[lit-ideas] Re: Wittgenstein's Garden
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2014 18:57:21 +0000 (GMT)
>Where you live it's probably all more metric.>
Oddly enough one of the main reasons metric was adopted in Britain was to
address this confusion about the yard. In 1872, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford
University fondly recalled how, in his undergraduate years, he could cum
"yards". Greeted with stunned silence, he coughed and clarified: "Not as in
'yards of ale' of course, but as in feet and inches." This clarification was
itself greeted in hushed tones of disapproval, and from that moment the
Vice-Chancellor never spoke publicly again except in Latin, and every Oxford
undergraduate began very private work on a yardless measure of their ejaculate.*
Dnl
*Years later they discovered the French, typically, had beaten them to it.
On Saturday, 1 March 2014, 18:22, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 1, 2014, at 10:03 AM, Omar Kusturica wrote:
The garden is a totality of plants, not things.
>
>Funny, my outdoor area has got things in it and I call all "the garden,"
>including: a forty two foot long boat, huge boulders, chickens. I wanted a
>fiberglass shark or a Harrier Jump Jet to hang among the firs, but I haven't
>been able to find them in my price range. Some people say that gnomes and
>pink flamingos are part of a garden... gazing globes, gazebos, hermits even.
>But here in America a garden is usually a vegetable plot; the rest of the
>outdoor area is called "the yard."
Where you live it's probably all more metric.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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