From a recent chain of postings on Facebook, a 1/9/14 Bizarro strip rendered en français:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page.)
Il faut mettre l’œil avant le scarabée, sauf si le participe passé est placé devant le serpent. (more or less literally) ‘It is necessary to put the eye before the beetle, except if the past participle is placed in front of the snake.’
From the bon appétit magazine site on 7/19/18, “A Fruit Sando Is a Dessert Sandwich Filled with Joy and Whipped Cream: I’m obsessed with this Japanese dessert and was dying for a recipe. Now we have one.” by Elyse Inamine:
(#1) furūtsu sando ‘fruit sandwich’: strawberry, kiwi, peach (or mango) (photo from the magazine)
μ μ
(but the bull was real butch about it, and anyway that’s the Greek Way)
Meanwhile, the Greek letter mu is wide open for cow cartoons, like this recent one (from February 1st) by Scott Hilburn, passed on to me by Facebook friends:
(#1)
On Facebook, Tony Woodbury has passed on this favorite cartoon of his, from the old Saturday Review (of Literature):
Two atypical books by Dr. Seuss — one for children, but about alphabets (On Beyond Zebra!); and one for adults, though in Geisel’s usual children’s-book format (You’re Only Old Once! A Book for Obsolete Children).
(Some sexual topics to come.)
They’ve been piling up while other things happen. But here’s the recent crop: Futhark, eructation, sex sling. Definitely a mixed bag.
In the April 13th New Yorker, a Talk of the Town piece “The Musical Life: New Translation” by Alec Wilkinson about Cassandra Wilson:
The title of the Egyptian funerary papyrus “Book of the Dead” is more accurately translated as “Coming Forth by Day.” It was called “Book of the Dead” by Wallis Budge, who translated the manuscript for the British Museum, in 1895. “Coming Forth by Day” is also the title of Cassandra Wilson’s new record, which is an homage to Billie Holiday, who would have turned one hundred on April 7th.
The other morning, Wilson visited the Egyptian wing of the Met, waiting in the security line among schoolchildren on field trips.
… “I’ve been fascinated by Egyptology for ten years,” she said. “Ancient Egypt was called Kmt. Their language didn’t have vowels, much like Hebrew. The Greeks called the people from Kmt the Aegyptos. ‘Kemetic’ is how you refer to the culture. The Kemetics didn’t believe in death. They believed that you were always coming back and forth from the unknown to the actual. Going to the afterlife they referred to as ‘westing,’ since the sun set in the west. For me, the thought of Billie Holiday’s spirit being reinvented in the twenty-first century connected with the concept of returning, of coming forth by day.”
Whoa! The writing system is not the language. The Ancient Egyptian writing system didn’t have symbols for vowels, but the language certainly had them. Every language does.
