Is it Friday yet ?
Apr. 1st, 2003 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaOh look, it's Elizabeth trying to sneak enormous philosophical issues into a scratty little cut...
I'm currently reading Antonia Fraser's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. Which has so far been interesting, although it has consistently unsettled me with its strange word-order within sentences. Owing to my unsociable habit of reading while eating, it's also rather more splattered with miso soup than any book on Scottish history should rightfully be.
However, in talking about the behaviour of the Scottish nobility around the time Mary returned to Scotland, it says:
"there is a basic code of human decency, which should not be violated even in times of insecurity" (quote approximate, as I don't have the book with me).
Which struck me as rather a sweeping assumption to just drop into the middle of a pargraph. I'm not even sure I agree with it. I'm wondering if it's the hypothetical should of someone who knows it isn't them whose going to be suffering the insecurity...
Discuss :)
Today's slightly less in-depth question: why, when placing multi-volume books on shelves, do the volumes always seem to go right to left ? It seems an odd convention, in view of the left-to-right nature of our society. I'm hoping![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
addedentry might know the answer to this one.
I'm tired. My neck hurts.
On the plus side, a colleague brought me a CD this morning of what he describes as "home-brew chilled dance/ambient with celtic crossovery things going on" which he made, as is traditional, in his bedroom.
I'm quite liking it so far.
I'm currently reading Antonia Fraser's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. Which has so far been interesting, although it has consistently unsettled me with its strange word-order within sentences. Owing to my unsociable habit of reading while eating, it's also rather more splattered with miso soup than any book on Scottish history should rightfully be.
However, in talking about the behaviour of the Scottish nobility around the time Mary returned to Scotland, it says:
"there is a basic code of human decency, which should not be violated even in times of insecurity" (quote approximate, as I don't have the book with me).
Which struck me as rather a sweeping assumption to just drop into the middle of a pargraph. I'm not even sure I agree with it. I'm wondering if it's the hypothetical should of someone who knows it isn't them whose going to be suffering the insecurity...
Discuss :)
Today's slightly less in-depth question: why, when placing multi-volume books on shelves, do the volumes always seem to go right to left ? It seems an odd convention, in view of the left-to-right nature of our society. I'm hoping
addedentry might know the answer to this one.I'm tired. My neck hurts.
On the plus side, a colleague brought me a CD this morning of what he describes as "home-brew chilled dance/ambient with celtic crossovery things going on" which he made, as is traditional, in his bedroom.
I'm quite liking it so far.
Re: Discuss
Date: 2003-04-01 02:14 am (UTC)Nonetheless, there are a few very broad themes that seem to be commonplace in many societies - the two you list are the main ones. Often such taboos are dressed up within a religious framework, but not always.