bike, 9 months ago

deleted_by_author

stancarey, 9 months ago

@bike I don't know. It may have been poetic fancy, or shamanic synaesthesia, or something else altogether

stancarey, 10 months ago

Speaking of wind, a book recommendation:

Heaven's Breath: A Natural History of the Wind by Lyall Watson is a wonderfully wide-ranging account of the wind as a natural and cultural phenomenon. I have an old Coronet paperback, but there's an attractive-looking new edition available from @NYRB_Imprints

#wind #books #NaturalHistory #LyallWatson #nature

andrea_smandrea, 10 months ago

@stancarey i love archive.org❣️ #oldBooks #vintagebooks #readoldbooks

stancarey, 10 months ago

@andrea_smandrea It's an endlessly wonderful resource

Ele_Baron, 10 months ago

@stancarey May I ask what is the meaning of "dark" (N-E wind), in this context? I live in a town very famous for its cold, strong wind (Bora, from N-E). Curiously, when the wind is particularly strong and associated to rain, we call it "Bora scura" (dark Bora).

stancarey, 10 months ago

@Ele_Baron That's interesting. I don't know the precise meaning of "dark" here, since it's a translation of the Irish from centuries ago, which I'm far from qualified to assess

tezzzeta, 10 months ago

@stancarey I thought I was looking at a very bizarre presentation of the circle of fifths

Gerhana, 10 months ago

deleted_by_author

stancarey, 10 months ago

@Gerhana That's really interesting. I wonder if someone has done a proper anthropological study of wind lore across cultures

iraantlers, 10 months ago

@stancarey @Gerhana https://mastodon.online/@iraantlers/110815616252248096

galoisghost, 10 months ago

@stancarey cc @evan next poll idea.

ReverendMoose, 10 months ago

@stancarey so the phrase "a pale wind blew" means there's a wind blowing in from the west, neat.

rebeccabanner, 10 months ago

@stancarey I love the idea of being able to use these words to describe the weather. I can imagine commenting about it being a dark wind.

ianhunt, 10 months ago

@stancarey have a feeling the interesting poet Trevor Joyce descends from Patrick Weston Joyce -- just checked, yes, he does.

stancarey, 10 months ago

@ianhunt P.W. did so much great work. I knew Trevor a bit on a previous platform; had forgotten about that connection

ianhunt, 10 months ago

@stancarey Trevor is a varied and surprising writer. Not sure if he's made it here yet, he probably will. On another subject: do you know Gerry Loose's book of Ogham translations/versions, The Great Book of the Woods? it's simply stunning. I keep giving it to people. It's a book you can see through as you read, into an entire worldview. https://www.corbelstonepress.com/product-page/the-great-book-of-the-woods

clickhere, 10 months ago

@stancarey Wow. And the colours listed there remind me of the Himba of Namibia, who don't see the sky as blue, likely due to their language (as opposed to perception of colour).

#Language #Colour #Perception #Namibia #Ireland #MastoDaoine

stancarey, 10 months ago

@clickhere Yes, that's a linguistic rather than a perceptual thing. Blue is one of the later colour terms to join the basic sequence in a given vocabulary

faduda, 10 months ago

@stancarey @clickhere It'd be nice to see the original Irish words though. What am I to make of "Greyish Green", for example? Is that Liath? Is "Green" Glas or Gorm?

stancarey, 10 months ago

@faduda @clickhere Yes, it's a bit frustrating. I looked briefly in Saltair na Rann (the version on CELT) but didn't find the original description

clickhere, 10 months ago

@stancarey That's amazing, thank you!

stancarey, 10 months ago

@clickhere Guy Deutscher, whose book on linguistic relativity looks in depth at colour words, tried a little experiment on his daughter to see if she would identify the sky as blue without being prompted to: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/the-linguistics-of-colour-names/#comment-142152

clickhere, 10 months ago

@stancarey Oh wow! Ha, that reminds me of my friend's niece years ago, of a similar age (around 4 years), who one day asked him directly:

"Why is blue?"

(I'm not sure he's ever had an answer for her.)

stancarey, 10 months ago

@clickhere That question would keep a room of physicists, philosophers and psychologists busy for a whole afternoon

clickhere, 10 months ago

@stancarey Hah! It's a good question, all right.

meercat0, 10 months ago

@stancarey @clickhere I vaguely remember reading that Ancient Greek had just one word for green and yellow. So it turned out to be true, then. Interesting stuff

stancarey, 10 months ago

@meercat0 I think the usual pattern is that after a language gains words for black, white, and red, the next one tends to be for green or yellow

grammargirl, 10 months ago

@stancarey Fascinating!

frindley, 10 months ago

@stancarey @clickhere I hadn't realised, until I read the comments, that musician Alma Deutscher's father was a linguist.

FintanH, 10 months ago

@stancarey I always thought the coloured winds in Flann O'Brien's "The Third Policeman" were one of his own mad concoctions - I wonder how much overlap there is with the folklore?

stancarey, 10 months ago

@FintanH Fair few years since I last read The Third Policeman, so I don't remember the details. But it does feel like something straight from de Selby

allancavanagh, 10 months ago

@stancarey so everybody used to be synaesthesic?

stancarey, 10 months ago

@allancavanagh Or enough people to get the idea going. I wouldn't rule out a mushies ritual either

allancavanagh, 10 months ago

@stancarey ha! Yes indeed.

Homebrewandhacking, 10 months ago

@stancarey

I apologise that my Gaeilge isn't very good but what is Pale in this context?

stancarey, 10 months ago

@Homebrewandhacking I wondered the same. Maybe "white" and "pale" are an attempt to distinguish between "bán" and "geal" in translation

Homebrewandhacking, 10 months ago

@stancarey

Huh... bright as a colour rather than a property of a colour.

I'll have to think on that. It springs from a different world view.

jeffreyfisher, 10 months ago

@stancarey I want the little star to be a heart.

Jaq__W, 10 months ago

@stancarey I'm particularly thrilled with greyish green, as I often can't discern whether certain shades are grey or green, and this makes absolute sense to me!

stancarey, 10 months ago

@Jaq__W Interesting! This compound may originate in the Irish, where "glas" can mean either green or grey (or greenish grey), depending on the context

Jaq__W, 10 months ago

@stancarey Wow, that really is interesting! Thanks