The British burned down Washington D.C.???? Exactly 200 years ago today????

[belamyi]

Which it did famously outrunning even other lighter frigates, but by the clever use of anchors in a technique called kedging.

On a side note we had one of the original six frigates here in Maryland, the USS Constellation, but sadly it was broken up before its historic value was appreciated though the timbers were reused in the current ship from 1854. Some proud locals say it is still the original frigate by virtue of the materials, but not by form (still a great controversy among historians).

That's exactly what some say of Cher and Joan Rivers... although I would very much doubt also the "materials" part in their case.

 

[Alnitak]

That's exactly what some say of Cher and Joan Rivers... although I would very much doubt also the "materials" part in their case.

It's an old paradox. There are two types of continuity, form and substance, and they are independent of each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_theseus

Admiral Nelson could board the HMS Victory and not realize anything had been replaced, but the first captain of the Constellation would not recognize the wood he spilled his blood on.

 

[belamyi]

It's an old paradox. There are two types of continuity, form and substance, and they are independent of each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_theseus

Admiral Nelson could board the HMS Victory and not realize anything had been replaced, but the first captain of the Constellation would not recognize the wood he spilled his blood on.

You are so Aristotelian... you know that, no matter how great, he either already has been updated, or else needs updating in some aspects of his transmitted thought.

 

[gsdx]

They are, obviously, French words

Obviously.

 

[Kulindahr]

However, Americans also have a lot more to butcher. In places some of our place names will be Native (of many different languages), French, Spanish or English, often side by side.

We have a fair abundance of native names. A lot of place names begin with "Ne", which was always said the same by the natives, but today it gets pronounced "nee" or "neh" or "nuh", depending on the rest of the word.

I had a very bizarre moment when a cousin from the midwest asked me what native language one certain word was from -- the word was "Astor".

 

[Kulindahr]

Which it did famously outrunning even other lighter frigates, but by the clever use of anchors in a technique called kedging.

Kedging* is hard work -- for a ship that size....wow.

On a side note we had one of the original six frigates here in Maryland, the USS Constellation, but sadly it was broken up before its historic value was appreciated though the timbers were reused in the current ship from 1854. Some proud locals say it is still the original frigate by virtue of the materials, but not by form (still a great controversy among historians). Either way, these historic ships are priceless national treasures.

I think Constellation had a sightly more heroic history. I remember as a kid being upset that they'd been so foolish as to break her up.


*to move (a ship) by means of a line attached to a (small) anchor dropped at the distance and in the direction desired

 

[Kulindahr]

It's among the hundreds of digital archives that my brother gave me from the scanning of his library: thanks for the heads-up, indirectly allowing me to know from where to start reading all that stuff

If this is in that collection, it's definitely worth the effort:

I like the original cover better:

 

[Keeland]

In any case, people until a couple of couple of [sic] generations ago, used to rely more on their ability to retain thoughts than on paper's to retain ink.

Only because they had to, and in any case, that didn't make their accounts infallible or even mostly correct. If memory were better than written records, there would have been no need for paper.

There is no way of checking, for example, whether Beowulf changed before it was frozen in ink, because it wasn't frozen in ink. For all anyone knows, Grendel started out as Sidney Schwartz.

Oral (no sniggering!) tradition is no better than the game of telephone, whether in a 21st-century kindergarten or on an 18th-century ship.

 

[Kulindahr]

Oral (no sniggering!) tradition is no better than the game of telephone, whether in a 21st-century kindergarten or on an 18th-century ship.

That actually depends on which sort of oral tradition you're looking at. Even if it's just one person teaching the next, it's still better than "telephone", but when it's a matter of multiple people learning it there's a built-in error-check that makes it far more reliable.

 

[Keeland]

But the French make no use of foreign words... I was once amazed to learn, from a young Frenchman, that "cool" was a genuinely French word.

L'Académie française had threatened him with a bath if he didn't.

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't really think any 18th century warship really translates into today's terms. There were no missiles then, and any 200-year-old ship today is just an artifact when a single sniper with a shoulder-mounted launcher could devastate her. IMO, any projecting of her effectiveness into today is just fanciful fun. Only in the poorest region would her appearance in port portend a serious threat, and likewise for any engagement at sea.

The weaponry is irrelevant. "Battleship" isn't a statement about the weapons or anything else on a ship, but of its function. Constitution's function was to cruise, not to get into battles. Size isn't even a definer, so long as the ship can fulfill its mission; a cruiser the size of a football stadium would be silly, but if designed for that variety of ship's kind of mission, it would still be a cruiser (okay, probably a heavy cruiser). The only things that have really changed in naval warfare since Constitution's keel was laid down are communications and striking distance (fans of naval aviation would argue there, but in essence a fighter is just a long-range way for a ship to shoot at any enemy).

 

[belamyi]

Only because they had to, and in any case, that didn't make their accounts infallible or even mostly correct. If memory were better than written records, there would have been no need for paper.

There is no way of checking, for example, whether Beowulf changed before it was frozen in ink, because it wasn't frozen in ink. For all anyone knows, Grendel started out as Sidney Schwartz.

Oral (no sniggering!) tradition is no better than the game of telephone, whether in a 21st-century kindergarten or on an 18th-century ship.

Keeland, we were referring to the process of "creating" a damn song, it was not about memory being preferred to written records. Damn you people can get stupid!
While you are creating something, and something as short as that damn padding, not only you can well rely on memory, but you will be saving both materials and effort.

But even the continuity of transmission itself does not rely on written records. The superiority of written record lies in the possibility of passing down that information without a previous continuity... that, of course, allowed you know the code underlying the info you are going to transmit, that is, that you know the language.

Oral tradition is what got you the Iliad and the Odyssey, both in production and transmission, and oral transmission is more accurate than our imperfect notation that gives no account of intonations and other subtleties to the clueless, and barely indications of verse to the deaf: if you were referring to some accurate form of notation, like musical notation, it would be ok, but given what we have as written language, as long as there is a transmission, the only advantage of written over oral is the one I pointed out at the beginning of this post.

 

[cgymike]

Keeland is stupid? Hmmm.....I wouldn't say that but his avatar should have changed years ago.

 

[belamyi]

Keeland is stupid? Hmmm.....I wouldn't say that but his avatar should have changed years ago.

[He] "Can get stupid"... could get there from already being stupid or from non-stupid. English is your molanguage, isn't it.

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
Forgive me for using an incorrect term - I was painting with broad brush strokes, not a sable point.
She was one of our "go to" ships and did stand and fight - to earn her stripe of Old Ironsides - at least once.

I didn't mean for my word choice to turn the thread from its primary purpose.

 

[Keeland]

Keeland, we were referring to the process of "creating" a damn song, it was not about memory being preferred to written records. Damn you people can get stupid!

"You people?"

Sit down and try to follow along. If I'm going too fast, raise your hand, and I'll draw a picture using arrows.

You posted a link to an animation video (Post No. 115 in this thread), the entirety of which consists of alleged quotation after alleged quotation.

In post No. 129 of this thread, I referenced that link in a quote box, immediately under which I made the point that only a secretary taking notes could have saved that dialogue for posterity.

In a shoddy attempt to misdirect your own link to a shoddy video with nonsense about memorizing the few lines making up the U.S. national anthem, you then drum up the nerve to say "you people" are stupid.

It's time for your medication.

 

[belamyi]

"You people?"

Sit down and try to follow along. If I'm going too fast, raise your hand, and I'll draw a picture using arrows.

You posted a link to an animation video (Post No. 115 in this thread), the entirety of which consists of alleged quotation after alleged quotation.

In post No. 129 of this thread, I referenced that link in a quote box, immediately under which I made the point that only a secretary taking notes could have saved that dialogue for posterity.

In a shoddy attempt to misdirect your own link to a shoddy video with nonsense about memorizing the few lines making up the U.S. national anthem, you then drum up the nerve to say "you people" are stupid.

It's time for your medication.

I won't ask you to sit down because you are too blinded by your overheated guts to even consider trying to follow along. Anybody else from you people, if I'm going too fast, raise your hand, and I'll drive you through a way of furrows.

You re totally ignoring the specific post that made me call you, even not remotely as seriously as you seem to have taken it, "stupid". So, since you have apparently nothing to say to counter that allegation, I might well assume I am simply right.

Then you proceed to make a reference to previous posts of mine that seem responsible for your overheating guts, and that had you kept waiting for the less, thought still, wrong moment to bring them up.

The first post you referred to, #115, is not an animation video but this, which may be taken to draw to general condition of the current relationship of America and Britain, two centuries after the burning of the Candy House.


The "animation video" you quoted was this, on which you commented: "It's extraordinary that there was a secretary on board who knew shorthand and had a goodly supply of ink and quills."
At that moment I could have, were I as truly stjwpeed as you, call you "stupid", first, for taking seriously a comment that I assumed was rather ironic, derisory or anything but stern, and then for raising the same doubts about its worth that can be thrown, only by stupid people, to documents such as Thucydides' work or any other transmitting information whose veracity and accuracy does not lie in the theatrical depiction that authors consider fit to present to their readers.

In a shoddy attempt to misdirect your own comment to another shoddy comment of your own, you take my #131, developing on my own comment to a more general level, a bigger picture as your English might say at the fingertips of a native, as nonsense about some very specific topic, namely, memorizing the few lines making up the U.S. national anthem... and you then drum up the nerve to say I am the stupid one, only because you have problems with reading, continuity, right association and gut health.

You certainly are the one with speed problems *pun*, and you derailed.







BTW, thanks for these sixteen minutes dedicated to the fruit of your overheated guts.

 

[Keeland]

. . . your overheated guts.

ROFL

I've read your reply, but halfway through the second attempt I quit, having concluded it might make sense if you write it in Spanish and depend on Google to supply the translation, especially when angry.

You people are such a conundrum.

 

[belamyi]

ROFL

I've read your reply, but halfway through the second attempt I quit, having concluded it might make sense if you write it in Spanish and depend on Google to supply the translation, especially when angry.

You people are such a conundrum.

It basically says that you made two sort of mistakes:

first, in your pretended accurate and developed post, you make a mess of numbers pointing to the wrong posts and content, mixing up one with a cartoon and another with what you call an "animation video";

then you added a pointless comment of your own, unrelated to anything that I had posted, about what can be memorized and written down,

and finally you mix up the references I made to the posts you pointed out, like when you took as a reference to Anacreon in Heaven and the ability to retain its verses, what was a general reflection on the ability to retain that I made after your comment on the content of the video I posted.

Of course, after all that, I am still the one who is an idiot and "a conundrum".

 

[Keeland]

It basically says that you made two sort of mistakes:

first, in your pretended accurate and developed post, you make a mess of numbers pointing to the wrong posts and content, mixing up one with a cartoon and another with what you call an "animation video";

then you added a pointless comment of your own, unrelated to anything that I had posted, about what can be memorized and written down,

and finally you mix up the references I made to the posts you pointed out, like when you took as a reference to Anacreon in Heaven and the ability to retain its verses, what was a general reflection on the ability to retain that I made after your comment on the content of the video I posted.

Of course, after all that, I am still the one who is an idiot and "a conundrum".

Your entire post is nonsense, except for the last paragraph.

[/hijack]