Images thread XX

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[classicdrogn]

Don't stop there, it's lizard country!

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[robkelk]

If by "anonymous" one means "Penny Pictorial Magazine"... Also, "Why English Is Hard to Learn" is a particularly odd spelling of the title "Queer English".

And not only is that version incomplete (it's missing three couplets including the coda), there's a typo in it that changes the meaning.

Here's the entire work, as quoted in page 3 of The Somerset reporter [sic] (Skowhegan, Me.), April 04, 1901:

QUEER ENGLISH.

---

We begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl Is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice.
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And if 1 speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole lot are teeth.
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular’s this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss be nicknamed keese?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in a plural would never be hose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But, though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine—she, shis and shim!
So the English, I think, you all will agree.
Is the most wonderful language you ever did see.
—Penny Pictorial Magazine.

It took me less than five minutes to find this in the Library of Congress' online archives.

[classicdrogn]

That title has been cancelled for being homophobic, of course, and suggesting that the plural of "hat" might be "hose" is a microagression against women! Or something like that. Hooray fdor censorship, ensuring rightthink by erasing evil history!

[Norgarth]

while "Why English is hard to learn" may not be the original title, it is descriptive of the problem ;p

[Bob Schroeck]

Wow.  One of these that is really interesting and true at the same time.  I even found the article from which TheSized got the image. It's an entertaining and interesting read.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

dunno if the Sam Jackson one is true or not

[robkelk]

dunno if the Sam Jackson one is true or not

It took me less than a minute to find this, simply by looking at the citations on his Wikipedia page.

On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was murdered in Memphis. His body was brought to Atlanta to lie in state at Spelman College, the woman’s school adjacent to Morehouse. Jackson attended the funeral in Atlanta and then flew to Memphis to join a protest march—experiences that politically radicalized him.“I was angry about the assassination,” he recalled, “but I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew that change was going to take something different—not sit-ins, not peaceful coexistence.”In 1969, Jackson and other radical students held members of the Morehouse College board of trustees hostage on campus, demanding reform in the school’s curriculum and governance. The college eventually agreed to change, but Jackson was expelled. He stayed on for the summer in Atlanta, where he got to know Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and others in the Black Power movement. “I was in that radical faction,” Jackson said. “We were buying guns, getting ready for armed struggle. “All of a sudden,” he said proudly, “I felt I had a voice. I was somebody. I could make a difference. “But then one day,” he added quietly, “my mom showed up and put me on a plane to L.A. She said, ‘Do not come back to Atlanta.’ The FBI had been to the house and told her that if I didn’t get out of Atlanta, there was a good possibility I’d be dead within a year. She freaked out.”

So... embellished but based in truth.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[robkelk]

Well, maybe not now, but...

CoinWeek: Ancient Electrum Coins – Strength and Unity of an Empire

The electrum from Mytilene in this period was comprised of around 43% gold and the alloy allowed the coins to withstand circulation better than pure gold. These coins remained in widespread circulation throughout the Ionian region for the next two centuries, resulting in many coins being found heavily worn and eventually melted down.

[Norgarth]

I suspect it was mostly a D&D joke, they used to have Electrum as part of the coinage system (1 Electrum = 5 Silver, or 1/2 a gold) but most people just ignored it and simply used silver or gold coins)

[LynnInDenver]

I suspect it was mostly a D&D joke, they used to have Electrum as part of the coinage system (1 Electrum = 5 Silver, or 1/2 a gold) but most people just ignored it and simply used silver or gold coins)

Uh, in 5th Edition? It's back. We got something like 200 of the things.

Although I think part of why they wind up ignored in favor of silver or gold is just because it's an extra odd division. Like a $2 bill, it doesn't slim down the weight of that bag of wealth all that much. Although anything I've read in terms of lore implies that, in-world, Electrum comes and goes as a coin depending on trends.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]