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Blog: andrea joseph's sketchblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: andrea joseph's sketchblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Last Saturday Sketchcrawl North went sketching in Chesterfiled. In complete contrast to the week before, when we were sketching in a wintery Buxton, the day was hot and sunny and perfect for drawing outdoors. I've always wanted to visit Chesterfield. That may not sound that ambitious, or difficult, as I do live in Derbyshire but I've only ever passed through it. Every time, though, I become distracted and mesmerised by it's famous crooked spired church - which is a concern as I'm usually driving. The crooked spire is a thing of beauty. It really is. There are various theories to how it became twisted, from untreated wood to the lead they used, however it happened the results are quite stunning.
Inside the church I came across this notice board and stopped for a while to draw it. I'm really kicking myself now that I didn't go up into the spire. I have no idea why. It's apparently as crazy a structure from the inside as the out. I'm also kicking myself that I didn't go into the church gift shop. I can only imagine the array of spire souvenirs I could have laid my hands on. Actually, it was probably a good thing that I didn't.
Finally, I squeezed this little sketch in, below, before we all met up at the pub. It was literally a five minute sketch which is probably a record for me. I kinda like it though. These three drawings were made in my tiny Moleskine sketchbook I also made a couple of larger sketches from various places in the town but I'll pimp them up before posting them.
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Reference, words, Dictionaries, chesterfield, dictionary, Samuel Johnson, voltaire, elizabeth knowles, how to read a word, knowles, *Featured, Lexicography & Language, lord chesterfield, dictionarium, algeo, malfi, misquotations, 1754, duchess, Add a tag
We have lots of dictionaries here at Oxford. (Here are just a few.) Yet I had never given much thought to the word “dictionary” itself until I read Elizabeth Knowles new book How to Read a Word. In the following excerpt, Knowles offers a short history of the dictionary, with thoughts from logophiles like Samuel Johnson on the authority of these books of words. –Hanna Oldsman, Publicity Intern
‘Is it in the dictionary?’ is a formulation suggesting that there is a single lexical authority: ‘The Dictionary’. As the British academic Rosamund Moon has commented, ‘The dictionary most cited in such cases is the UAD: the Unidentified Authorizing Dictionary, usually referred to as “the dictionary”, but very occasionally as “my dictionary”.’ The American scholar John Algeo has coined the term lexicographicolatry for a reverence for dictionary authority amounting to idolatry. As he explained:
English speakers have adopted two great icons of culture: the Bible and the dictionary. As the Bible is the sacred Book, so the dictionary has become the secular Book, the source of authority, the model of behavior, and the symbol of unity in language.
–John Algeo ‘Dictionaries as seen by the Educated Public in Great Britain and the USA’ in F.J. Hausmann et al. (eds.) An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography (1989) vol. 1, p. 29
While recognizing the respect for lexical authority illuminated by this passage, it is difficult to find less unquestioning perspectives. The notion of any dictionary representing a type of scriptural authority runs counter, for instance, to the view of the ‘Great Lexicographer’ Samuel Johnson that:
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
–Samuel Johnson, letter to Francesco Sastres, 21 August 1984
A dictionary may also be highly derivative: twenty years before Johnson’s letter, the French writer and critic Voltaire had warned cynically in his Philosophical Dictionary that ‘All dictionaries are made from dictionaries.’ However, there is evidence that Johnson’s contemporary 0 Comments on Words, words, words as of 1/1/1900
Blog: The Excelsior File (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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I'm digging "Clever Hans." There's something about the way it reads like bad drama and a repetitive nursery rhyme all at once.
Hans and his mother have a series of conversations. They conversations are identical except for the lesson learned and the way it is applied the next time Hans goes out. Mama asks where Hans is going, he always replies "To Gretel's." She bids him to take care, he says good-bye. At Gretel's, after a cordial greeting she asks if he has anything for her. "Didn't bring anything. Want something from you," he says in his best clipped Bavarian.
And every time Gretel gives him something and sends him on his way.
Whatever Gretel gives him Hans mismanages. She gives him a needle, he stores it in a hay wagon. He tells his Mama and she tells him he's stupid, that he should have stuck it in his sleeve. "I'll do better next time," our Mama's boy says. But the next time Gtetel gives him a knife and he sticks that in his sleeve, like his Mama told him. And it continues, Mama pointing out what he should have done, Clever Hans following his mother's instructions the next visit despite the fact that the item changes and require different care and treatment. Gretel gives him a goat and he stuffs it in his pocket. She gives him bacon and he drags it home on a rope. She gives him a calf he wears it on his head.
Finally Gretel gives herself to bring home to his mother (more on this in a moment) allowing herself to be tied like an animal, taken to the barn and have grass thrown at her. When he reports this to his mother she once again admonishes his behavior, telling him he should thrown friendly looks at her. What does he do? He goes to the barn and cuts out all the eyes of the cows and sheep and throw them at her. Gretel has finally (!) had enough and leaves.
"And that was how Hans lost his bride."
First, I love that this is 99% dialog. The repetition, the constant set-up and pay-off for each of Clever Hans' exchanges with Gretel has a feel of a campfire story, a very contemporary one at that. I also like that Hans (or Hansel) and Gretel seem to be archetypes of German boy and girl pairings, like Jack and Jill or Dick and Jane.
But here's a funny story about a thick-headed boy who is sent by his mother to court this girl and she is going along with it. Is Hans is the village idiot? Is Gretel getting something out of the arrangement far greater than a husband because she seems to put up with this fools behavior all the way to the very end? The girl always asks what he has for her and he's always empty handed, asking for something in return, and she gives him a trifle, a token, something designed to force his mother to send him back.
I really don't want to tread too far out on the ice on this one, but am I reading too much sexual tension in this story of expectation and unfulfilled desire? Everyone seems so keen on getting this dummer Kopf to give something to Gretel until finally, exasperated, she has Hans drag her home so that perhaps she can get some friction with the guidance of his mother. Even that sounds weirder than I'd intended, but there it is.
And then you get the title: Clever Hans. Is it ironic, or is Hans playing the fool, refusing to take part in this arrangement? There's no mention of Gretel being beautiful or to his liking and perhaps Hans has no intention of giving in to the arrangement made between the girl and his mother. It would better explain why Gretel would put up with his foolishness if she was getting the better part of the deal, and why the mother would keep encouraging her boy despite his willful ignorance. Finally, his mother gives him the perfect out, to throw adoring eyes at her, and he performs his gross act in a masterstroke of deal-breaking. Being tied to a stable and having grass thrown at you might be a small price to pay, but then to witness the butchering of livestock and be pelted with their eyes, that'll send anyone running.
Yeah, I could have dug this around the campfire when I was a Boy Scout. I don't know what that says about me, but there it is.
Oooh...LOVE that last drawing!!!!! Saweeet!
Lovely work Andrea, that spire is amazing!!!!What a good job you did there. Like the noticeboard it draws you in....and the little quick sketch :)
All very nice! I really like the park bench sketches.