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osprey_archerI found the best Spanish dictionary ever yesterday. It’s not exactly a dictionary, it’s a book with lists of words grouped around a certain concept: these words mean “to run,” these words are types of shoes, these words describe different types of rivers…
Where has this book been all my life? I would have loved this book, and carried it around with me like a favorite blanket and petted it and called it Jorge.
My favorite word from this book is “serenarse,” which means “to calm yourself down; to regain your self-control.” I feel that “Me serené” is infinitely more graceful and affecting than “I regained my self-control.” It’s a pity I can’t unilaterally introduce it into the English language.
Just generally, Spanish reflexive verbs beat English reflexives into the dust. Myself, yourself, himself—all of these words are awkward and overlong, compared to the graceful simplicity of the Spanish me, te, se. If you ever want to inflict an action on yourself, Spanish is the language to use.
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Also, a link to a hilarious and affectionate description of steampunk, via![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marycatelli:
People think of goths as weirdoes who take vampires too seriously, and therefore they can’t help being worried on some level that a crazy goth might, you know, want to make them bleed. Whereas steampunks are — what? Weirdoes who take pocket-watches too seriously? What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?
I feel like I should mention that the article is not nearly as hard on Goths as that sounds.
Where has this book been all my life? I would have loved this book, and carried it around with me like a favorite blanket and petted it and called it Jorge.
My favorite word from this book is “serenarse,” which means “to calm yourself down; to regain your self-control.” I feel that “Me serené” is infinitely more graceful and affecting than “I regained my self-control.” It’s a pity I can’t unilaterally introduce it into the English language.
Just generally, Spanish reflexive verbs beat English reflexives into the dust. Myself, yourself, himself—all of these words are awkward and overlong, compared to the graceful simplicity of the Spanish me, te, se. If you ever want to inflict an action on yourself, Spanish is the language to use.
***
Also, a link to a hilarious and affectionate description of steampunk, via
marycatelli:People think of goths as weirdoes who take vampires too seriously, and therefore they can’t help being worried on some level that a crazy goth might, you know, want to make them bleed. Whereas steampunks are — what? Weirdoes who take pocket-watches too seriously? What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?
I feel like I should mention that the article is not nearly as hard on Goths as that sounds.
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Date: 2008-10-06 10:55 pm (UTC)But I know (I think) what you mean - steampunk technology just seems so much more real than real technology. You can see its workings and it has heft and weight, instead of being this tiny little nothing that makes everything it does seem so easy.
I keep meaning to read more steam-punk type stuff, but it's hard to find things that don't ping my Victorian buttons.
I've heard of Perdido Street Station; I vacillate on whether to read it because I've heard that it's wonderful and beautiful imagined and well-written; but, alternatively, it's depressing and gruesome and...still well-written, but so depressing.