Wednesday, March 14, 2012

STORY OF THE DAY - NO WORDS

I read once that the ancient Egyptians 
had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos 
had a hundred words for snow. I wish I 
had a thousand words for love, but all 
that comes to mind is the way you move 
against me while you sleep & there are 
no words for that.
From StoryPeople.

8 comments:

  1. LOVE this. I finally wnt and "liked" their FB page. :-)

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  2. IT, as much as I use the Story of the Day, I never 'liked' their FB page. I must do it right now.

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  3. I believe it's an urban myth that the Inuits have 50 words for snow, but I don't want to quibble because I think this is beautiful.

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  4. Cathy, I believe the stories of the day sometimes contain myths, meaning not literal truths, but truths of a kind. If the story resonates with me, I post it and hope others like it.

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  5. It is a wonderful short piece.

    And having acknowledged that, I feel ready to put in a supporting quibble: There is a book called The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, by a linguist named Jeffrey K. Pullum, who used to write a humorous feature for a journal in his field. The book is a collection of his pieces and has not a whole lot of laughs for people (like me) who don't get linguistics in-jokes, though I find a lot of the essays entertaining. But the title essay is about guess what and is serious enough to debunk the tale completely.

    And anyway, it's only an "I read once", so the author isn't expecting anyone to take the claim as absolute truth, so it's all all right, and I am right and you are right and everything is quite correct.

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  6. Porlock, thank you. I learned something new today, besides the announcement that the Archbishop of Canterbury will resign at the end of the year. With jokes and stories of the day, I don't stake out a claim for them as factual, so, as you say, it's all right.

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