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

Discuss

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well, like many such discussion it all comes down to the world "should".

Take this as 'should in the opinion of the writer' and the statement is presumably true in a fairly uncontroversial way.

If meant in a kind of wider morally absolute sense it seems pretty clearly wrong. Or at least, as wrong as prescriptive absolute morality usually is, about which views differ muchly.

Books going right to left

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I actually know the answer to this, having pondered it at length.

Take a pile of books. Orient them neatly such that the first volume is on the top.

Turn them ninety degrees so as to put them in a bookcase.

See?

Defined end..

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

Because that way you know exactly how long the series is.
If you are reading along a shelf from left to right as you normally do (teeny little assumption there) then if you file from right to left you will reach the last book first and know exactly how much series you have to go to reach the beginning.
If you reach the first book from a series first it could be any length long and you won't know if you have certainly reached the last book.

Make perfect sense - just like my book filing systems ;-)

Books

[uitlander]

I think its to do with which way the writing goes down the spine. I think we are 'programmed' from an early age to tilt our headdss to the right to read these. I wonder if it is programmed or instinctive behaviour that then makes my eyes scan from right to left. lanfykins, do you want to paint me brown and put a little white square on my head to investigate further?

Interestingly, most French books have the writing in the opposite direction to us. This always annoys me, as the aesthetics of a book shelf require (in my own, universal, way) that the books must be neatly ordered with the writing all in the same orientation.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

"there is a basic code of human decency, which should not be violated even in times of insecurity"

My feelings tend towards the idea that "times of insecurity" are precisely those times when it's most important to adhere to a "basic code of human decency". It's easy to be civil in a stable society. It's easy to respect the rights of someone who's not a criminal, or an enemy. And a moral code which doesn't make demands of you is probably not worth following.