Is it Friday yet ?

[venta]

Oh 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 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.

Comments

Re: Books going right to left

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've had an alternative answer via email from a non-LJ person who read this.

The pointed out that as you look at a book on the shelf, it's actual contents goes right to left (ie first page on right, last page on left). So by putting Vol II to the left of Vol I, you have better coninuity of content... and indeed, if you were to rebind them as one vol, you'd want them that way round.

Since I believe it used to be moderately common to split large volumes up post-binding, this might be relevant.

Re: Books going right to left

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Uh oh... it's endian-ness !

Re: Books going right to left

[voratus.livejournal.com]

Ah, but using that line of thought would also require the books to be put on the shelf with the pages facing forward, and the spine to the back. The best consistency of pages you could want, except you'd not be able to identify the book.
So whereas that could create the order of the books, turning them around so you can see the spine would put the lowest/earliest volume on the left (where it was initially), and the latter to the right of it/them.

Re: Books going right to left

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Up to the mutter century it was quite common for libraries to keep their books chained to a rail for security. A consequence of the usual chaining arrangement was that the spines were at the back and the fore-edges faced forward on the shelves. Titles would be scribbled on the fore-edge for identification. You might not want to do this to your collection, though.