|
City streets, a winepress, pulleys, spinning tops, a ray fish, curdled milk: just a few of the many images used by 16th century anatomist Andreas Vesalius to explain the workings of the human body in his seminal work De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Marri Lynn explores. Andreas Vesalius threw down a glove in front of...
Read More »
Passing English of the Victorian era, a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase, by J. Redding Ware; 1909; Routledge, London. Passing English of the Victorian era, a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase is complied and written by James Redding Ware, the pseudonym of Andrew Forrester the British writer who created one...
Read More »
A Japanese woodcut by Kamekichi Tsunajima titled “Ryūkō eigo zukushi”, or “A Fashionable Melange of English Words”. The print shows images of animals, activities and objects each with their Japanese and English names. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) some spelling mistakes have given rise to some interesting new activities such as “Refreshiug” and “Cuting Rice”,...
Read More »
Arika Okrent explores the rise and fall of Volapük – a universal language created in the late 19th century by a German priest called Johann Schleyer. Johann Schleyer was a German priest whose irrational passion for umlauts may have been his undoing. During one sleepless night in 1879, he felt a Divine presence telling...
Read More »
Curiosities of Puritan nomenclature, by Charles W. Bardsley; 1888; Chatto and Windus, London. A fascinating look at some of the more bizarre names given to children during the 17th century in England. Among the names explored are “From-above”, “Free-gift” & “More-fruit” for unexpected additions to families; “Humiliation”, “Abstinence” & “Sorry-for-sin” to express those qualities...
Read More »
Michael Erard takes a look at The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, a book exploring the extraordinary talent of the 19th century Italian cardinal who was reported to be able to speak over seventy languages. Without a doubt, the most important book in English devoted to Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774-1849), the polyglot of Bologna, is...
Read More »
English As She is Spoke, by Pedro Carolino; 1884; Appleton, New York The book was intended as a Portuguese-English conversational guide or phrase book, but is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour, as the given English translations are generally completely incoherent. Carolino added Fonseca’s name to the book without the latter knowing...
Read More »
