The role of belief in knowledge (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

For those of you that don't live on the coast and are not entrusted with our great nation's defence, then the practice of luring, by beacon, Johnny Foreigner to his demise, wrecking his vessel and then salvaging what is of value, might seem unkind, but I don't seem to remember that you were complaining about this when the Spanish Armada was off the coast, or the French were rampaging through the streets of Southampton. It seems more than reasonable to Wiley that we used to be paid for this service, defending aganst foreign raids, and in fact we used to be before the Red Coats took over.

This is after all why we celebrate Guy Fawkes night properly along the coast, with beacons and payments for service, for the killing of popish foreigners.

[Mick Harper]

So you agree the crime of 'wrecking' doesn't exist even though people on land can act abominably towards people in distress at sea. It's good to have your support, Wiley.

N.B. The armed forces. Please do not take adverse action against offshore vessels at night as they are usually ours not theirs.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Heavon forbid. We don't wreck our side, it's only Johnny Foreigner who is arranging a fiendidsh raid at a small inlet or cove, normally with the help of some traitorous popish catholic posh landowning type. You have to uncover the plot, normally by torture, for this to work.

[Mick Harper]

Let me get the picture accurately in my mind. We have tortured some domestic malcontents to spill the beans about an imminent raid by their foreign paymasters. They are going to land in Loxley Cove on Tuesday night. We put out some lights to lure them onto the Loxley Reef next door. Captain Frenchman says, "By jeuve, why are zair lights, numero un? I sought zis was supposed to be ze surprise."

Take it from there, Mr du Maurier.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Thankfully our native cunning is more than a match for their devilish behaviour.

[Mick Harper]

Warning! Archaeologists at Work

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Stanwick Lakes Country: England Topic: Museums
Stanwick Lakes are building their own Bronze Age boat with the help of Dr James Dilley of Ancient Craft. Lots of other heritage plans in the pipeline, including another round house for the ancient village and improvements to the setting of the large round barrow nearby. Stanwick Lakes visitor centre has a Heritage Zone, created to display the many artefacts that were found on the site during the extensive archaeological excavations in the 1980s. You will find displays that tell the story of the past settlers who have lived here over the last 10,000 years. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=58622

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Goldington Country: England Topic: Neolithic and Bronze Age
A shopfloor artwork mnemonic and plaque commemorating a Neolithic henge and timber circle, the remains of which are concealed beneath this Tesco superstore in Riverfield Park, Bedford. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6509

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Glastonbury Stone Circle Country: England Topic: Modern Sites
A Carhenge is part of Glastonbury 2023 - added to this page as it's a temporary installation. More photos linked from here. The Glastonbury Festival stone circle is a recent monument on the British landscape, yet it is one that is visited by huge numbers of people over a very short period of time. Estimates of the numbers of people gathering at the Glastonbury stone circle are subject to speculation, however with a large proportion of the hundreds of thousands of people at festival visiting the stone circle its influence and draw is undisputed. http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=45067

[Mick Harper]

This Week's Competition

Identify the bit that tells you the writer wants to impress and amaze you as opposed to just telling you

[Mick Harper]

You all got it! The reporter knew the number of languages down to the last digit but could only venture 'over eighty' when it came to the number of researchers. This can only be because the people in charge didn't know, which seems unlikely, or they recognised that by saying, say

[Mick Harper]

And memorably re-iterated in RevHist

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....leaving India. British India.

The early study of languages was dominated by English- and German-speakers so when English-speakers found, quelle surprise, there were links between English and Sanskrit that was very good news. The German-speakers were happy to agree, they had English in their pocket. Presto! European languages belonged to the mighty superfamily of Indo-European. The amount of science might be nugatory but by the time everything had been tidied up into Linguistics and the iron rule of academic life – First is Best – had worked its magic, the patrons of the Dog & Duck not only knew where their language came from, they could be proud of the superfamily it belonged to

“English is a Germanic language.”
“Why can’t German be an Englishic language?”
“Because English is evolved from Anglo-Saxon and that’s a Germanic language.”
“Yes, I’d heard that.”
“There’s a Germanic group, a Latinate group, a Celtic group and a Slavic group which together form the Western Indo-European branch.”
“Why do you call it that?”
“Aryan has unfortunate connotations.”
“No, I mean why Western, Indo and branch?”
“In simple terms, it was recognised that English and Sanskrit had certain modalities in common which, what with one thing and another, led to the identification of the Indo-European language family.”
“I thought there was no evidence of how languages evolved.”
“Direct evidence, perhaps, but we can make textual examinations of existing languages plus various extinct languages, our fossils, if you will.”
“Fascinating. How’s it done? Briefly.”
“If a word from Language A sounds like a word from Language B, and they are not loanwords, they must both be derived from a common root-word.”
“Why not from one another?”
“They just aren’t. Are you evolved from your mother or from your sister? Once we have identified enough root-words, we can recreate whole languages. In this case ‘proto-Indic’ from which all the Indo-European languages evolved.”
“Impressive. When was all this happening?”
“That I couldn’t say. We’re talking aeons.”
“Not so impressive. Do you know where it was happening?”
“Central Asia.”
“You mean between India and Europe?”
“Quite.”
“But according to this President Erdogan everyone in central Asia speaks Turkic.”
“There may have been a vacuum after the migrations to India and Europe.”
“Makes a lot of sense. Can I get you another?”
“Please. I’ll have it in a straight glass, if you wouldn’t mind. It makes drinking a bit awkward.”

[Mick Harper]

I got a notification of this via academia.edu

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

This is as may be but what generally happens is that a publisher approaches 'a man in the news' to see if he is up for a book. The bloke replies that he's hard at work on his opus and there's no chance. The publisher then casts around for something The Great Man can do in between times, with reasonable dispatch and on a topic that might have a bit of mileage. (The opus offers none of these things.)

The GM responds with cautious noncommittal. Various topics are suggested, mulled over and rejected until eventually there is a melding of minds. However both parties know the score so the word Introduction is introduced.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I thought it would be fun, to provide a radical re reading, of possible meaning by interpreting what was implicit, but unsaid, in the original title. I took into account the social, political and historial context of what was happening to the study of literary criticism, at the time.

On reflection. I was just being nasty to the author.

[Mick Harper]

I thought this piece from Medium would be useful for an exploration of the relationship between AE and politics. As I have got puce in the face saying, youse guys have no trouble being AE-ist with most things but as soon as it’s politics, you go into ‘I know what I believe and I’m sticking to it’ mode.