Of the mafia vampire story, I never managed to write it out beyond several scattered attempts at drafts. On the other hand, I still have the huge-ass unfinished novel project that I started way back that featured Jesus as a rock star who hung out with a crossdressing vampire in Montreal. ... Uh. Yes. I don't think I'll ever try writing that one again, hah. Though I might drag out the mafia vampire story and try to make it work one of these days.
Moving on. No, alas, I wasn't able to read the new part she put up yet, because I got distracted with cleaning (and later with my guest).SIGH. But I'll get around to it soon. When I say I try my best to leave insightful comments, I mean like... something beyond keysmash and squee. I mean, that is good, but I also like to say things like, "I liked (general thing about style/progression/pacing/whatever) and especially such-and-such part because (it made me feel X/ the imagery is beautiful/ strong use of metaphor/ etc)". And sometimes I'll pick out specific sentences, if I find them particularly lovely. I think it's mostly because, it's one thing to know that someone likes it, but it's even better to know why. So when I make comments like that, it's my way of saying, "This is good, so keep doing it".
Books, ahhhhhlaksdjf. I would get my parents to send them to me, but it would be so expensive - and I wouldn't have anywhere to put them! I just got some nice new storage boxes, but even though they're rather large, it's still not enough to hold all the books I already have in my apartment and the pile keeps on growing!
Middle English... Eeeee. Sometimes it's easier to figure out, sometimes not. Anyway, the þ (or Thorn, as the letter is called) is indeed pronounced kind of like "th"; it can be pronounced two ways, as in "thick" or as in "the". As for the 3 in knight, er, that's my mistake. It's supposed to be a ȝ, called "yogh". Sometimes websites use a 3 instead of ȝ because in some places the character won't show up (as it is completely out of use everywhere; Thorn, on the other hand, is still used in Icelandic) and I didn't notice until you pointed that out. In this case, it serves as a "gh" sound; but the pronunciation of the whole word wouldn't be modern - it would be pronounced more like "kn-eeght", according to my prof.
Old English is indeed WTF and I want to learn it so badly, aslkdfj. Anyway. "Ash", or æ is its own letter, rather than two stuck together (though in many modern things it's written as two letters), and it always throws me off because it's pronounced differently in Latin (where I have more familiarity with it) than in Old English and other things. In Latin it's a long I sound, like the word "eye", whereas in Old English it's more like... a soft A with a hint of E (like in the word 'cat' I guess). And Eth (ð) always looked like a tree to me, which seems somehow fitting (it's pronounced th as in "them", btw). Gah, I find this all fascinating, but it's so hard to learn....
When the whole thing is spoken, it sounds like... very throaty and rough and sounds like a mishmash of German and Swedish and maybe Gaelic and somethin' else. That's what Old English sounds like when spoken. ;p I don't know it myself, but I had the pleasure of listening to my professor read us the introduction in the original. Aha, found some of it on youtube, here. Sometimes I can kind of pick out stuff that sounds like a sentence, but mostly it's like... wat.
Anyway. Moving on to more modern things. I do, too, think it's ridiculous for people to look down on others for not reading things when it's likely they wouldn't have read those things themselves if not for school. ARGH. So frustrating. And with the differences in curriculums and such, well, it's impossible to read everything. And the comment you refer to is precisely the one I was refering to, so we're definitely on th esame page there. Yeah, I figured it was an American thing, but argh... it just pissed me off so much. Why would I know everything that they teach/refer to down there? I'm not American. This is not America. Some people refer to it as the 51st state, but we haven't been annexed yet! ARGH. RAGE. AMERICA IS NOT THE WORLD.
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Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
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Date: 2009-08-20 07:12 am (UTC)Moving on. No, alas, I wasn't able to read the new part she put up yet, because I got distracted with cleaning (and later with my guest).SIGH. But I'll get around to it soon. When I say I try my best to leave insightful comments, I mean like... something beyond keysmash and squee. I mean, that is good, but I also like to say things like, "I liked (general thing about style/progression/pacing/whatever) and especially such-and-such part because (it made me feel X/ the imagery is beautiful/ strong use of metaphor/ etc)". And sometimes I'll pick out specific sentences, if I find them particularly lovely. I think it's mostly because, it's one thing to know that someone likes it, but it's even better to know why. So when I make comments like that, it's my way of saying, "This is good, so keep doing it".
Books, ahhhhhlaksdjf. I would get my parents to send them to me, but it would be so expensive - and I wouldn't have anywhere to put them! I just got some nice new storage boxes, but even though they're rather large, it's still not enough to hold all the books I already have in my apartment and the pile keeps on growing!
Middle English... Eeeee. Sometimes it's easier to figure out, sometimes not. Anyway, the þ (or Thorn, as the letter is called) is indeed pronounced kind of like "th"; it can be pronounced two ways, as in "thick" or as in "the". As for the 3 in knight, er, that's my mistake. It's supposed to be a ȝ, called "yogh". Sometimes websites use a 3 instead of ȝ because in some places the character won't show up (as it is completely out of use everywhere; Thorn, on the other hand, is still used in Icelandic) and I didn't notice until you pointed that out. In this case, it serves as a "gh" sound; but the pronunciation of the whole word wouldn't be modern - it would be pronounced more like "kn-eeght", according to my prof.
Old English is indeed WTF and I want to learn it so badly, aslkdfj. Anyway. "Ash", or æ is its own letter, rather than two stuck together (though in many modern things it's written as two letters), and it always throws me off because it's pronounced differently in Latin (where I have more familiarity with it) than in Old English and other things. In Latin it's a long I sound, like the word "eye", whereas in Old English it's more like... a soft A with a hint of E (like in the word 'cat' I guess). And Eth (ð) always looked like a tree to me, which seems somehow fitting (it's pronounced th as in "them", btw). Gah, I find this all fascinating, but it's so hard to learn....
When the whole thing is spoken, it sounds like... very throaty and rough and sounds like a mishmash of German and Swedish and maybe Gaelic and somethin' else. That's what Old English sounds like when spoken. ;p I don't know it myself, but I had the pleasure of listening to my professor read us the introduction in the original. Aha, found some of it on youtube, here. Sometimes I can kind of pick out stuff that sounds like a sentence, but mostly it's like... wat.
Anyway. Moving on to more modern things. I do, too, think it's ridiculous for people to look down on others for not reading things when it's likely they wouldn't have read those things themselves if not for school. ARGH. So frustrating. And with the differences in curriculums and such, well, it's impossible to read everything. And the comment you refer to is precisely the one I was refering to, so we're definitely on th esame page there. Yeah, I figured it was an American thing, but argh... it just pissed me off so much. Why would I know everything that they teach/refer to down there? I'm not American. This is not America. Some people refer to it as the 51st state, but we haven't been annexed yet! ARGH. RAGE. AMERICA IS NOT THE WORLD.