Numbers And LettersI was talking with a friend today about languages (I'm thinking down the road a bit toward the next one). Learning another romance language would be interesting, as it would give me communication skills in large swathes of the planet, but I thought I might try instead for a non-Latinate tongue to experience the attempt at a completely alien lingual world. He immediately suggested Chinese.
One of the things that came up in that conversation was the notion of a dictionary, and how one does that when there's no clear (excuse me) linear way to category one's written words. He also mentioned that, until recently, indexes were pretty much entirely absent from the Chinese (excuse me again) world of letters.
That came as a shock; I used to spend a great deal of time with paper indexes in various public libraries, and I am utterly reliant on them now in their digital form. It doesn't occur to me what life would be like if they didn't exist. I must admit, though, these days I am just as good at ejecting words from my focus as I am acquiring them, and I lean heavy on crutches to ever find something a second or third time. It must be something to be able to simply remember, and have it at hand.
It is cold, cold tonight here; the kettle is whistling.
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