These ambiguities, redundances, and deficiences recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into those that belong to the Emperor, embalmed ones, those that are trained, suckling pigs, mermaids, fabulous ones, stray dogs, those that are included in this classification, those that tremble as if they were mad, innumerable ones, those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, others, those that have just broken a flower vase, those that resemble flies from a distance.

An aside from Borges' essay "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins"

Ξ     Ξ     Ξ     Ξ     Ξ

    those that have just broken a flower vase, those that resemble flies from a distance (suggestions of nodes that the enterprising or otherwise unmotivated noder might take as inspiration)
  • Sifil and Olly
  • Crash, the novel by J.G.Ballard
  • Mojo Jojo
    embalmed ones, those that are trained, suckling pigs, mermaids (deletions)
  • Tom Van De Logt by Angst the 2001 Netherlands National Champion in Magic: the Gathering, his decklist
  • more Magic: the Gathering cards by Angst that were allotted time to live in February, have sunk lower in reputation and were removed: Shadowmage Infiltrator, Meddling Mage, Endless Wurm, Phyrexian Rager, Devouring Strossus, Razing Snidd, Dega Disciple, Degavolver, Haunted Angel, Spiritmonger, Spectral Lynx, Gerrard Capashen, Standard Bearer, Coalition Honor Guard, Enlistment Officer, Phyrexian Scuta, Armadillo Cloak, Pernacious Deed, Coalition Flag, Rancor, Dega Sanctuary, Phyrexian Arena, Divine Light, Vindicate, Tahngarth's Glare, Gravestorm
  • Joseph Hunter by Angst low rep, no softlinks, poor grammar
  • The Sandman by ansate this bibliographic listing was assimilated into another WU
  • Fear, uncertainty, and doubt by rev exists under the FUD node
  • What the Democratic Party needs is a kick in the ass by keops at the noder's request
  • The first person to ever eat cheese by shessoghetto if this was an 'adaptation' of a passage from another book, why are you putting it in quotations?
  • Amartya Sen by TonyJohn "Really nice guy; I've met him."
  • Amartya Sen by Suvrat superseded by a fine quest entry
  • fush and chups by a new noder who was referred to the appropriate documents and people
  • Monitor Lizard by TenMinJoe superseded
  • Sometimes by Kekulé's Serpent
  • Ersilia by Kekulé's Serpent
  • stuff that came out of EN202 by moscow let's not start a comparison of coursework numbers across universities
  • many nodes by randir, at the noder's request: stuff that came out of en202 (an index that contained most of the following), to be in love, my time to be a star, the hit, the hit - part I, the hit - part II, the hit - part III, entrance & passage, portal (spain), Maitland Bridge No. 2 (Ralston Crawford), aray, lolo, tita, The Second Monday of October (Observed), squish, i don't care, random poem from EN 202, flip, the stain, final acceptance, a fall of rain, open air market, La Japonaise (Monet), Colorado Boulevard, drunkenmonkey, en route, ride the t, i buy flowers, and resignation letters.
  • Engineers and Computer Scientists on a Train by Wigs duplicated another telling of this humorous story
  • Tickets, please. by General Wesc gave the same joke, under its ultimate line
  • Wigs says Hi, I've been out of the country for the last month and have just got back to find my Engineers and Computer Scientists on a Train w/u eaten. The reason put forward being that it was "duplicated" at "Three engineers and three accountants were traveling by train to a conference" but I can't find that w/u. The closest thing I found was Ticket, please. but that is just a recent w/u while mine was from 2000.
    Wigs says I'm finding it hard to understand what happened. Could you please clear it up for me? Thanks in advance.
    You said "Hi Wigs. Yes, I deleted your WU of the "engineers and accountants on a train" joke earlier this month. The situation was that we had three tellings of this joke in the database under different titles. As I read through them, I felt that one was stronger than the others. A totally subjective issue; a joke is a special kind of narrative that presents a story we already know and is judged purely on its style, not its informational content. So, I made two deletions, of your WU, and the WU originally at ticket, please. Then I was faced with the question of how we index jokes into the database. It came to me that we when we read a joke in a different way than we listen or tell one. And when reading, what we look for is the punchline more than the story itself. On this, I had the WU I referenced to you moved to ticket, please.
  • Pär Lagerkvist by robwicks superseded by a very fine quest submission
  • postings of Echo and the Bunnymen lyrics, cutter and lips like sugar by yours truly
  • The Big Game by generic-man good nodekeeping is deeply appreciated
  • Top Scientific Accomplishments by Roadmaker a personal "best of"-list
  • lorentz force law by pjc51 replaced by a pointer to Lorentz Force where the relevant equation already exists
  • Nuclear-cooked hot dog and bagel by Novacain at the noder's request
  • February 19, 2003, February 20, 2003, May 13, 2003, June 9, 2003, Do things get crazy when the moon is full? by ac_hyper at the noder's request
  • Bib Fortuna by Darksied not even a ccg entry, but a block of statistics from some Star Wars reference
  • Japanese words commonly used in J-Pop and J-pop vs J-rock. Glitter vs Gold by a new noder who was given "the [encouraging] treatment"
  • Clever Typo by _Yup not clever enough
  • WUs in The horror, the horror by sensei, mimewars, xmatt all short and not particularly edifying
  • B by smartalix at the noder's request
  • a trio of WUs by Spuunbenda at the noder's request: crib mobile, webbing, brief respite
  • Lyle the Effimenate Heterosexual by mr100percent SNL scripts are not very funny when written out, misspellings don't help, either
  • If by bookw56 at the noder's request
  • Cupful by a new noder who was referred to Step One
  • July 13, 2003 by evadyne at the noder's request
  • Metroid Prime by stendy_davwen based on pre-release reviews of this game, this WU is terribly out of date now
  • Rejected Names for James Bond Heroines by ApoxyButt we've come a long way, baby
  • GDKP-PKP by Thomas Miconi replaced by a firmlink
  • Chester J. Lampwick by roystgnr an obscure Simpsons reference no one gets
  • Crescent fresh by Swern proofreading is as important as having something to say
  • Crescent fresh by termchimp unexplicated lyrics have no tune
  • Crescent fresh by aaronin so you've identified an aspect of geek literature with which we all should be familiar, but just quoting the source doesn't explain why itshould enter or remain our common parlance
  • FINUX by postwave no one wants to read a node for every computer OS fictionalized by a genre author
  • FINUX by crypto_student no one wants to read a node for every computer OS mentioned in a book
  • FINUX by jodrell a description of a now defunct project to build an open-source UNIX operating system for notebook computers, named in reference to a widely read oversize piece of genre fiction, entombed on sourceforge
  • FINUX by fi_chince by a new noder who was counseled on the problems inherent in adding a very short WU to a series of short WUs
  • Mojo Jojo by Mountainfey one-liner, superseded
  • Mojo Jojo by Zorin quotation without attribution or explication
  • What to do if you catch on fire by v3rgez stop, drop, and roll
  • Duck and cover! by Dorian off-topic
  • Premial by QuietLight at the noder's request
  • blackstacked by a new noder someday the situation surrounding this charming piece of personal slang will be material for a low-budget film that speaks to shiftless youth in a timeless manner, or not
  • Hear me. Listen to me. Acknowledge me. by boywithlegs speak white
  • Node Quest: Kinky by a noder who was informed that the creation and administration of Everything Quests is the provenance of E2 Gods
  • Dissociative identity disorder by jrn at the noder's request
  • bad names for children by Myrkabah naming babies after the Great Old Ones covers this all
  • financial-aid victim by katallen this was not a fully developed argument
  • financial-aid victim by theonomist although this particular rant is deleted, it does live on, elsewhere in the database
  • financial-aid victim by prole your pipelink-fu is very strong
  • conic section by Diomedes superseded
  • node id by sabre23t "which see" WUs are eliminated in favor of the softlink table and, in some cases, firmlinks
  • G. K. Chesterton by TrojanJedi an observation about the name of a supporting character on a TV show and the high school english teacher of that TV show's producer
  • Ni Ten Ichi Ryu by rbreve this was a particulalry uninformative review of a photek track, cut, song, or whatever the kids are calling them these days
  • at the noder's request, I deleted 50 WUs by Byzantine, there were a few that I wished we could keep
  • religion is like a drug to some people. by humbabba a Calvin and Hobbes reference, I suppose
  • FamiCom by mxs superseded
  • FamiCom by herbman superseded
  • FamiCom by RST superseded
  • This node would have been C!ed at least twice in 2001 by atriumjake I think not
  • Two sodium atoms are flying around a cyclotron by Jennifer it's a cute joke, but this WU revels in the extraneous details it imposes upon the ur-text of two atoms walking down the street
  • Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal by /dev/joe superseded
  • #berkeley by diabla nothing like descriptions of IRC channels that no longer exist
  • mesocyclone by QuietLight at the noder's request
  • Smertios by bozon superseded
    innumerable ones, those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, others (softlocks)
  • (none yet)


A screaming comes across the sky . . .

. . . it has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now

Noded

Nuked

Not including routine deletions by request.

Cooled

Other


My Sincere Apologies

I have been trying to spend more time helping noders by sending personal /msgs. Unfortunately, I suck at it. For this, I am truly sorry. Please keep in mind that even if my /msg says your writeup sucks golfballs through a garden hose, bears little resemblance to Standard English, and is factually wrong and morally repugnant, the fact that I sent it means I think your writing is interesting and that you are a cool person.

<

No, really!

Judgment v. Judgement

Based on what I can find on the net including but not limited to Webster 1913, these are variant spellings of the same word. U.S. style references unanimously prefer judgment, but I found one U.K. and one Canadian style guide which insisted upon judgement.

I thought (and I don't know where I got the idea) that these words refer to two different things: judgment is the result of judging (and thus would be the word to use in all legal matters) whereas judgement is the faculty of discernment or discretion. So one could say: "The judge exercised poor judgement in entering that judgment."

Is this a personal delusion or does it reflect real usage? Please /msg me if you find support for my theory.

Update: Gritchka has /msg'd me with additional support for the theory that I am suffering from self-conjured grammatical delusions. Now I'm scared.

Do as I say, not as I do

The damn-near-omniscient Pseudo_Intellectual busted me on a fact error in triclavianism. I thought it was a neologism, but he found a reference to use of the term in the 19th Century. I wouldn't feel so bad about that except he found the reference on the Internet, not some dusty old tome of dogmatics he found in a yard sale. Lesson learned: before announcing to the world that something is unique or new, it's probably a good idea to google a term and read all the results, at least those on the first page.

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