By request of J.W. Brewer, I hereby open the floor to discussion of the Obotrites, or (as the case may be) Obodrites. Wikipedia:
The Obotrites (Latin: Obotriti, Abodritorum, Abodritos) or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites (German: Abodriten), were a confederation of medieval West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany (see Polabian Slavs). For decades, they were allies of Charlemagne in his wars against the Germanic Saxons and the Slavic Veleti. […]
The Bavarian Geographer, an anonymous medieval document compiled in Regensburg in 830, contains a list of the tribes in Central Eastern Europe to the east of the Elbe. The list includes the Nortabtrezi (Obotrites) – with 53 civitates. Adam of Bremen referred to them as the Reregi because of their lucrative trade emporium Reric. In common with other Slavic groups, they were often described by Germanic sources as Wends.
The substantially longer Russian article gives the pleasingly Russianized term бо́дричи as well (which makes one think of бодрый ‘cheerful, bright, vigorous’), and there is (oddly) a separate article under that heading. I was hoping Barford would discuss them in his The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe, but although he mentions them fairly often (as Obodrites) it’s just a selection of random facts (battles, conversions, etc.). Nobody seems to venture an etymology (Wiktionary: “Происходит от ??”). Any and all thoughts are welcome!
They really ought to be a genus of trilobites.
The perky trilobites.
As English-language ethnonyms go, the -ite suffix seems peculiar here. It more typically has a Near Eastern and Biblical resonance. “And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.” Are there other Celtic/Germanic/Slavic groups living in Europe in the 1st millennium of the so-called Common Era that are standardly known as the Something-ites?
The –ite gentilic suffix, previously.
>the -ite suffix
>the pleasingly Russianized term бо́дричи as well (which makes one think of бодрый ‘cheerful, bright, vigorous’)
The term Obotrites makes this English speaker think of stylites and stalagmites. And their territory does seem to poke up from Europe into the sea.
Though maybe they have more in common with trilobytes?
Obodrzyce in Polish, kind of suggesting an etymology <= river Oder / Odra. And indeed wiktionary says exactly that:
From a Slavic language, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *obodriťь (“Obotrite”), from earlier *obъ Odrě (“on Oder”).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Obotrite
An ob-gripe, it’s becoming hard to spot meaningful LH comments these days, they drown in the flow of silly banter
Oh, I don’t think there’s more silly banter than usual, but I’m sorry it bothers you. It’s always been a feature of the site.
I don’t know, what with silly banter and Agitprop both being ill-received …
I shall henceforth comment exclusively on comparative Oti-Volta and the finer points of Kusaal syntax* (that‘ll teach ’em!)
* With copious examples. Very copious. Oh yes.
Hehe, I got completely used to the finer-points discussions of Oti-Volta, bring it on 🙂 it’s such a distinctive feature of the LH that it makes me feel right at home. And I don’t have any doubts that nearly everything goes here (everything good-natured definitely does), so I assume that my wistful gripe about the good old times (perhaps only imagined??) belongs here too.
BTW my post also touched on etymology 😉
So it’s a sheer coincidence (not an implausible one, obviously) that the Proto-Slavic ethnonym just happened to have an ending resembling the -ite suffix used in English for other generally-non-Slavic ethnonyms? I guess I ought to want to know if it’s as odd-sounding as an ethnonym (for a group at some remove in time and space from the Old Testament narrative) in German, since I expect there’s much more German-language scholarship on the group than English-language scholarship.
Thanks, DP.
My feeling is that the silly banter is actually quite important. Virtually all of us are very clever and happy to display the fact. In the circumstances, the fact that discussion even of quite contentious matters usually remains comparatively good-natured {not “smug”) is remarkable and well worth preserving. I think the ability to be unserious at times is an important part of the defusing mechanism. I have on occasion done that quite deliberately.
Also, we are ridiculous. We’re many other more important things too, but also that.
Agreed on all counts. (Dying is easy, comedy is hard.)
So it’s a sheer coincidence (not an implausible one, obviously) that the Proto-Slavic ethnonym just happened to have an ending resembling the -ite suffix used in English for other generally-non-Slavic ethnonyms? I guess I ought to want to know if it’s as odd-sounding as an ethnonym (for a group at some remove in time and space from the Old Testament narrative) in German, since I expect there’s much more German-language scholarship on the group than English-language scholarship.
the Slavic – ichi plural suffix for the descendants of X / tribal members of Y is relatively regularly Latinized as -iti, not just in German. There are multiple Balkan examples: Draguvites, Kanalites, Danube or Eastern Obodrites, Bersites, Strymonites, Vaiunites, Ezerites
>From a Slavic language, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *obodriťь (“Obotrite”), from earlier *obъ Odrě (“on Oder”).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Obotrite
>An ob-gripe, it’s becoming hard to spot meaningful LH comments these days, they drown in the flow of silly banter
(I’m working hard at resisting the urge to describe the insight on Obotrites as neisse.)
German Wikipedia has the following on the name:
Judging by the cited sources, it was Friedrich Wigger, the first serious historian of early Mecklenburg, who thought the name was obviously Slavic, whereas recent historians seem to reject any Slavic etymology (“völlig unslavisch”). On the discussion page someone claims: “Ich habe zu DDR-Zeiten noch gelernt, dass Obodriten ‘die in Eisen gekleideten’ bedeutet.”.
I appreciate DP’s further examples. So provincial and parochial a life have I led that I cannot think of the last time the doings of the Strymonites came up in a discourse context I was part of even in casual banter. I read that when the river from which they took their name finally discharges its flow into the Aegean Sea, the relevant bit of water where that happens is variously called in English the Strymonian Gulf or the Strymonic Gulf. (Στρυμονικός Κόλπος locally or Струмскиот/Струмският Залив a bit upstream.)
Трубачев О. Н. (2003) Этногенез и культура древнейших славян: Лингвистические исследования. Изд. 2-е, доп., page 142:
(Apologies for uncaught OCR errors. I don’t have time right now to ferret out the work of Aleksander Brückner that was referenced. Maybe someone else can do it.)
Another example of the syndrome I was thinking about about in this LH comment ?
Некоторые мысли по поводу ободритов –1., 2., 3. Long LJ posts that I haven’t actually examined yet, but there they are.
Sergei Vshivtsev, ИСТОРИЯ ОБОДРИТОВ.
Virtually all of us are very clever…
Hey, speak for yourself, pal.
Can’t find the Брюкнер reference, though.
Alternate spelling? Oboetrites.
https://www.oboefiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Marigaux-web-size.jpg
Catholic background here, so the Old Testament doesn’t come up often – and when it does, there’s variation between -iten, -iter and “sons/children of”.
The designation most known to me was Obodriten, so the “living on the banks of the Oder” etymology always seemed natural to me. The fact that they were historically attested further to the West would not seem a problem, as they could have ended up there with the early medieval westward expansion of the Slavs while keeping their old name. But the existence of Slavs with the same name on Danube / Sava really makes that etymology dubious.
As for the -ite suffix, I know all those biblical tribes as -iter (Amoriter, Moabiter, Amalekiter, etc.), while -iten is rather associated with organisations and persuasions (Jesuiten, Transvestiten).
I think you’re right about -iter vs. -iten.
They could have come from there, too. See also “Serbs” and “Croats” all over the place.
“An ob-gripe, it’s becoming hard to spot meaningful LH comments these days, they drown in the flow of silly banter”
Well said, Dmitry. I feel less in a minority of one now. And in response to
“silly banter and Agitprop both being ill-received”
yes, they both have an ill taste to me; banter and political asides are easy (and have a tendency to exclude), but interesting comments on an interesting subject are hard. I have heard of the Obotrites and read about their wars with the Germans and others in ‘The Northern Crusades’ by the late Eric Christiansen, and it is very nice to get a suggested etymology for their name.
Again, there’s always been plenty of silly banter at LH — check the early threads if you don’t believe me. I’m not sure where this impression is coming from.
Nobody forces anyone to read the silly banter.
There are (I can reveal) topics often treated in extenso on LH in which I have virtually no interest at all (notably genetics.) Others plainly do find them fascinating, and comment in ways which even I can tell are both erudite and informative. That is absolutely fine.
I dare say there may even be Hatters who don’t find comparative Volta-Congo interesting in the least. De gustibus non est disputandum.
If you don’t like what I write (fair enough), how about just reading something else? I’m getting tired of this.
I myself have untiringly maintained a flow of cornpone at this site since 2009, as a Kontrastfolie to highlight the erudition. Has it all been in vain ?
The leading attraction of the site, for the truly discerning.
Perhaps those who want a humour-free linguistics blog where the expression of left-wing political views is forbidden could start their own?
I hereby promise never to visit it. Everybody wins.
Count me out as another winner.
Ever since I learned of it, this place has seemed like the high table of the internet.
Pass the port, old chap!
Not in that direction! My word, the people they are letting in here these days!
well, some of those fellows from Miskatonic, one might wonder…
Some of them are (not to put too fine a point on it) really quite rugose (if you follow me.)
If LH is your social circle / place to hang out online, then the dynamics is different from the one where it’s just a place to learn something interesting and to share the knowledge in those rare instances where one can contribute…
I go here for the intellectual stimulation, not for social comfort, and it informs my perspective a little
False dichotomy.
DP, I’m genuinely surprised. Why on earth do you think that making jokes makes it impossble to share interesting information?
I wondered at one point if this was a cultural thing. I remember it being explicitly pointed out to us when I was recruited by an excellent (and deadly serious) German-led international organisation that whereas Brits (and Irish even more so) find it perfectly natural to make stupid jokes while actually at work, this mystifies uninitiated Germans, who tend to assume (quite wrongly) that this means that the Brits are frivolous types who don’t take their work seriously. (Conversely, uninitiated Brits can come to the equally wrong conclusion that Germans have no sense of humour.)
I think there’s something in this, but the truth is (as always) much more complex. Many Americans seem quite Brit-like in this, for example.
I am always serious. Really. You misinterpret me.
I don’t think DP is claiming that it’s impossible to share interesting information, just saying he sometimes wishes he didn’t have to scroll through so much badinage to get to it. Which I can sympathize with, but (as Stalin allegedly said about writers) I’m afraid I have no other Languagehats for you.
There is, of course, Language Log for those who wish seriousness and relevance enforced with whips and chains.
Stack Exchange is as serious as a barrel of judges, too.
To me, the jokes go together with the tolerance and encouragement of tangents in general. Most are linguistic, some are serious but not linguistic, some are jokes, personal notes, and what not. And everything will go on your permanent record.
There is, of course, Language Log
Ah, but I can’t be doing with Victor Mair’s continually dragging in political criticism of the Chinese Goverment. Why can’t he stick to linguistics?
And Mark Liberman continually posts on webcomics! I mean … he’s just not serious …
If other frequent and valued contributors offer insights tending to suggest that they get different things out of the Hattery than others do and that as a consequence of that they find certain styles or modes of posting by others more or less valuable depending on how congruent they are with what value they get out of the Hattic project … it strikes me that those others ought to treat that as interesting data (not necessarily data to be acted on in any concrete way) rather than suggest that they must be missing the point of the Only Right Way to do the Hattic enterprise.
Although of course “This is Liberty Hall, you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!” A phrase which was the subject of a 2013 thread with not all that many comments all things considered.
Exactly.
I do treat it as interesting data, and I certainly don’t suggest that “they must be missing the point of the Only Right Way to do the Hattic enterprise.” I am merely pointing out that this is the way Languagehat operates, and I submit that anyone who has been around these premises for any time at all should be aware of that. It’s fine to grumble — I grumble about things a lot! — but it’s not going to change as long as I remain the same lovable oaf I’ve always been.
I think JWB was actually agreeing with your approach (unless I misinterpreted him pretty radically. Such things have happened …) Certainly I was.
Then we’re all in agreement, comrades! I move that the program be approved unanimously.
*stormy applause*
Who, I ask you, is going to pony up the funding necessary for rigorous peer-reviewed and evidence-based research on the actual verifiable quantitative/empirical degree of hat’s alleged a) lovability; and b) oafishness?
I volunteer as one of the controls (unlovable oaf.)*
Now we need a lovable unoaf, and an unlovable unoaf.
* My daily rates are very competitive.
But the issue isn’t really about openness vs. controls! It is much more practical, for heaven’s sake.
It’s about trying to home in on the more serious recent discussions without going through each and every comment under all posts. On many platforms, the comments are combined into threads and it gives the readers a little better understanding of what specific sub-threads to follow, where to find stuff of interest without shoveling through all the piles. Sometimes also, you can see more than just 10 most recent comments, possibly even with sub-topics or at least with the opening words of these recent comments – because the title of the post being commented on typically has nothing to do with what’s actually being discussed (case in point, this comment). My point is that it became awfully easy to miss interesting stuff here, because too much is going on on any given day and even the (otherwise very helpful) commented-on posts link doesn’t help you understand what’s actually being discussed…
Apologies if my gripe was interpreted as some sort of “longing for a brutal dictatorship” :/
No, no, I knew what you meant, and as I say, I can sympathize. I’ve had readers ask for threads before, and I understand why, but the fact is that I hate threads. I think of it as a gathering where people are carrying on various conversations, and I can wander around and pay attention to one or another, putting in a word when I feel like it and enjoying the vibes. Sometimes I skim down and ignore entire chunks where people are talking about something I’m not interested in, but that’s OK — as long as they’re enjoying it, I’m happy!
Dmitry, I do get what you’re saying and sympathize, even though I often take part in the banter.
I, too, actually do understand where you’re coming from. I think this is not any kind of good versus bad issue, but a question of competing goods. (As things so often are.)
I shan’t comment any more on this particular post.
I think of it as a gathering where people are carrying on various conversations, and I can wander around and pay attention to one or another, putting in a word when I feel like it and enjoying the vibes. Sometimes I skim down and ignore entire chunks where people are talking about something I’m not interested in, but that’s OK
My sentiments exactly. Let the beavers buzz off to a nunnery, say academia dot edu.
Someone who dislikes blog “banter” is likely to be taking themselves, and the subject, too seriously to be taken seriously. Der Wille zum System ist ein Mangel an Rechtschaffenheit.
Maybe the Hattery is the closest we can come to a true anarchy in these end times. I sympathize with Dmitry, but I’m not sure(*) this place would be as fertile without all the shitposts (sorry not sorry) even if it’s more work to keep up with.
If I had to make a new “thread” every time I wanted to query some Latin form (my main vice), I’d never learn anything.
@Stu: Hobgoblins and all that. Rechtschaffenheit is a bit of a false friend for Danes, retskaffen has a hint of self-righteousness about it that I don’t think the German word has.
______
(*) As in, I’m sure it wouldn’t.
@Lars: retskaffen has a hint of self-righteousness about it that I don’t think the German word has.
The German Rechtschaffenheit doesn’t have such a hint. What you’re thinking of may be Selbstgerechtigkeit, or even Selbstgefälligkeit (complacency).
It’s a quote from Nietzsche. Rechtschaffenheit is not often encountered nowadays. But neither is Nietzsche, since he’s dead.
Maybe the Hattery is the closest we can come to a true anarchy in these end times.
*kvells*
@Stu, I was just thinking of what I’m thinking when I see Rechtschaffenheit because of my Danish bias. I’m aware of the other German words, and the Danish calque selvretfærdighed, but they don’t lend shade to retskaffen. More recently we have selvfed, even though fed/t as an appreciative adjective vanished with the hippies.
ObLing: It seems that the German word belongs to the strong verb schaffen whose proper cognate in Danish is skabe, now weak. But when calqueing/borrowing, it has assumed the shape of Danish skaffe, also weak, corresponding to the German weak verb. (But with the form of a strong participle. Skabe was strong in Old Danish, but I don’t have a resource that will tell me what its participle was. ON has skapinn to skepja. The German sense would be better represented by retskabt, but that is not what happened).
I have noticed English righteous being used a fair amount where I’d use self-righteous.
A deplorable semantic creep. I now remembered Danish rethaverisk which is exactly ‘self-righteous,’ at least in my book; it’s rarely encountered, and since -skaffen is such a foreign formation in Danish, the deprecatory sense is creeping onto retskaffen here as well. Eheu!
rethaverisk which is exactly ‘self-righteous,’ at least in my book
Ger. rechthaberisch doesn’t mean “self-righteous”, but rather “(stubbornly) opinionated”, “know-it-all(y)”, “dogmatic”.
I think there is contamination at work here from “right”. “righteous” means to me giving oneself airs of moral superiority. It is not the opposite of “wrongeous” (if there were such a word).
“righteousness” is not making statements that are “right”, i.e. true, as independently verifiable: “the cat is on the mat” (provided the cat is indeed on the mat and not on the lam).
Vice versa, a rechthaberische Person is not necessarily concerned with any kind of moral superiority – but only at most a superiority that may be conceded to someone who is right all the time
So, a prescriptivist. I agree on the theoretical distinction, but in practice there is an implication: most people who assume they are right in all matters will claim that their labor to convert the straying flock is a noble act. (opinionated => self-righteous, p=.995).
I am not a precriptivist, nor a semantic creep. I report on experience with how people use words (from my reading and conversation) and how they understand me (from my writing and conversation).
I’m glad to hear that in Denmark the moral condition of flocks is a prime concern ! In my corner of German IT, flocks are expected to do what they’re told by those authorized to command. Whether their souls are saved thereby is not a consideration.
Only the occasional stubborn rechthaberische Pappnase tries to rock the boat.
I believe Lars was applying the epithet “prescriptivist” not to you, but to the rechthaberische Pappnase. But go ahead, live out your righteous indignation.
The preface to Simon Evans’ A Grammar of Middle Welsh ends with a heartfelt trbute to the late Griffith John Williams, “this generous and righteous scholar, certainly one of the greatest Welsh scholars of all time.”
I wouldn’t have thought that Evans was trying to imply that his old mentor gave himself airs of moral superiority.
Although one does come across people using “righteous” in such a sense, I think that that is actually a contamination from “self-righteous”, which I suspect is a lot commoner than “righteous” in these degenerate days of all-around low righteousness. One of those clever Hatters who can do N-Grams will be able to say …
>I am not a precriptivist, nor a semantic creep.
I take it a semantic creep is the sort of person who is opposed to semantic creep?
It’s a Chomskyan term of abuse for people who think that you can’t analyse syntax adequately without constantly taking meaning into account.
They can be very catty sometimes, those Chomskyans.
I see that G j Williams doesn’t even have an English WP page, but the Welsh one cites Thomas Parry as saying ef oedd yr ysgolhaig Cymraeg mwyaf a welodd Cymru erioed “he was the greatest scholar of Welsh that Wales has ever seen.”
(He was important, among other things, in conclusively identifying the forgeries of the ghastly Iolo Morganwg.)
Sadly, there is no mention of his famous righteousness.
I am currently not able to sort out what people think I was trying to say, so I’ll just shut up.
“The blog-comments* of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom.”
*Not the traditional translation of the Hebrew lexeme but based on fancy new translation theory seeking cultural relevance in the target language.
Should that not be “TikTok videos of the rghteous”?
The TikTok videos of the righteous go viral,
But the algorithm will mod down the stupid and ugly.
I believe it was St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (1749-1809) who taught that TikTok videos are fundamentally incompatible with righteousness, even worse than tobacco-smoking or taking hot baths without a specific medical justification for doing so.
And see where that got him! Dead as a doornail innit.
@Lars: ἔδοξαν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς ἀφρόνων τεθνάναι, καὶ ἐλογίσθη κάκωσις ἡ ἔξοδος αὐτῶν καί ἡ ἀφ᾿ ἡμῶν πορεία σύντριμμα, οἱ δέ εἰσιν ἐν εἰρήνῃ. (“In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.”)
I’m so wired into Classical Greek that when I finished the sentence I went back trying to find the μέν.
@hat: But you are prudently avoiding any generalizations about what grammatical infelicities may arise when “Semites” try their hand at generating running Greek text in a poetic sort of register.
It used to be taken for granted that a lot of non-classical features in New Testament Greek were Aramaicisms or Hebraisms before it became apparent that perfectly goyish Koine writers used them too, when they weren’t showing off their classical education by Atticising.
Moreover, Smyth’s Greek Grammar tells me (section 2838): “A clause with δέ often has no correlative particle in the clause with which it is contrasted.”
the late Griffith John Williams, “this generous and righteous scholar, certainly one of the greatest Welsh scholars of all time.” I wouldn’t have thought that Evans was trying to imply that his old mentor gave himself airs of moral superiority.
I had written: “righteous” means to me giving oneself airs of moral superiority. It is not the opposite of “wrongeous” (if there were such a word).
What I meant there was: “self-righteous” means to me giving oneself airs of moral superiority. It is not the opposite of “self-wrongeous” (if there were such a word).
The righteous live by faith. Superiority is not a concern. Everyone is free to live by faith. No one demands that they emulate the faithful as vessels of superiority.
The conduct of the faithful may spare them eternal torment, but that’s just Pascal’s bet, not a sure thing. This is about faith, not book-making.
@David E.: well this is an LXX text, where “Hebraisms” are often more plausible because of the “translationese” phenomenon sometimes leading to output that’s a bit odd/unidiomatic in the target language. Although OTOH this is one of the LXX books where the current majority scholarly opinion is original composition in Greek rather than translation from a lost Hebrew original. Although on the third hand who knows, assuming that’s true, whether the author(s) were trying for a Greek style identical to that of their goyische neighbors in Alexandria (had any of them for some curious reason wished to write in the relevant genre) or trying instead to echo earlier LXX style. (Well, someone better-informed than me probably *does* have a sense of how the book’s Greek style does and doesn’t compare to that of other LXX books – it’s a question with an answer, just not one that’s derivable from general principles as opposed to close reading.)
Moreover, Smyth’s Greek Grammar tells me (section 2838): “A clause with δέ often has no correlative particle in the clause with which it is contrasted.”
Oh, I know that perfectly well, but it’s still very often the case that there’s a μέν, and habits are habits.
(section 2838)
That’s a lot of sections to be getting on with. Are the preceding 2837 sections also about δέ ?
Smyth loves sections. You can never have too many sections (as the obstetricians say.)
There is in fact an entire Damn Thick Book entirely about Greek particles
https://archive.org/details/greekparticles0000jdde
My copy got lost when i went to West Africa. Never got round to replacing it, somehow.
You can never have too many sections (as the obstetricians say.)
On a non-obstetric OS:
fix: too many sections (52187) – Cmake, Qmake
To quote Donald Knuth (not yet sainted), the only reasonable limits on resources are 0, 1 and none. Bad Cmake, bad!
And even if St Nicodemus is now resting in the bosom of the LOrd, his Tiktok is dead innit.
Also my ancestral culture maintains that you’re not saved by works, but by grace. You can still look down on lazy people, of course.
Late to this, but I’ll join in saying that the banter and close-knit cliqueishness does turn me off from participating here, as much as I appreciate the trivia I learn from Hat. Commenting has dwindled to the same few people, and when I read Hat’s post, I can predict pretty accurately how that handful of usual commentators are going to respond underneath it.
This has not always been the case. In the heyday of blogging the posts attracted comments from a wider number of people. One felt like one was participating in a big society, not a tiny group of diehards that isn’t being replenished. As blogging has declined as a phenomenon, I’m sure Hat is grateful that he still has some loyal audience, but that doesn’t really do it for me any more.
I don’t entirely disagree, but I think the problem is the loss of other contributors and of an infrastructure of interlinking blogs, media attention and just awareness of the likelihood something was out there that would touch on your linguistic interest, which refreshed the contributor pool. The problem isn’t really the banter so much.
Late to this, but I’ll join in saying that the banter and close-knit cliqueishness does turn me off from participating here
Is that your parting shot, or just a pot-shot ? You don’t appear to have the courage of your convictions. Perhaps you can’t help, trying to be helpful?
I’m fine with banter. I understand that this is an open playground for posts on Russian Literature and abstruse linguistics, where I’m out of my depth, and if I don’t post much in other areas, it’s for the best that I don’t embarrass myself. That said, this blog opens doors for me in areas like poetry and historical linguistics, as much now as ever before, so please don’t stop. To me, you’re the cutting edge.
The problem with it being the same old commenters all the time is surely better addressed by making actual interesting comments of one’s own, rather than sniping at those who do.
One felt like one was participating in a big society, not a tiny group of diehards that isn’t being replenished.
Blog eugenics.
#
To population geneticists, [eugenics] has included the avoidance of inbreeding without altering allele frequencies; for example, British-Indian scientist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1940 that “the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent.”[8]
#
Is the internet not an information highway ? Why is a blog like a motor bus ?
I still don’t know what an allele is. I have the impression that I don’t need to know.
As blogging has declined as a phenomenon, I’m sure Hat is grateful that he still has some loyal audience, but that doesn’t really do it for me any more.
I don’t care for your effacing all traces of your own blogs (which would seem to be part of the decline that you deplore), but we both have to soldier on. The world at large does not accommodate our private preferences. But for what it’s worth, I too mourn the decline of blogging; any given blog is worth fifty Facebooks and a trillion tweets.
worth fifty Facebooks and a trillion tweets.
Which made think that for filling the role of a journal club, Twitter is easily the most effective of my sources. As much as I dislike so many things about it, and even though I hardly ever use it as a form of communication…