The Life and Times of Miblo del Carpio

Of all the Wednesdays when I've lamented a lack of those natural phenomena which are known to wait for no man [sic] (viz. time and tide), today will prove to be the most crucial.

The assignment's due in in just about twelve-and-a-half hours, and it's currently only about 1/7th complete. Thus, there's no hanging around to be done, and I must make as hasty a retreat as I can, to go and eke out of every single minute of the hours remaining to me as much creative genius as can be found in simple time. Failing that, I'll have to delve deep into the quagmire of my head, in a pained effort to discover the absolute extent to the knowledge I have about Received Pronunciation and its development over time. Taking it leisurely has taken its toll, and now something of a spur must be got on if I am to get this in on time.

Word of the Week

Chagrin

chagrin n. & v. —n. acute vexation or mortification. —v.tr. affect with chagrin.

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary

Yeah, I know I generally try and steer well away from those generic 'Here's what I've been up to!' blog articles, but I thought in this instance it wouldn't harm to give one a go. And, in the true spirit of the genre, very little detail will be gone into, and it'll all be over very quickly. In the blink of an eye, as we say in the trade.

I'm doing all right with this assignment, methinks. It's due in by midnight on Wednesday - thus I have around about [thirty-two] hours in which to finish it - and I have a beautifully constructed introduction of 171 words to set me smoothly on my way. 1500 words are needed in all, and as that introduction took me about 20 minutes to write it'll probably all be done and dusted in a few hours. The topic is Received Pronunciation, and specifically how it has been perceived over the years. Excellent. It should be good. But now for some sleep, and so to spend plenty of tomorrow writing fluently about Received Pronunciation.

[Written yesterday evening, but published now due to an ISP problem]

[Update]

While I'm here:

It's for a good and sensible cause. There are currently (at 17:00 on the 27/11/2007) 68672 signatures, and you know that a few hundred thousand more - including yours! - wouldn't go amiss.

Also, you can expect soon to read a review of a gig I went to at Manchester Academy 1 last Friday, and I hear there've been some whispers in the air about an upcoming Championship. More on these two in the very near future.

But now to crack on with this assignment.

[/Update]

There are two facets to this present quandary, thus:

1. Pressing studying, which needs doing by Friday in preparation for an assignment which is due in next Wednesday, is softly purring in one ear; in the other ear gently calls my patient audience - that means you, friend - yearning for an article, well-rounded, competently presented, and of sufficient depth to merit more than a few minutes perusal.
2. If I were to go for the longer, more competently presented article, I would need to choose now between a lovely article on the subject of quandaries, with that word as its accompanying Word of the Week; or a different article, with a different WoW, the word beginning, as is the custom of this chapter, with the letter 'q', which words there are none remaining which haven't already been used that have struck me as WoW-worthy than this present word 'quandary'.

The first facet is quite easily resolved: simply do the studying. As to the second, it does pain me to separate this WoW 'quandary' from this article I have in mind, but I feel it must be done. It is a quandary, and something of a Catch-22 situation, for neither solution is completely satisfying. The alternative to splitting the WoW and article is, naturally, to keep them together, and to now write the article I have mentally prepared. However, this is to contradict the solution to the first facet of my quandary. So a further alternative would be to choose another word beginning with 'q' for this week's WoW, and then write my 'Quandary' article next week. But, as already mentioned, no such word can presently be found. And a further facet is that I would like to have this chapter finished before next Wednesday, and that would mean the word 'quandary' will not then be able to appear as a Word of the Week for some time to come.

So, with this entirely unsatisfying attempt I humbly excuse myself, and bow out disgracefully.

Word of the Week

Quandary

quandary n. (pl. -ies) 1 a state of perplexity. 2 a difficult situation; a practical dilemma. [16th c.: orig. uncert.]

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary

And that is what I must again, I'm afraid. I have caught up somewhat, but still have over a week's worth of work to do before the weekend. And further to that I have a tutorial to attend on Saturday, and would prefer to be fairly fluent in the topics which will be likely to arise. Thus again I leave you premature, this time with the promise that when the minutes and hours are in our favour, a long and juicy article will here await you, for you to read, discard, or cherish till the end of time.

Word of the Week

Quoth

quoth v.tr. (only in 1st and 3rd person) archaic said. [OE cwæth past of cwethan say f. Gmc]

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary

In surmounting the insurmountable I've regained my health, achieved a surprising 79% for my first assignment, and the much anticipated Fedora 8 is only one single day away. Further to that, yesterday saw the arrival of Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I'm soon to expect Kaki King's album Until We Felt Red to land in my porch, and on Friday Battles will be performing on Later... with Jools Holland. The only nugget of negativity is that I am disastrously behind with my studying, and will have to do some serious hurrying if I am to catch up. Thus I ought now to bid you a premature farewell, to go and crack on with it, after leaving you with an apt Word of the Week on the theme of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Word of the Week

Quest

quest n. & v. —n. 1 a search or the act of seeking. 2 the thing sought, esp. the object of a medieval knight's pursuit. —v. 1 intr. (often foll. by about) a (often foll. by for) go about in search of something. b (of a dog, etc.) search about for game. 2 tr. poet. search for, seek out.

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary

About a couple of weeks or so since, when I was busy being ill and should have been busier studying language, while I was reflecting on the notion that money provides absolutely no indication whatsoever of quality, it occurred to me that many things of the highest quality in this world, as well as being free, begin (in their English names) with the letter 'L'. Further to this, they say that 'good things come in small packages', and so I'll keep this idea at the forefront of my mind while presenting to you a few examples of these 'L' lettered lovelies.

Linux

A topic so hot on the mind right now that I'm in danger of it scorching a hole right the way through me. The reason being that Fedora 8 (Fedora being my Linux distribution of choice - the flavour towards which I have inexorably gravitated, if you will) will be released in only six days! It's very exciting, and I could rail on about it for pages and pages, but here I will be brief and leave that for a later article.

The beauty of Linux is it's freedom. Further to, and more important than being monetarily free, everything about Linux is philosophically free. Free and open. Thus everyone in the world - including you! even if you don't use Linux - is free to read the source code, learn from it, modify it how you like, and redistribute it. Incidentally, the source code for the Linux kernel can be found and downloaded from here. The beauty of this is that the actual workings of your software cannot (as they should not) be hidden from you; the only thing restricting you is your knowledge. But if like me you don't have enough knowledge of programming to make sense of the code, you can safely put your trust in the software created being of honourable quality because you can bet there will be somebody (generally more likely thousands of somebodies) who does understanding programming, and if they were to spot a flaw in any of the code they'd be unlikely to let it sit there and let millions of unwitting computer-users install it on their computer: they would clear it up, if not for the good of the community (although that is usually the case with Linux-users), so that it will work flawlessly on their computer. Nothing is hidden, in other words. Nothing is done behind closed doors.

Libraries and Literature

These two are pretty much inseperable, and nor would I have the will to tear them apart (or 'cleave them in twain', as Hamlet's mum might have said) if they weren't. In much the same way that Linux is free, so too are these two beauties. The body of software that is freely available to view in the Linux (and, of course, not to do the rest a disservice, the entire Open Source) community is analogous to the huge wealth of wonderful literature that is freely available to borrow from all of the world's libraries. Well, actually I think there are plenty of libraries in the world that only allow certain people access to their books, so perhaps the analogy isn't quite complete. But local libraries, like the ones near me in Hazel Grove and Stockport, allow absolutely anyone (so far as I know) to walk in, register themselves, and borrow books straight away. I think this is a wonderful thing. Libraries are pretty much run on trust. I mean, it's perfectly possible for someone to do the dirt and walk in, register, borrow ten hefty volumes, and never return, but how often is that done? I obviously couldn't tell you, but I can tell you that in my experience there has never been one hint of trouble in any of the libraries I've been in (bearing in mind that anyone is free to enter them). In fact, there seems to be an almost ethereal atmosphere in libraries. They are wonderful. Definitely one of the highest qualities things (establishments?) in the world, along with literature, about which I've written more here. And libraries and literature together are fantastic sources of...

Learning

Possibly the highest quality thing in the entire world? For, what would we be without it? From the moment we are born we are learning; we are learning all through our first years; then for our years in formal education our learning takes something of a tumble; but afterwards, when we realise that we can do some learning of our own, we can carry on from where our younger selves left off, and expand our minds to the utmost of human possibility. Or that's the theory, at least. Learning is of the utmost importance, and thus of the highest quality.

Love

Oh, love. If you'd asked me to write about love a few years ago - perhaps around the time I was starting college, or at the very moment when I first beheld the girl whom I still consider to be the most beautiful I have ever seen - you may have got a few hundred pages out of me. At least enough for a good dozen essays. As it is now, love is but a distant memory, and it is only the memory of my past self, and the way he thought and felt, that compels me to include it with these things of the highest quality.

Life

Ah, life! Like love, this is also something of a distant memory. But this time it's a legitimate suggestion: I'm not including it out of nostalgia. But, I don't mean any individual life: I mean the sheer existence of Life. That the Earth is here, with trees and plants, and that there are living creatures of all manner of species, and that we are capable of thinking and communicating ideas to one another, is something of a miracle, wouldn't you say? Don't be put off by that word 'miracle'! I obviously don't mean the kind of miracle associated with fairy-tales and dogmatic texts, with an almighty being conjuring the place out of fresh air. It is something of a physical miracle, with so little chance of occuring (if you'll excuse the fact that the Universe is infinite, and thus there is an infinitely good chance of anything occuring) were it not for the fortunate happenings of chance in the random chaos of the Universe.

(Web)-Logging

And were it not for the wonderful existence of (web)-logging (commonly know to us as Blogging), you wouldn't have the good fortune to read such things as this. Straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. Like with life, though, I don't mean to describe any particular blogs as 'of the highest quality', but simply the sheer existence of it. It's a window onto the world; a place where the common person can write, and be read; it levels the playing field, and can at times give rise to greatness. I plan in the future to devote a chapter to some of the best blogs to be found on the net. Stay tuned. You may be mentioned!

Word of the Week

Quality

quality n. (pl. -ies) 1 the degree of excellence of a thing (of good quality; poor in quality). 2 a general excellence (their work has quality). b (attrib.) of high quality (a quality product). 3 a distinctive attribute or faculty; a characteristic trait. 4 the relative nature or kind or character of a thing (is made in three qualities). 5 the distinctive timbre of a voice or sound. 6 archaic high social standing (people of quality). 7 Logic the property of a proposition's being affirmative or negative.

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary