had a slave whose sole task it was to announce
>>the hour to his owner - like a walking wrist-watch.
>
>
> How did the slave know?
Probably by carrying the sun-watch :o
>>In addition, there
>>were actually pocket-size sun-watches available and in use, so it was
>>NOT uncommon for someone with some means to obtain and use one.
>
>
> I don't think it would be very expensive. But it also wouldn't be all
> that accurate, given the scale. And you still have to be somewhere in
> direct sunlight.
Yes, but I think accuracy for "we will meet around the second hour" will
be sufficient.
> The Athenians used them to time speeches in court--I didn't know about
> the Roman use.
Of course, giving the setting in a maybe more fantastic surrounding, it
might be wise to remember that actually mechanical clockworks were known
in those times as well. The clocks build, though, did measure months and
years, not hours, and were made to commemorate important repeating
dates. But with some hand-waving... A good town-clock wouldn't be
impossible and an alarm-clock based on a water-watch existed. I think
Archimedes devised a prototype.
Kevin J. Cheek
dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> noon?
He can also look at the angle of the sun. The earth revolves fifteen
degrees per hour in respect to the sun. Extend your arm in front of you
and spread your fingers. The distance between the tips of your little
finger and your forefinger is roughly 15 degrees. That's how much the sun
appears to move in the sky each hour. Someone that's used to doing
this can gauge the relative hour without using his hands.
He can also look at the shadows outside: "Julian glanced out the window
and was surprised to see the shadows shortening as the sixth hour
approached. He hurried from his room, hoping that Flavius would excuse
his tardiness."
- Kevin Cheek
Remove corn to send email.
Kevin J. Cheek
dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> In my case, very high--a grandson of the current Emperor.
Ah. He may look out the window at the horologium. A horologium is an
oblisk with lines radiating along the pavement from its base. Each line
represents an hour. In other words, it's huge sundial. If he's in his
villa, or in a well-to-do town, there's probably a horologium nearby.
--
-Kevin J. Cheek
Remove corn to send e-mail.
Jonathan L Cunningham
> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> noon?
(snip)
> My guess is that there isn't any practical way of timing things very
> precisely, so "meet at noon" means plus or minus half an hour or so, and
> is judged by familiarity with the shadows outside the window, position
> of the sun, and the like.
>
> Comments? Suggestions?
My naive expectation would be that the concept of punctuality to
the minute wouldn't apply. After all, a minute is a minute fraction
of an hour.
But I think you could get more accurate than to the nearest half hour,
if the sun is visible. "When the sun is above the peak of Mt. Cyclops"
would be accurate to within a couple of minutes, if the mountain is
far enough away.
Of course, it wouldn't be the same time every day, but if all you
wanted was a precise time it would do. (In any case, hours are of
variable length, if there are exactly twelve hours during daylight.)
As a naive reader, I would interpret "at noon" as an imprecise time:
any time around noon would be ok. It would surprise me to learn that
such a culture worried about times to a greater degree of accuracy
than that.
Jonathan
Will McLean
David Friedman wrote:
> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> noon?
>
> Several possibilities:
>
> 1. There is a sun dial outside the window. Hard to see very precisely
> from inside, and only works if sun is out and the window open. Or
> perhaps he went out to check the sun dial, saw it was close to noon, and
> went in to wait. Or perhaps he has a slave watching the sun dial for
> him, instructed to tell him when it gets close to noon.
>
Note that some sun dials are set in vertical walls, so you don't have
to be close to them to read them accurately.
> 2. Water clock or hourglass. But both are designed to measure a length
> of time, not what time it is, and it would be a good deal of trouble to
> use them for the latter purpose.
>
Classical Athens had a public timepiece: the Tower of the Winds, with
both sundials and an elaborate water clock. I suspect the water clock
was set for a 24 hour cycle, and they restarted it each noon. As you
say, a great deal of trouble, but the civic budget pays for it.
Presumably the sundials were the primary system, and the water clock
backup for cloudy days and after sunset.
I would imagine someone like your emperor might have one, set up in
courtyard, to regulate the punctual operation of his very large
household, (and to impress the barbarians)
Which suggests the following chapter opening:
"It was almost noon, and in the garden courtyard a slave was watering
the timepiece."
Incidentally, the hourglass as we know it (two glass bulbs joined by a
narrow waist) seems to have been a surprisingly late innovation in our
world. I haven't been able to document it earlier than the 1340s, which
puts it later than the mechanical clock. They had sand timepieces
earlier, but you had to reload them like a water clock instead of just
flipping them over.
Will McLean
Will McLean
Jonathan L Cunningham wrote:
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
> > I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> > roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> > noon?
>
> (snip)
>
> > My guess is that there isn't any practical way of timing things very
> > precisely, so "meet at noon" means plus or minus half an hour or so, and
> > is judged by familiarity with the shadows outside the window, position
> > of the sun, and the like.
> >
> > Comments? Suggestions?
>
> My naive expectation would be that the concept of punctuality to
> the minute wouldn't apply. After all, a minute is a minute fraction
> of an hour.
>
More to the point, the concept of the minute wouldn't apply except in
specialized fields like astronomy. Most of your characters would need
some other way to describe "a very short period of time". It can be a
useful distancing technique to work this into the narrative every place
you've used "minute" as a measure of time.
Will McLean
Elf M. Sternberg
> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> noon?
>
> Several possibilities:
>
> 1. There is a sun dial outside the window. Hard to see very precisely
> from inside, and only works if sun is out and the window open. Or
> perhaps he went out to check the sun dial, saw it was close to noon, and
> went in to wait. Or perhaps he has a slave watching the sun dial for
> him, instructed to tell him when it gets close to noon.
> 2. Water clock or hourglass. But both are designed to measure a length
> of time, not what time it is, and it would be a good deal of trouble to
> use them for the latter purpose.
Since you mention that your character is rich, he could perhaps
be like the wealthy Muslims of antiquity who had a slave start a water
clock precisely at sunrise and keep it running throughout the day, to
ensure that prayers were heard at the right time.
"Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when the sun is
directly overhead."
Elf
Peter Knutsen (usenet)
[...]
> He can also look at the shadows outside: "Julian glanced out the window
> and was surprised to see the shadows shortening as the sixth hour
> approached. He hurried from his room, hoping that Flavius would excuse
> his tardiness."
Keep in mind that David is writing what some might classify as fantasy.
That might cause some readers to assume that Julian has just percieved
time passing faster than normal.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
R.L.
/snip/
> "Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when the sun is
> directly overhead."
For which, looking down at his own shadow, every man his own sundial.
R.L.
Joann Zimmerman
sp...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid says...
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
> > I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> > roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> > noon?
> any time around noon would be ok. It would surprise me to learn that
> such a culture worried about times to a greater degree of accuracy
> than that.
In which case, the correct fudge is to say "midday" instead of "noon".
"Noon" is precise, "midday" is not.
--
"I never understood people who don't have bookshelves."
--George Plimpton
Joann Zimmerman jz...@bellereti.com
Joann Zimmerman
mclea...@aol.com says...
> "It was almost noon, and in the garden courtyard a slave was watering
> the timepiece."
Wow.
Dirk van den Boom
> "It was almost noon, and in the garden courtyard a slave was watering
> the timepiece."
That's a nice one. Can I buy it?
Dirk, working for two years on an alternative history/time-travel story
Jonathan L Cunningham
> David Friedman wrote:
> > I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> Incidentally, the hourglass as we know it (two glass bulbs joined by a
> narrow waist) seems to have been a surprisingly late innovation in our
> world. I haven't been able to document it earlier than the 1340s, which
When was glass-blowing invented?
My first google hit suggested "a thousand years later" than "nearly
twenty-five hundred years earlier than that 1st century [Roman legend]",
which, after I've worked it out, sounds like c. 1500 BC.
However, I'm a bit sceptical that glass-blowing was commonplace so
long ago.
Maybe it's an issue of the clarity of the glass?
Jonathan
Will McLean
Jonathan L Cunningham wrote:
> Will McLean <mclea...@aol.com> wrote:
> > Incidentally, the hourglass as we know it (two glass bulbs joined by a
> > narrow waist) seems to have been a surprisingly late innovation in our
> > world. I haven't been able to document it earlier than the 1340s, which
>
> When was glass-blowing invented?
>
> My first google hit suggested "a thousand years later" than "nearly
> twenty-five hundred years earlier than that 1st century [Roman legend]",
> which, after I've worked it out, sounds like c. 1500 BC.
>
> However, I'm a bit sceptical that glass-blowing was commonplace so
> long ago.
>
> Maybe it's an issue of the clarity of the glass?
>
The Romans did a lot of glassblowing, and could certainly blow glass
that was clear enough. (A lot of Roman glass is discolored from long
burial, but some is quite clear.)
I think the hourglass was one of those ideas that could have happened
lot earlier, but didn't. The Romans could have built velocipedes and
hot air balloons if someone had had the idea at the right time
Will McLean
David Friedman
"Elf M. Sternberg" <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
> "Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when the sun is
> directly overhead."
Not unless you are on the equator it isn't.
It's the hour when shadows are shortest, but that's harder to see.
David Friedman
Joann Zimmerman <jz...@bellereti.com> wrote:
> In article <1hfy0yw.i2vles15hioc6N%sp...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid>,
> sp...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid says...
> > David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> > > roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
> > > noon?
>
> > As a naive reader, I would interpret "at noon" as an imprecise time:
> > any time around noon would be ok. It would surprise me to learn that
> > such a culture worried about times to a greater degree of accuracy
> > than that.
>
> In which case, the correct fudge is to say "midday" instead of "noon".
> "Noon" is precise, "midday" is not.
Part of the problem is that a visitor shows up at about noon whom my
characters assumes, mistakenly, is not the person he is waiting for.
Character tries to politely get rid of visitor, visitor understands the
situation and is amused by it.
Which works better with reasonably precise timing, but probably plus or
minus twenty minutes or so still works.
Nicola Browne
news:ddfr-FB1B0C.1...@news.isp.giganews.com
> > Which works better with reasonably precise timing, but probably plus or
> minus twenty minutes or so still works.
I don't think it's an issue. For years I never wore a watch and I
was pretty good at gauging time by the hour if nothing else.
My dog - the infamous Zorro, knows when it is around three - when I
might think about going to collect my daughter and starts whining and
agitating to come too. He might be reading my body language
but sometimes I only realise it's around that time because
he's getting on my nerves (in a more obvious way : ))
Nicky
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Brian M. Scott
<kev...@maize.planttel.net> wrote in
<news:MPG.1ee0a6c8d...@nntp.planttel.net> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> He can also look at the angle of the sun. The earth
> revolves fifteen degrees per hour in respect to the sun.
> Extend your arm in front of you and spread your fingers.
> The distance between the tips of your little finger and
> your forefinger is roughly 15 degrees.
Closer to 20º for me, I think; the rule of thumb(!) that I
was taught is that the closed fist at arm's length subtends
about 10º.
[...]
Brian
Brian M. Scott
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote in
<news:ddfr-FB1B0C.1...@news.isp.giganews.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> Part of the problem is that a visitor shows up at about
> noon whom my characters assumes, mistakenly, is not the
> person he is waiting for.
Since this construction might come up in the writing, and
editors nowadays often don't catch the mistake: this should
be 'who', not 'whom'. The relative pronoun is the subject
of 'is not ... for'.
[...]
Brian
jam...@echeque.com
> > "Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when
> > the sun is directly overhead."
David Friedman
> It's the hour when shadows are shortest, but that's
> harder to see.
My reading of old literature suggests that noon lasted
for quite a while, that it was analogous to "evening",
rather than analogous to "sunset" You could arrive at
noon, have some beers and lunch, and then depart at
noon.
Constantinople
The phrase "high noon" suggests that "noon" (without the "high"
modifier) is something broader than "high noon". "High noon" is
presumably when the sun is highest, so "noon" must be something
broader.
In the modern day when precise watches and clocks are dirt cheap and
everywhere, we have become more precise and less dependent on the
position of the sun. So "high noon" is likely to have fallen into
disuse and "noon" is likely to have taken on a more precise meaning to
match our vastly increased power of precision.
Jonathan L Cunningham
We need Brian's etymological expertise. According to
the www.thefreedictionary.com it comes from something
in Old English roughly equivalent to 3pm.[*] For someone who
rises at daybreak, that suggests that noonday time either
shifted from what I'd call mid-afternoon, or had a spread of
several hours.
Jonathan
[*] The canonical nones, or ninth hour (after daybreak).
Neil Barnes
> In article <87d5e07...@drizzle.com>,
> "Elf M. Sternberg" <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>
>> "Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when the sun is
>> directly overhead."
>
> Not unless you are on the equator it isn't.
And even then, only on two days a year...
Neil
--
'Onion oil! I couldn't imagine anything worse than a daily bath in onion oil.'
(from Miss Snark, the literary agent)
Damien Sullivan
>David Friedman wrote:
>> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
>> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
Sequel to Harald?
BTW, I enjoyed Harald, but the language tone of the whole book seemed
odd, choppy and short on verbs. I have a dim memory that this came up
as a choice while you were writing the book -- is there past discussion,
or something to summarize? I kept expecting Imperials to show up and
talk in more flowing ways.
Anyway,
If your pseudo-greco-romans aren't as sun-blessed as ours, perhaps they
might have invested more effort in timekeeping, and ancient China might
be something to look at.
I carry a wristwatch, but I've tried to cultivate my own sense by
guessing at the time before I look at it. I haven't collected stats but
I'm often fairly accurate to the 10-minute range, though I've also had
gross errors.
>Classical Athens had a public timepiece: the Tower of the Winds, with
>both sundials and an elaborate water clock. I suspect the water clock
Cool. I'm not finding how the public actually told time from the water
clock -- did it trigger gongs, or did you have to go look?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Winds
24-hour clepsydra.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock
Pre-dating 1500 BC, and most accurate option until pendulum clocks in
the 17th century. Common enough to time prostitutes by.
(Ah, prostitutes. Comments on them, and IIRC by them, are one testimony
to Roman literacy.)
"Mechanical hour indicators" for the Tower of the Winds; still vague.
Gongs or bells were an option, though. Chinese water clocks, with
manikins ringing the bells, though this is around 1088 AD.
You've also got fire clocks -- candles, or in Korea incense.
Chinese apparently divided the day in 100 parts, about 14.4 of our minutes
each, as well as 12 double hours.
http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/time.html
>"It was almost noon, and in the garden courtyard a slave was watering
>the timepiece."
Heh.
Cool question.
-xx- Damien X-)
Brian M. Scott
<sp...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid> wrote in
<news:1hfzw2e.1neagsj1fi4szkN%sp...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
OE <nôn>, from Latin <nôna (hora)> 'ninth hour', used both
for the time around 3 p.m. (that being, as you note below,
the ninth hour from sunrise) and for the canonical hour and
associated office. This was also the sense of Old Norse
<nón>.
The sense seems actually to have shifted. It's hard to be
sure what time is intended in many early examples, but the
editors of the OED conclude (in a 2003 revision of the
article) that 'midday' was the ordinary meaning of the word
by the 14th century. Certainly that's the meaning in
Chaucer's treatise on the astrolabe ('From xi of the clokke
before the houre of noon til oon of the clokke next
folewyng'). They note that the same change is found in
Anglo-Norman in the second half of the 13th century, in
Continental French in the second half of the 14th century,
and in Dutch in the 16th century. The reason for the change
isn't entirely clear.
> Jonathan
> [*] The canonical nones, or ninth hour (after daybreak).
Brian
Damien Sullivan
More on sundials than you want to know, including multiple portable
sundials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diptych
Ancient or medieval PDA. Compass, self-aligning sundial, rough
calendar, latitude measurement, and wax tablet all in one portable
accessory.
Sandalpunk rocks.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
old document; claims Caesar ran into a water clock in England. Your
barbarians could have some too! Good for measuring night-watches, if
nothing else.
-xx- Damien X-)
Dirk van den Boom
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diptych
> Ancient or medieval PDA. Compass, self-aligning sundial, rough
> calendar, latitude measurement, and wax tablet all in one portable
> accessory.
I like that one. Thanks for the link!
Logan Kearsley
news:e59v4h$2f6$6...@naig.caltech.edu...
Sandalpunk does rock.
I've been planning out a sort of sandalpunk-leading-to-steampunk alternate
history setting for a while, but I've not yet gotten to a satisfactory level
of detail or plausibility to do anything but the most basic
story-idea-outlining in it.
-l.
------------------------------------
My inbox is a sacred shrine, none shall enter that are not worthy.
Damien Sullivan
>"Damien Sullivan" <pho...@ofb.net> wrote in message
>news:e59v4h$2f6$6...@naig.caltech.edu...
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial
>> More on sundials than you want to know, including multiple portable
>> sundials.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diptych
>> Ancient or medieval PDA. Compass, self-aligning sundial, rough
>> calendar, latitude measurement, and wax tablet all in one portable
>> accessory.
>>
>> Sandalpunk rocks.
>
>Sandalpunk does rock.
>I've been planning out a sort of sandalpunk-leading-to-steampunk alternate
But with the diptych it doesn't even have to be alternate! Well, maybe
-- unclear if that form was classical, though seems like it could have
been.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_discipline
contains a quotation from Plautus (ca. 100 BC) complaining of the
artificial division of time imposed upon society by the ubiquitous sundial.
Sundial, water clock, candle clock, hourglass, slaves or mechanisms to
hit a gong or bell... I think David has a surfeit of ways to plausibly
tell time fairly accurately.
The Sundial wikipedia page mentions Newton using a mirror to put a
sundial on the ceiling and not take up space. Another of those obvious
in retrospect ideas.
-xx- Damien X-)
Nicholas Waller
ObPython - Terry Jones has just started a new TV series and book trying
to rescue the reputation of Celtic "barbarians" from the propaganda and
victor history installed in our brains by the Romans.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worldwidestories/pressreleases/2006/03_march/barbarians.shtml
The clock site's use of "England" as a term is anachronistic, as the
English didn't arrive in Britain for another 500 years.
--
Nick
Tim S
> On Fri, 26 May 2006 09:55:19 -0700, David Friedman wrote:
>
>> In article <87d5e07...@drizzle.com>,
>> "Elf M. Sternberg" <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when the sun is
>>> directly overhead."
>>
>> Not unless you are on the equator it isn't.
>
> And even then, only on two days a year...
Surely this will be true anywhere between the tropics?
Tim
R.L.
/snip/
> Of course, giving the setting in a maybe more fantastic surrounding, it
> might be wise to remember that actually mechanical clockworks were known
> in those times as well. The clocks build, though, did measure months and
> years, not hours, and were made to commemorate important repeating
> dates. But with some hand-waving... A good town-clock wouldn't be
> impossible and an alarm-clock based on a water-watch existed. I think
> Archimedes devised a prototype.
To work in something like that, what if this unusual time-keeping device
were a gift sent ahead, from the same expected (I'm assuming foreign)
dignitary? Thus the pv character, unaccustomed to 'noon' being so precise,
would be looking at the device, wondering if he's using it correctly....
R.L.
Kevin J. Cheek
The polar stars make a handy clock. It takes some knowledge of night sky
and the seasons, but nothing more than casual observation by people who
were used to looking up on a cloudless night.
--
-Kevin J. Cheek
Remove corn to send e-mail.
Jonathan L Cunningham
And on the tropics themselves, only one day a year.
What's unique about the equator is that it's the only place
days and nights are of equal length[*] every day.
Jonathan
[*] Except they're not, because the sun isn't a point-source
of light, and the atmosphere also lengthens the day by
refracting light. So if the Powers of Light rule the day, and
the Powers of Dark rule the night, the Powers of Light have
an unfair advantage. This could be a story seed, except I'm
sure I got the idea from some story I read :-O.
David Friedman
pho...@ofb.net (Damien Sullivan) wrote:
> "Will McLean" <mclea...@aol.com> wrote:
> >David Friedman wrote:
>
> >> I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
> >> roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
>
> Sequel to Harald?
Yes. Set lagely in the empire.
> BTW, I enjoyed Harald, but the language tone of the whole book seemed
> odd, choppy and short on verbs. I have a dim memory that this came up
> as a choice while you were writing the book -- is there past discussion,
> or something to summarize? I kept expecting Imperials to show up and
> talk in more flowing ways.
My narrative style was odd by choice, although not necessarily a correct
choice. The failure to more clearly distinguish the speech of imperials
from that of Harald and his friends was, I think, a mistake, for which
my only excuse is that it's my first novel and my first attempt to do
written dialog. Hopefully I'll do better this time.
Damien Sullivan
>To work in something like that, what if this unusual time-keeping device
>were a gift sent ahead, from the same expected (I'm assuming foreign)
>dignitary? Thus the pv character, unaccustomed to 'noon' being so precise,
>would be looking at the device, wondering if he's using it correctly....
Alas, I suspect the pv character is from the most technologically
advanced civilization around. They're the "Romans", and the visitor's
likely to be local or from the "Germans".
-xx- Damien X-)
David Friedman
pho...@ofb.net (Damien Sullivan) wrote:
As it happens, the visitor is the character's half brother, so that
particular idea doesn't work here.
Tim S
wrote:
> Tim S <T...@timsilverman.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> on 27/05/2006 3:36 pm, Neil Barnes at nailed_...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 26 May 2006 09:55:19 -0700, David Friedman wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <87d5e07...@drizzle.com>,
>>>> "Elf M. Sternberg" <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "Noon" for poorer people was simply "the hour when the sun is
>>>>> directly overhead."
>>>>
>>>> Not unless you are on the equator it isn't.
>>>
>>> And even then, only on two days a year...
>>
>> Surely this will be true anywhere between the tropics?
>
> And on the tropics themselves, only one day a year.
And for some distance on either side, I suppose.
Tim
Kai Henningsen
[usquote.xps]
And it seems current German at least is missing the word altogether. We
just use "Mittag" (and the times around that are "Vormittag" and
"Nachmittag"). I don't recall any similar-sounding German word at all.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
Brian M. Scott
<kaih=9ukDk...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote in
<news:9ukDk...@khms.westfalen.de> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
[<noon>]
> And it seems current German at least is missing the word altogether. We
> just use "Mittag" (and the times around that are "Vormittag" and
> "Nachmittag"). I don't recall any similar-sounding German word at all.
It was present in OHG as <nona> and in MHG as <none>, but I
don't think that it ever made the shift from ninth hour to
midday.
Brian
nyra
>
> On Fri, 26 May 2006 07:00:14 -0400, "Kevin J. Cheek"
> <kev...@maize.planttel.net> wrote in
> <news:MPG.1ee0a6c8d...@nntp.planttel.net> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> [...]
>
> > He can also look at the angle of the sun. The earth
> > revolves fifteen degrees per hour in respect to the sun.
> > Extend your arm in front of you and spread your fingers.
> > The distance between the tips of your little finger and
> > your forefinger is roughly 15 degrees.
[had to throw out your degree signs, because my newsreader tried to
garble them in replying]
> Closer to 20 for me, I think; the rule of thumb(!) that I
> was taught is that the closed fist at arm's length subtends
> about 10.
'About' 10 seems right for a rule of thumb. I took the trouble to pick
up the measure and calculator and found values of 8° for the closed
fist and 15° for spread fingers for _my_ hand/arm.
--
Een koe is een merkwaardig beest; wat er ook in haar geest moge zijn,
haar laatste woord is altijd boe.
nyra
I don't recall anything like that, either, but the main work of the
Brothers Grimm, the complete german dictionary, mentions for north
Germany the use of 'None' for the time of the midday rest (11-1 or
12-2), the verb 'nonen' (Mittagsruhe halten) for the principality
Lippe and 'Nong' as Aachen dialect word for the midday. These uses
were contemporary with the brothers - mid-19th century at least.
'Nonzeit, nonezeit' as midday/early afternoon was apparently
considered a reasonable alternative to "Mittagszeit" in the late 15th
century.
The explanations for this use mention that in monasteries, the Non
(prayer of the ninth hour; typically held at the end of this hour,
which lasted from 14:00 to 15:00) had shifted to twelve o'clock.
However, as far as i can tell, current use seems to be (once more?)
sext at twelve, non at three; unfortunately, i couldn't find any more
information about this time-swapping. It _could_ be that 'None' for
'midday' became idiosyncratic in catholic regions when the 'None' was
also the three o'clock prayer ...
Brian M. Scott
wrote in <news:447B2C94...@gmx.net> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> Kai Henningsen schrieb:
[...]
[<noon>, especially for midday]
>> And it seems current German at least is missing the word altogether. We
>> just use "Mittag" (and the times around that are "Vormittag" and
>> "Nachmittag"). I don't recall any similar-sounding German word at all.
> I don't recall anything like that, either, but the main work of the
> Brothers Grimm, the complete german dictionary,
Which the good folks at the University of Trier have made
available on-line at
<http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/DWB>. Also Lexer
and Benecke/Müller/Zarncke
(<http://gaer27.uni-trier.de/MWV-online/MWV-online.html>).
> mentions for north
> Germany the use of 'None' for the time of the midday rest (11-1 or
> 12-2), the verb 'nonen' (Mittagsruhe halten) for the principality
> Lippe and 'Nong' as Aachen dialect word for the midday. These uses
> were contemporary with the brothers - mid-19th century at least.
> 'Nonzeit, nonezeit' as midday/early afternoon was apparently
> considered a reasonable alternative to "Mittagszeit" in the late 15th
> century.
Lexer s.v. <nône>: die neunte stunde (von 6 uhr morgens ab
gerechnet), überh. die mittagszeit und die kanonische hore
derselben (der horagesang sowol als die betreffende
tageszeit); <nône-zît> is glossed 'nône, mittag', and the
quotation is 'nônzeit od. mittagzeit, nona hora meridiei'.
[...]
I quite liked a quotation in Grimm s.v. <Mittag>, from
Simrock's Sprichwörter:
zwischen zwölf und mittag
gar vieles noch geschehen mag.
It neatly describes a certain kind of fantasy.
Brian
nyra
>
> On Mon, 29 May 2006 19:17:08 +0200, nyra <ny...@gmx.net>
> wrote in <news:447B2C94...@gmx.net> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> > Kai Henningsen schrieb:
>
> [...]
>
> [<noon>, especially for midday]
> >> And it seems current German at least is missing the word altogether. We
> >> just use "Mittag" (and the times around that are "Vormittag" and
> >> "Nachmittag"). I don't recall any similar-sounding German word at all.
>
> > I don't recall anything like that, either, but the main work of the
> > Brothers Grimm, the complete german dictionary,
>
> Which the good folks at the University of Trier have made
> available on-line at
> <http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/DWB>.
Wow! Instant bookmark!
> I quite liked a quotation in Grimm s.v. <Mittag>, from
> Simrock's Sprichwörter:
>
> zwischen zwölf und mittag
> gar vieles noch geschehen mag.
Simrock i have at home. It's quite astonishing how some shops keep
throwing out such neat stuff at cut-rate prices. But i guess a cheap
Grimmsches Wörterbuch reprint won't be in the cards anytime soon.
--
Ich steh früh auf, ich muß helfen Mittag läuten.
Simrock: Die deutschen Sprichwörter, 7051a
R.L.
> In article <e59tts$2f6$5...@naig.caltech.edu>,
> pho...@ofb.net (Damien Sullivan) wrote:
/snip/
>> BTW, I enjoyed Harald, but the language tone of the whole book seemed
>> odd, choppy and short on verbs. I have a dim memory that this came up
>> as a choice while you were writing the book -- is there past discussion,
>> or something to summarize? I kept expecting Imperials to show up and
>> talk in more flowing ways.
>
> My narrative style was odd by choice, although not necessarily a correct
> choice. The failure to more clearly distinguish the speech of imperials
> from that of Harald and his friends was, I think, a mistake, for which
> my only excuse is that it's my first novel and my first attempt to do
> written dialog. Hopefully I'll do better this time.
Did the final published version change the style any?
R.L.
David Friedman
"R.L." <"<see-sig"@no-spams.coms>> wrote:
Depends from when.
One of the things I tried to do during the final editing pass was to
make the Imperials, and especially Emperor, sound less like Harald. I
did some of it, but not enough.
Part of the problem is that most of the Imperials I was dealing with
were legionaries, and it seemed reasonable that they would sound
somewhat like Harald--practical, plain spoken men. And we see the
Emperor functioning as the commander of an army, interacting with
legionaries. All of that means that the Imperials shouldn't have been
particularly elaborate or ceremonial in their speech--but I should have
found some way of making them sound more different than I did.
In the sequel I have Imperial aristocrats interacting with non-soldier
types, so perhaps I can do a better job there.
jam...@echeque.com
> Part of the problem is that most of the Imperials I
> was dealing with were legionaries, and it seemed
> reasonable that they would sound somewhat like
> Harald--practical, plain spoken men.
Harald sounds like a cowboy, as is reasonable for his
authority is akin to that of the rancher who calls the
posse together. If he talks too much, someone may
interrupt him. Men born tend to privilege talk
differently - they sound like Ted Kennedy, or Kerry's
wife. The reason Bush stumbles a lot is because he is
making an effort to not sound like that - hence
"nucular" weapons.
Ted Kennedy:
: : I have requested this opportunity to talk to
: : the people of Massachusetts about the tragedy
: : which happened last Friday evening. This
: : morning I entered a plea of guilty to the
: : charge of leaving the scene of an accident.
: : Prior to my appearance in court it would have
: : been improper for me to comment on these
: : matters. But tonight I am free to tell you
: : what happened and to say what it means to me.
That is the sound of a silver spoon blocking his mouth.
Your imperials should sound like that, even when it is
vitally urgent that they speak clearly, plainly, and
briefly.
Carl Dershem
@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com:
> Harald sounds like a cowboy, as is reasonable for his
> authority is akin to that of the rancher who calls the
> posse together. If he talks too much, someone may
> interrupt him. Men born tend to privilege talk
> differently - they sound like Ted Kennedy, or Kerry's
> wife. The reason Bush stumbles a lot is because he is
> making an effort to not sound like that - hence
> "nucular" weapons.
The reason Bush stumbles a lot is that there's no connection between his
brain (such as it is) and his mouth. He makes an effort to use words and
phrases that make him sound like a "man of the people" (a meaningless
phrase in a society as diverse as this one), but never considers the ideas
those words are expressing.
cd
--
The difference between immorality and immortality is "T". I like Earl
Grey.
Ric Locke
The TRVTH as Revealed, here. Perhaps he'd care to share with us the name of
the Angel who brought it, as Mohammed did.
Advice to you, Carl: don't try to do business with Texans from my part of
the state. Them stupid ol' rednecks will take you to the cleaners.
Regards,
ric
*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***
David Friedman
Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote:
I recently heard an interesting bit by a left wing radio talk show host.
She described a recent book which claimed that everything said by the
last two Democratic presidental candidates was scripted, including
things designed to appear spontaneous. She suggested that Bush's
comments were not scripted, and that that was one of his
advantages--that he sounded, as she put it (by memory so not verbatim)
"Like a real person. A stupid real person, but real."
Carl Dershem
news:1pcba841fmsc5.l...@40tude.net:
> Advice to you, Carl: don't try to do business with Texans from my part
> of the state. Them stupid ol' rednecks will take you to the cleaners.
Don't worry - I wont weigh down any Texans with my business. I prefer to
deal with civilized beings.
Ric Locke
> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
> news:1pcba841fmsc5.l...@40tude.net:
>
>> Advice to you, Carl: don't try to do business with Texans from my part
>> of the state. Them stupid ol' rednecks will take you to the cleaners.
>
> Don't worry - I wont weigh down any Texans with my business. I prefer to
> deal with civilized beings.
>
> cd
Stay away from mirrors.
Y'know, this is really only political at second hand. We are science
fiction writers, wannabees, and groupies; we should be comfortable and
adept at dealing with other cultures -- note Logan and Gerry discussing
intelligent molluscs, elsethread. Failing to understand a culture that's
near at hand, whose members have the same number of limbs and arrangement
of sense organs, should be duck soup.
George Bush isn't stupid. He's an immigrant, and speaks with an accent. The
culture he has adopted is the one I'm a lower-middle-class member of. One
of its features is that while it appreciates, even prizes, linguistic
adeptness, it doesn't privilege it (if I understand the academic meaning of
"privilege"). A person whose fences are tight and straight, whose cows are
fat and healthy, whose pastures are neat and verdant, and whose house and
outbuildings are sound and tidy, is a valuable and respected member of the
community even if he's illiterate to the point of not being able to write
his own name. If he also habitually drives new pickups and sends his kids
off to college, thus evidencing that he's able to wrest a profit from the
uncooperative Texas countryside, he'll be known far and wide as a "smart
ol' boy." There are analogous provisions for those who aren't ranch owners
but employees, contractors, and hangers-on. The concept of "intelligence"
is almost totally decoupled from glib and facile use of the language.
In order to make that work the educated have to meet the uneducated
halfway. Vocabulary and sentence structure tend to simplicity, and literary
allusions are almost totally absent (though reference to popular TV shows
may be made.) The goal (to the extent that a cultural imperative can be
said to have a "goal") is to place the person who's bright but has not had
the opportunity to get "book learning" on an equal or nearly-equal footing
with the college graduate. The fact that your daddy couldn't afford to send
you to Harvard doesn't mean you're stupid; the fact that the old man
financed four years at MIT or Stanford doesn't automatically make you
smart. Education is not intelligence, and the customs take that into
account.
For those of us who grew up in the culture the adjustment is second nature,
or even first -- we automatically adapt our vocabulary and speech patterns
to those of our interlocutors, and have been doing so since we learned to
speak. Bush adopted the culture late in life, and as with most people who
adopt a new language as an adult he sometimes gropes for the correct word
or phrase. In our culture, he gets credit for that as someone who's trying
to fit in. The man's no Oppenheimer, but he's of above-average
intelligence.
I'm sure some of you will be sneering about "hypocrisy". Imagine my
reaction to people proudly displaying their erudition in an attempt to
overawe the rubes. In order to be condescending you need a bit of altitude.
Regards,
Ric
Brian M. Scott
<news:Xns97D3BA7F6AB...@70.169.32.36> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
> news:1pcba841fmsc5.l...@40tude.net:
>> Advice to you, Carl: don't try to do business with Texans
>> from my part of the state. Them stupid ol' rednecks will
>> take you to the cleaners.
> Don't worry - I wont weigh down any Texans with my
> business. I prefer to deal with civilized beings.
You know, Ric's comment was a bit of a non sequitur, but
this is just plain uncalled for.
Brian
Carl Dershem
> George Bush isn't stupid.
You're entitled to your opinion, but many of us laugh at it. The evidence
argues against it.
Wilson Heydt
Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote:
>For those of us who grew up in the culture the adjustment is second nature,
>or even first -- we automatically adapt our vocabulary and speech patterns
>to those of our interlocutors, and have been doing so since we learned to
>speak. Bush adopted the culture late in life, and as with most people who
>adopt a new language as an adult he sometimes gropes for the correct word
>or phrase. In our culture, he gets credit for that as someone who's trying
>to fit in. The man's no Oppenheimer, but he's of above-average
>intelligence.
I will--at least provisionally--buy that argument. The corollary to it is
that whoever Bush is speaking to, it isn't me.
--
Hal Heydt
Albany, CA
My dime, my opinions.
David Friedman
Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
> news:1kjza06s2dqi4.h...@40tude.net:
>
> > George Bush isn't stupid.
>
> You're entitled to your opinion, but many of us laugh at it. The evidence
> argues against it.
He got elected and reelected. That's some evidence.
I'm curious about your view of Teddy Kennedy--for whom the evidence of
intellectual incompetence is, I think, a good deal clearer.
Bob Throllop
Agreed - just because Ric thinks all Texans are thieves doesn't mean
they really are.
Bob Throllop
Wilson Heydt wrote:
> In article <1kjza06s2dqi4.h...@40tude.net>,
> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote:
> >For those of us who grew up in the culture the adjustment is second nature,
> >or even first -- we automatically adapt our vocabulary and speech patterns
> >to those of our interlocutors, and have been doing so since we learned to
> >speak. Bush adopted the culture late in life, and as with most people who
> >adopt a new language as an adult he sometimes gropes for the correct word
> >or phrase. In our culture, he gets credit for that as someone who's trying
> >to fit in. The man's no Oppenheimer, but he's of above-average
> >intelligence.
>
> I will--at least provisionally--buy that argument.
I won't. This whole imaginary culture Ric has made up is a fairy tale.
Texans are just like everybody else. We all know the guy can't put
together a coherent sentence, and that's a sign of being dumb in every
culture in the world.
The last time I saw an invented culture invoked to excuse something so
nonsensical, it was a radical lesbian doing the arguing.
Bob Throllop
David Friedman wrote:
> In article <Xns97D3D2CD3F2...@70.169.32.36>,
> Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
> > news:1kjza06s2dqi4.h...@40tude.net:
> >
> > > George Bush isn't stupid.
> >
> > You're entitled to your opinion, but many of us laugh at it. The evidence
> > argues against it.
>
> He got elected and reelected. That's some evidence.
I've never seen him say or do anything clever, or heard him give a
coherent explanation of ANYTHING, simple or complex. That's some much
more direct evidence.
R.L. Delamancha
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Wed, 31 May 2006 01:19:55 GMT, Carl Dershem
>> <der...@cox.net> wrote in
>> <news:Xns97D3BA7F6AB...@70.169.32.36> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>
>>> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
>>> news:1pcba841fmsc5.l...@40tude.net:
>>
>>>> Advice to you, Carl: don't try to do business with Texans
>>>> from my part of the state. Them stupid ol' rednecks will
>>>> take you to the cleaners.
Ric, I hate to say this.... :-)
>>> Don't worry - I wont weigh down any Texans with my
>>> business. I prefer to deal with civilized beings.
>>
>> You know, Ric's comment was a bit of a non sequitur, but
>> this is just plain uncalled for.
>
> Agreed - just because Ric thinks all Texans are thieves doesn't mean
> they really are.
By my prissy little Texan standards (and disregarding style), here's how it
looked, working backwards:
Carl diffused and softened the focus by making a quip about Texans in
general....
In answer to Ric's confrontation of Carl in second person singular
imperative condesending....
Because Carl had made a remark about a public figure -- not a confrontation
of Bush, since it seems highly unlikely that Bush even reads this
newsgroup.
g,d,r,
R.L.
'y'all' would have been quite a different matter
David Friedman
"Bob Throllop" <bobth...@brandx.net> wrote:
> > He got elected and reelected. That's some evidence.
>
> I've never seen him say or do anything clever, or heard him give a
> coherent explanation of ANYTHING, simple or complex. That's some much
> more direct evidence.
I'm afraid I don't agree on the "do anything." He did various things
which resulted in his opponents thinking he was stupid, and his winning
two elections. And I would be less worried about the general shift
towards increasing executive power if I were as sure as you are that he
is stupid.
David Friedman
"Bob Throllop" <bobth...@brandx.net> wrote:
> We all know the guy can't put
> together a coherent sentence, and that's a sign of being dumb in every
> culture in the world.
We don't know that he can't put together a coherent sentence.
Have you ever given a speech and then read a transcript of it? It's a
sobering experience.
Kai Henningsen
> In article <Xns97D3D2CD3F2...@70.169.32.36>,
> Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
> > news:1kjza06s2dqi4.h...@40tude.net:
> >
> > > George Bush isn't stupid.
> >
> > You're entitled to your opinion, but many of us laugh at it. The evidence
> > argues against it.
>
> He got elected and reelected. That's some evidence.
Of what?
You know, the reason why many people here think Bush is stupid has nothing
at all to do with the way he speaks - because most people here have no
idea what way that is.
It does, however, have a great deal to do with his politics.
As for getting reelected ... while the example isn't particularly
parallel, it is also commonly agreed that a certain former German
politician, who certainly got reelected, was anything but a genius.
So getting reelected certainly isn't seen as a proof of intelligence.
David Friedman
kaih=9uudq...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
> ou know, the reason why many people here think Bush is stupid has nothing
> at all to do with the way he speaks - because most people here have no
> idea what way that is.
>
> It does, however, have a great deal to do with his politics.
I think that's the chief real reason for people here who have that
opinion as well, with the exception of a few who agree with his politics
but think him stupid for some other reason. Since I have observed that
people are, as a rule, unreasonably willing to believe that other people
have to be stupid in order to disagree with their politics, I take it as
a very bad reason.
It's much more convincing when someone who agrees with his politics
thinks he is stupid.
> As for getting reelected ... while the example isn't particularly
> parallel, it is also commonly agreed that a certain former German
> politician, who certainly got reelected, was anything but a genius.
If you are talking about Adolf Hitler, I think it is clear that, while
he may have arguably been crazy, he was very far from stupid.
nyra
>
> In article <9uudq...@khms.westfalen.de>,
> kaih=9uudq...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
>
> > ou know, the reason why many people here think Bush is stupid has nothing
> > at all to do with the way he speaks - because most people here have no
> > idea what way that is.
> >
> > It does, however, have a great deal to do with his politics.
>
> I think that's the chief real reason for people here who have that
> opinion as well, with the exception of a few who agree with his politics
> but think him stupid for some other reason. Since I have observed that
> people are, as a rule, unreasonably willing to believe that other people
> have to be stupid in order to disagree with their politics, I take it as
> a very bad reason.
Stupidity or lack thereof is only one facet for me when considering
policies. While i violently disagree with the policies of Merkel,
Putin, Bush and Berlusconi, Bush is the only of them i consider
stupid.
> It's much more convincing when someone who agrees with his politics
> thinks he is stupid.
>
> > As for getting reelected ... while the example isn't particularly
> > parallel, it is also commonly agreed that a certain former German
> > politician, who certainly got reelected, was anything but a genius.
>
> If you are talking about Adolf Hitler,
Interesting how 'german politician' so easily evocates the abominable
Austrian.
Hitler never was formally re-elected; there were mock elections where
people could vote either for him or, well, _technically_ they could
also vote against him. But there never was the possibility implied of
his losing office as outcome of one of these affairs.
I'm nearly certain Kai meant the estimated Dr. Helmut Kohl, who was
_famous_ for not being the brightest bulb and was re-elected _four_
times. And he was properly voted out of office, too.
jam...@echeque.com
> This whole imaginary culture Ric has made up is a
> fairy tale. Texans are just like everybody else. We
> sentence,
How would you know?
I have never heard him speak either, so I googled up
"Bush press conference", and there he was in a press
conference giving sensible and fully grammatical answers
ex tempore to hard questions - pretty obviously well
above the average for this group, and considerably
better than Senator Kerry, who tended to babble
aimlessly when answering a hard question ex tempore.
He sounds like english is a second language for him, and
indeed plain, folksy english is a second language to him
- but the sentences, and the thoughts, are entirely
coherent - which Kerry did not always manage.
Damien Sullivan
>I won't. This whole imaginary culture Ric has made up is a fairy tale.
> Texans are just like everybody else. We all know the guy can't put
>together a coherent sentence, and that's a sign of being dumb in every
>culture in the world.
His father couldn't either, but generally wasn't considered dumb.
Steven Pinker mentioned some Canadian politician who seemed to have a
hereditary speech disorder and I've suspected the Bushes might as well.
Which would be taken as a sign of dumbness but isn't one; general
intelligence could be decoupled from language production.
Secretive, anti-intellectual, and just plain dishonest seem easier to
defend.
-xx- Damien X-)
James Nicoll
Damien Sullivan <pho...@ofb.net> wrote:
>
>His father couldn't either, but generally wasn't considered dumb.
>Steven Pinker mentioned some Canadian politician who seemed to have a
>hereditary speech disorder
I wonder who that is? Chretien speaks both French and English
like nobody else on the planet but I believe that is due to Bell's Palsy.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
David Friedman
> I'm nearly certain Kai meant the estimated Dr. Helmut Kohl, who was
> _famous_ for not being the brightest bulb and was re-elected _four_
> times. And he was properly voted out of office, too.
I'm afraid I don't know enough about him.
The U.S. had a vice president, Dan Quayle, who had something of a
reputation for (at least) verbal incompetence. I once heard him give a
speech, and he was an articulate speaker. I don't, of course, know
whether he wrote the speech or learned it--but then, one doesn't know
that, most of the time, about most politicians.
Lucy Kemnitzer
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> seems to have said:
>In article <1149056127.2...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> "Bob Throllop" <bobth...@brandx.net> wrote:
>
>> We all know the guy can't put
>> together a coherent sentence, and that's a sign of being dumb in every
>> culture in the world.
>
>We don't know that he can't put together a coherent sentence.
>
>Have you ever given a speech and then read a transcript of it? It's a
>sobering experience.
The difference is in the watching and listening, not the reading.
David -- using you for an example, because you just did -- I am sure
that a transcript of an extensive disquisition you've made will look
halting and full of grammatical burps, but watching you and listening
to you doesn't give that effect: the light of intelligence is in your
eyes, you're engaged with your subject, you make sense.
I have to agree with Ric on one thing, though -- I don't think the man
is dumb, exactly. I think he has normal intelligence, measured in any
real way -- I think it's contempt we're seeing, not stupidity. He
thinks his audience is stupid because they've been manipulable, and he
doesn't care about any of the things he pretends to care about, so he
says any old thing.
I also think he's not physically or mentally well, though he's clearly
better off, in both regards, than he was a year ago (I suspected a
while back that he'd maybe fallen off the wagon, or he was having a
medication adjustment problem, or the stress of dealing with
unexpected opposition was getting to him).
It occurs to me that only people with a tremendous amount of energy
can even fake a political job.
Lucy Kemnitzer, still
--The Donor:
the harm reduction vampire story, now complete:
http://www.baymoon.com/~ritaxis/donor/donorweb/donorindex
Lucy Kemnitzer
seems to have said:
Can I take this in a different direction? I want to make sure that
what follows is not perceived as being more of the above, though it
was triggered by it.
It's interesting how local perceptions of other groups change over
time. There was a time, at least in California, where your average
Texan was perceived as being a real stand-up guy. You might have a
little bit of condescension for a (perceived) excessi vely macho
culture, or a (perceived) yokelishness, but you expected
straightforward dealings, with the exception of Edna Ferber or TV show
oil magnates. And wry humor, good music, and good food, as long as
you stayed in the protein food groups. And decent chili, even if they
got snooty about the beans. Honest, sometimes bacjward but not
stupid, sometimes prejudiced in general but good to have at your back
(ignoring the usual history that everybody has, okay?) The only place
that could produce Molly Ivins, Lars Eighner, Jerry Jeff Walker,
Robert Earl Keen, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, the Austin Lounge Lizards
. . .
Now, after Enron, Brown and Root, and a host of scandalous
politicians, the expectation is different. I started to go into
detail about how that's changed, but I don't want to say something
that could seem hostile here: hostility is not my goal.
It's like -- I've seen pre-motion picture industry writing about
California. There are continuities, but mainly the "image" of the
place was really different. How completely the image of a place
alters with just a few changes to the economy and landscape. How
completely a few people can change the image of a community, or a
society.
David Friedman
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> The difference is in the watching and listening, not the reading.
> David -- using you for an example, because you just did -- I am sure
> that a transcript of an extensive disquisition you've made will look
> halting and full of grammatical burps, but watching you and listening
> to you doesn't give that effect: the light of intelligence is in your
> eyes, you're engaged with your subject, you make sense.
I've had no direct interaction with Bush, but my parents have, and it's
clear they were positively impressed--despite the fact that my father
doesn't have a very high opinion of Bush's policies.
My general prejudice is that people who succeed in highly competitive
fields are probably smart in some sense of the term, even if not in the
sense of being very articulate or good at puzzle solving. That links
back to the earlier thread discussing intelligence and the fact that it
isn't one dimensional.
It's true that being the son of a president gave Bush a distinct
advantage, along with the support of his father's political apparatus.
But even with that, getting the nomination and winning the election
can't have been easy. I'm willing to make an exception for Teddy
Kennedy, partly on evidence and partly because he was not merely the
brother of two popular and successful politicians, he was also getting
elected in a state whose politics were dominated by supporters of his
family. Similarly, I wouldn't take Bush's getting elected governor of
Texas as terribly strong evidence that he's smart.
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>We are science
>fiction writers, wannabees, and groupies;
I am not a groupie! That implies that I follow a person, when I'm
here for the conversation.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com/
Marilee J. Layman
<rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>I also think he's not physically or mentally well, though he's clearly
>better off, in both regards, than he was a year ago (I suspected a
>while back that he'd maybe fallen off the wagon, or he was having a
>medication adjustment problem, or the stress of dealing with
>unexpected opposition was getting to him).
Last week's Globe said he's drinking again and that he and Laura are
living separately in the White House. Then again, that's the Globe (I
was reading the headlines while waitin in the grocery line).
Bob Throllop
Lucy Kemnitzer wrote:
>
> It occurs to me that only people with a tremendous amount of energy
> can even fake a political job.
>
To change the subject yet again--is it really necessary for politicians
to overwork themselves? I keep reading about the insane working hours
of Presidential aides--in most other businesses, routine, excessively
long work weeks are considered counterproductive and a sign of gross
mismanagement.
David Friedman
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> It's like -- I've seen pre-motion picture industry writing about
> California. There are continuities, but mainly the "image" of the
> place was really different. How completely the image of a place
> alters with just a few changes to the economy and landscape. How
> completely a few people can change the image of a community, or a
> society.
>
That's part, I think, of a much more general problem. The world is way
too big to fit into our heads. So most of the time we take a tiny
sample, and treat it as if it represented the whole thing.
Part of the difference between people with different political positions
is what their sample contains. At one extreme, the "typical" person on
welfare is a lazy welfare cheat, at the other a hard working person
struck by bad luck none of which he deserved. Both exist--but since you
can't intuit a million people, you settle for many fewer.
Carl Dershem
news:ddfr-70F77B.2...@news.isp.giganews.com:
> In article <Xns97D3D2CD3F2...@70.169.32.36>,
> Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
>> news:1kjza06s2dqi4.h...@40tude.net:
>>
>> > George Bush isn't stupid.
>>
>> You're entitled to your opinion, but many of us laugh at it. The
>> evidence argues against it.
>
> He got elected and reelected. That's some evidence.
There is consierable evidence that that is a false statement.
> I'm curious about your view of Teddy Kennedy--for whom the evidence of
> intellectual incompetence is, I think, a good deal clearer.
I've never paid much attention to Kennedy, and so decline to comment on
him.
Carl Dershem
news:oqb5a3kmddet.1z64i47vupn6$.d...@40tude.net:
Not really. I make a comment, Ric makes a veiled threat [NOT a non-
sequitur], a slough off that threat.
Look - the next time I let some redneck bully me will be the first. I'm
just making that clear to Ric, and others who think that being some "Texas
Redneck" makes you superior. I've watched Bush and perry and other Texas
rednecks for several years now, and will continue to reiterate that, based
on his actions (all of which have been despicable, in my educated opinion),
george W. Buch is a fool, and a coward, and stupid to boot.
To change that opinion, he would have to actually do something that was of
benefit to the country in general, rather than to his 'base' and hs
cronies. He has not, to date, done that, and has gone out of his way to do
the opposite.
If you have a problem with that, show where he has done ANYTHING right,
where you can get people from across the political and social spectrum to
agree, and THEN we can discuss it. But that's never gonna happen.
David Friedman
Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
> I've watched Bush and perry and other Texas
> rednecks for several years now, and will continue to reiterate that, based
> on his actions (all of which have been despicable, in my educated opinion),
> george W. Buch is a fool, and a coward, and stupid to boot.
>
> To change that opinion, he would have to actually do something that was of
> benefit to the country in general, rather than to his 'base' and hs
> cronies.
Your second paragraph seems like a complete non-sequitur. If he did a
good job of playing to his base, and the result was to get him enough
votes to be reelected, that's evidence of intelligence.
Your comment only makes sense if you are taking it for granted that Bush
is a good person whose highest priority is to benefit the country, which
seems an odd assumption for you to make. Otherwise there's no link
between his failure to benefit the country in general and whether he is
or is not stupid.
lclough
>
>
> If you have a problem with that, show where he has done ANYTHING right,
> where you can get people from across the political and social spectrum to
> agree, and THEN we can discuss it. But that's never gonna happen.
>
Speaking clinically, I would judge that the invasion of
Afghanistan was a good thing and approved of by nearly
everybody. Osama bin Laden needed to be attacked (still does),
the Taliban were and are repugnant to everybody, and 9-11 needed
a response. Of course Bush immediately dropped the ball by
losing interest and moving on to a tar baby that had nothing to
do with anything (Iraq). If he had had more focus, if he had
poured money and materiel into turning Afghanistan into a
Switzerland or a Hong Kong, the place would be a showplace
today, the envy of the Middle East, and people would be trying
to sneak in, not out.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Recent short fiction:
FUTURE WASHINGTON (WSFA Press, October '05)
http://www.futurewashington.com
FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html
David Friedman
wrote:
> If he had had more focus, if he had
> poured money and materiel into turning Afghanistan into a
> Switzerland or a Hong Kong, the place would be a showplace
> today, the envy of the Middle East, and people would be trying
> to sneak in, not out.
I think you greatly overestimate the ability of the U.S. to change a
country by merely spending money.
Carl Dershem
> In article <Xns97D4B85ADEF...@70.169.32.36>,
> Carl Dershem <der...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> I've watched Bush and perry and other Texas
>> rednecks for several years now, and will continue to reiterate that,
>> based on his actions (all of which have been despicable, in my
>> educated opinion), george W. Buch is a fool, and a coward, and stupid
>> to boot.
>>
>> To change that opinion, he would have to actually do something that
>> was of benefit to the country in general, rather than to his 'base'
>> and hs cronies.
>
> Your second paragraph seems like a complete non-sequitur. If he did a
> good job of playing to his base, and the result was to get him enough
> votes to be reelected, that's evidence of intelligence.
NO, it's evidence of *politics*. And most, if not all, of the planning
behind the election was not done by him. And it follows clearly from the
first paragraph
> Your comment only makes sense if you are taking it for granted that
> Bush is a good person whose highest priority is to benefit the
> country, which seems an odd assumption for you to make.
It's not an assumption - it's HIS JOB!
> Otherwise
> there's no link between his failure to benefit the country in general
> and whether he is or is not stupid.
Te link is between whether or not he's doing his job, and what he is doing,
which is mostly screwing thing up royally, in a completely stupid and
criminal manner.
Carl Dershem
> Carl Dershem wrote:
>
>> If you have a problem with that, show where he has done ANYTHING
>> right, where you can get people from across the political and social
>> spectrum to agree, and THEN we can discuss it. But that's never
>> gonna happen.
>
> Speaking clinically, I would judge that the invasion of
> Afghanistan was a good thing and approved of by nearly
> everybody. Osama bin Laden needed to be attacked (still does),
> the Taliban were and are repugnant to everybody, and 9-11 needed
> a response. Of course Bush immediately dropped the ball by
> losing interest and moving on to a tar baby that had nothing to
> do with anything (Iraq). If he had had more focus, if he had
> poured money and materiel into turning Afghanistan into a
> Switzerland or a Hong Kong, the place would be a showplace
> today, the envy of the Middle East, and people would be trying
> to sneak in, not out.
Had he taken the advice of many people, the whole Taliban mess would
never have gotten as far as it had. Many anthropologiists, people for
religious freedom, and other scientists had been urging the removal of
the taliban since they started destroying evidence of other forms of
thought. Also, many politicians, military experts and career diplomats
were urging him to remove them for other reasons which were at least as
valid. And he did NOTHING.
9/11 was, at best, a reason for him to move into the middle east (which
he'd ignored, save for oil contracts, until then), as an entree into
Iraq, which was clearly his first priority.
Had Bush and his cabal been doing their jobs in the first place, they'd
have been keeping an eye on the Taliban from day 1, have pursued BinLaden
vigorously rather than doing business with them, and would have dealt
with those who backed much of the 9/11 plot to start with - namely, Saudi
Arabia. He had plenty of detailed warning, but did nothing until he
could find a way to frame events into an attack on Iraq.
And nothing will change the nature of Afghanistan until the people there
want it to change, and that's just not going to happen.
Lucy Kemnitzer
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> seems to have said:
>In article <9smr7211aqmpsplvf...@4ax.com>,
> Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>
>> It's like -- I've seen pre-motion picture industry writing about
>> California. There are continuities, but mainly the "image" of the
>> place was really different. How completely the image of a place
>> alters with just a few changes to the economy and landscape. How
>> completely a few people can change the image of a community, or a
>> society.
>>
>
>That's part, I think, of a much more general problem. The world is way
>too big to fit into our heads. So most of the time we take a tiny
>sample, and treat it as if it represented the whole thing.
>
>Part of the difference between people with different political positions
>is what their sample contains. At one extreme, the "typical" person on
>welfare is a lazy welfare cheat, at the other a hard working person
>struck by bad luck none of which he deserved. Both exist--but since you
>can't intuit a million people, you settle for many fewer.
Yes, this is part of what I'm thinking about. But also I'm thinking
about how consensus images change, abruptly, when certain things
happen.
Now I'm thinking about European national stereotypes in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, and maybe again in the twenty-first.
And now I'm thinking this may be a useful thing to apply in the work
in progress.
Brian M. Scott
<der...@cox.net> wrote in
<news:Xns97D4B85ADEF...@70.169.32.36> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in
> news:oqb5a3kmddet.1z64i47vupn6$.d...@40tude.net:
>> On Wed, 31 May 2006 01:19:55 GMT, Carl Dershem
>> <der...@cox.net> wrote in
>> <news:Xns97D3BA7F6AB...@70.169.32.36> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>> Ric Locke <warl...@hyperusa.com> wrote in
>>> news:1pcba841fmsc5.l...@40tude.net:
>>>> Advice to you, Carl: don't try to do business with Texans
>>>> from my part of the state. Them stupid ol' rednecks will
>>>> take you to the cleaners.
>>> Don't worry - I wont weigh down any Texans with my
>>> business. I prefer to deal with civilized beings.
>> You know, Ric's comment was a bit of a non sequitur, but
>> this is just plain uncalled for.
> Not really. I make a comment, Ric makes a veiled threat
> [NOT a non- sequitur], a slough off that threat.
It is nearly a non sequitur: Bush doesn't really qualify as
a 'Texan[] from [his] part of the state'. To read it as a
threat, veiled or otherwise, requires considerable ...
creativity.
The rest of your post is irrelevant, as my comment had
nothing to do with Bush.
[...]
Brian
Lucy Kemnitzer
seems to have said:
Well, I think it's mostly that you need to be able to talk to people
for hours on end and meet with other people when that's done and oh,
can you take this call because somebody else just got out of a meeting
and there's changes in alliances and stuff? And now, crap, write this
down, because it's complicated and you're going to need to remember it
in the morning, and well, you'll need to have breakfast with these
guys over here, and you'll need to read that report, or find someone
who can summarize it for you, before that, and after that, there's
damage control to be done on something that's surely going to happen
between now and breakfast, and if it doesn't, you may as well use the
opportunity to talk up this bill or that letter. And speaking of
letters, formal ones need to go out to these three groups of people by
tomorrow, and this other one by the day after that, because this
treaty and that agreement will expire by the end of . . .
We really hate it when the President or the Governator is not there to
take the calls, answer the questions, read the reports, meet the
people, draft the reports. Some people want the guy to be on the
newsworthy spot all the time too, but I'm with Kofi Annan on that --
he stayed in New York (or was it London at the time?) after the
tsunami, working his sixteen hour days, not taking up the helicopters,
the food, the other resources on the ground that ought to be going to
rescue work. There's enough to do without photo ops.
Lucy Kemnitzer
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> seems to have said:
>I have a character who is expecting a visitor at noon. The context is,
>roughly speaking, greco-roman antiquity. How does he know when it is
>noon?
>
>Several possibilities:
>
>1. There is a sun dial outside the window. Hard to see very precisely
>from inside, and only works if sun is out and the window open. Or
>perhaps he went out to check the sun dial, saw it was close to noon, and
>went in to wait. Or perhaps he has a slave watching the sun dial for
>him, instructed to tell him when it gets close to noon.
>
>2. Water clock or hourglass. But both are designed to measure a length
>of time, not what time it is, and it would be a good deal of trouble to
>use them for the latter purpose.
>
>3. Bells. Someone is using one of the previous methods and ringing a
>bell in some predetermined pattern on the hours, or more often. I
>associate that method, however, with modern chiming clocks and medieval
>church bells, not with classical antiquity.
>
>My guess is that there isn't any practical way of timing things very
>precisely, so "meet at noon" means plus or minus half an hour or so, and
>is judged by familiarity with the shadows outside the window, position
>of the sun, and the like.
>
>Comments? Suggestions?
I'm thinking that"noon" is pretty much when the shadows are at their
smallest, and that a fifteen-twenty minutes' range total is more like
it than plus or minus a half hour.
I'm also thinking of that wonderful chapter somewhere about telling
time by eighths in Viking times -- the sky and horizon are divided
into eighths and the sun makes an imagined traverse around the
eighths, including the underside parts at night. There was something
about how each locality used a prominent rock or peak to orient their
timetelling to.
I sort of think that Greeks didn't divide the day into eighths,
though.
I have wondered if Terry Pratchett read that Viking stuff. The
Vikings also divided the year and their families into eighths. And
other stuff I'm not thinking of now.
David Friedman
Lucy Kemnitzer <rit...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> Yes, this is part of what I'm thinking about. But also I'm thinking
> about how consensus images change, abruptly, when certain things
> happen.
>
> Now I'm thinking about European national stereotypes in the nineteenth
> and twentieth centuries, and maybe again in the twenty-first.
>
Interesting question.
In the 20th century, it was generally taken for granted that British
food was bland and dull. I don't think that was the view in previous
centuries.
In the 18th century, judging by Boswell, it was taken for granted in
England that Italian women were routinely unfaithful to their husbands,
although not casually promiscuous--I think Boswell quotes Johnson as
saying something to the effect that an English woman who is unfaithful
is worthless, but that among the Italians it's the custom of the country
and consistent with being a person of principle.
In the 18th century there seems to have been a good deal of English
anti-Scottish prejudice, viewing the Scots as barbarians. Much the same
is true, I think, vis a vis the Irish in the 19th, perhaps also 18th,
century.
Russians? Germans? Swedes? I'm not sure what the changing stereotypes
were. In the U.S., I think some of them were based on immigrant
populations rather than populations in the home country.
Brian M. Scott
<rit...@cruzio.com> wrote in
<news:rvns72pb8sre7590c...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> I'm also thinking of that wonderful chapter somewhere about telling
> time by eighths in Viking times -- the sky and horizon are divided
> into eighths and the sun makes an imagined traverse around the
> eighths, including the underside parts at night.
Austr (east): Rísmál (rising-meal); ~5 a.m. in summer to ~6
a.m. in winter.
Landsuðr ('land-south', i.e., southeast): Dagmál (day-meal);
~9 a.m., give or take half an hour or so.
Suðr (south): Hádegi (high noon).
Útsuðr ('out-south', i.e., south west): Eykt; ~2:30 p.m. in
winter to ~3:30 p.m. in summer.
Vestr (west): Miðr aptann (mid evening); ~6 p.m. to ~7 p.m.,
depending on season.
Útnorðr ('out-north', i.e., northwest): Náttmál
(night-meal); ~9 p.m.
Norðr (north): Mið nótt (midnight).
Landnorðr ('landnorth', i.e., northeast): Ótta; ~3 a.m.
[...]
> I have wondered if Terry Pratchett read that Viking stuff. The
> Vikings also divided the year and their families into eighths. And
> other stuff I'm not thinking of now.
I haven't run into any eight-fold divisions of the year or
the family. The year was divided in a number of ways; the
most important division was into two equal halves, winter
and summer. The halves were further divided into weeks,
which were quite important; for instance, you get things
like <líðr á sumarit til átta vikna> 'the summer passed by
till eight weeks [remained before winter]'. There were also
lunar months.
Brian
R.L.
/snip/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_discipline
> contains a quotation from Plautus (ca. 100 BC) complaining of the
> artificial division of time imposed upon society by the ubiquitous sundial.
Extending that to larger units of time.... Perhaps the sort of timetables
that give authors fits (how many days travel etc), are an anachronism,
excuse the expression, for the characters in some stories anyway. Maybe
they'd keep track of the days, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe what matters to
the story -- after the pass opened, after the wounds healed -- is what
matters to the characters too. Maybe we could just leave out the mention of
how many days or how many weeks.
R.L.
Brian M. Scott
<<see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in
<news:mwe2dj483qt3$.914bccpzpwrj$.d...@40tude.net> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> On Sat, 27 May 2006 17:19:05 +0000 (UTC), Damien Sullivan wrote:
> /snip/
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_discipline
>> contains a quotation from Plautus (ca. 100 BC) complaining of the
>> artificial division of time imposed upon society by the ubiquitous sundial.
> Extending that to larger units of time.... Perhaps the
> sort of timetables that give authors fits (how many days
> travel etc), are an anachronism, excuse the expression,
> for the characters in some stories anyway.
You're confusing two very different issues. One is how (and
how precisely) the characters reckon time. The other is
what the author must keep straight in order to avoid
inconsistency.
[...]
David Friedman
But it does suggest the question of whether authors in the past worried
about time and distance consistency. My guess is that the writers of the
sagas did, since the setting was territory that many of their listeners
had travelled over. Ariosto, on the other hand, ... .
Lucy Kemnitzer
I have, though I can't recall how the year part worked: it was
collections of weeks, associated with the precession of natural signs.
The family -- the part of a family being considered in a discussion
was called an eighth. I don't think it was every literally eighths.
R.L.
> In article <yik2z8q5ig2j$.1qn1jpte56tbo$.d...@40tude.net>,
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 31 May 2006 22:33:49 -0700, "R.L."
>> <<see...@no-spams.coms> wrote in
>> <news:mwe2dj483qt3$.914bccpzpwrj$.d...@40tude.net> in
>> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>>
>>> On Sat, 27 May 2006 17:19:05 +0000 (UTC), Damien Sullivan wrote:
>>> /snip/
>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_discipline
>>>> contains a quotation from Plautus (ca. 100 BC) complaining of the
>>>> artificial division of time imposed upon society by the ubiquitous sundial.
>>
>>> Extending that to larger units of time.... Perhaps the
>>> sort of timetables that give authors fits (how many days
>>> travel etc), are an anachronism, excuse the expression,
>>> for the characters in some stories anyway.
>>
>> You're confusing two very different issues. One is how (and
>> how precisely) the characters reckon time. The other is
>> what the author must keep straight in order to avoid
>> inconsistency.
>
> But it does suggest the question of whether authors in the past worried
> about time and distance consistency. My guess is that the writers of the
> sagas did, since the setting was territory that many of their listeners
> had travelled over. Ariosto, on the other hand, ... .
No, I wasn't thinking of going so loose as Ariosto. :-) And of course I
need some sort of rough timetable of who is where when. However....
My modern instinct often is to make time detailed down to the day, both in
the timetable and in the text; a modern text would feel ungrounded to me
without this. (Also it's an easy way to signal the start of a new scene.)
But if the adventurers aren't keeping track of days and weeks as precisely
as we do, then to give that level of detail in the text would be
anachronism.
Of course I was mostly thinking of the level of detail; for some stories,
weeks might do as well as days. But the wiki article had got me wondering,
if there might be some whole nother way of managing time and distance
consistency, than a timetable built on our modern perception of time. For
those authors who did worry about it, how do you think they might have
managed it? For that matter, how did people in real life manage it?
R.L.
lclough
> In article <qMrfg.2584$hv1.354@trnddc01>, lclough <clo...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>If he had had more focus, if he had
>>poured money and materiel into turning Afghanistan into a
>>Switzerland or a Hong Kong, the place would be a showplace
>>today, the envy of the Middle East, and people would be trying
>>to sneak in, not out.
>
>
> I think you greatly overestimate the ability of the U.S. to change a
> country by merely spending money.
>
There are some nice case histories. Japan and Germany, for
instance. I think we can agree though that in Afghanistan they
didn't even try.