Tiffany problems

[Travis B.]

It should also be noted that some Europeans themselves went by Latinized versions of their names during the Early Modern period as well.

[Kuchigakatai]

6-sided dice with the exact same dot pattern used today already existed in Ancient Rome.

There are various instances of unidentified sky objects in Ancient Roman literature, typically objects of war seen flying across the sky (shields, flaming spears, chariots, ships) and globes of fire said to resemble another moon.

Fireworks shows were already in use for national celebrations (such as war-ending treaties) by the mid-18th century, including the first anniversary of the American revolution on July 4th, 1777.

[Salmoneus]

Those all seem intuitive to me. [As does, incidentally, mediaeval Tiffany. It's certainly much less 'modern' than a lot of the names people are given in fantasy novels these days!]


But I did have a flash of this recently when I saw one of the original adverts for a clarinet. Now, for one thing, it's a little odd thinking of, basically, newspaper adverts in 1700 (complete with woodcut illustrations) - European newspapers began around 1600-1650, although they didn't reach England until around 1700, and they advertising from virtually the start (the first English paper, the Daily Courant, was 50% adverts, being only one sheet, with news on one side and ads on the other).

[most classical instruments are the result of long, piecemeal development over hundreds of years from obscure or folk origins. The clarinet, on the other hand, was invented by JC Denner around 1690-1700.]

But what struck me was actually a smaller and more specific thing: the range of the clarinet was described as being (and I'm just making the specific note up as I don't remember it) "to three-stroked c".

That is, to c'''. I.e. Helmholtz notation, despite being almost two centuries prior to Helmholtz. Apparently, Helmholtz got his notation from organ builders, who got their from mediaeval organ tablature, in which pitches were indicated as letters with a number of lines above or below them. I don't know when it went from a strok above to a high stroke (prime) alongside, so the advert may actually have been talking about 'c with three lines above it' rather than 'c with three primes beside it', but even so, I was briefly surprised by how modern it seemed to be specifying a specific pitch in such algebraic notation. [rather than, say, specifying pitch in wavelength*]


In fact, I always find it hard to bear in mind just how much about acoustic physics was known just how early - acoustics was one of the earliest subjects to develop its own vaguely modern body of theories and notations. Elementary acoustics was known to the Greeks, but the basic principles of acoustics were developed by Mersenne in the early 17th century - in particular, he discovered the specific mathematical equation to define the frequency of a vibrating string as a function of its length, its mass per unit length, and the strength of the activating force. It's weird to think that people knew that the frequency of a vibrating string was equal to the one over twice the length of the string multiplied by the square root of the result of dividing the magnitude of the activating force by the mass per unit length, at a time when ideas like "heliocentrism", "constant acceleration under gravity", and "inertia" were all controversial new notions not yet generally accepted.



*come to think of it, specifying a note's pitch as (half) the physical length of the wave also feels kind of modern when you put it that way, but actually comes naturally to people who make use of organs and other woodwinds... (a 16-foot organ pipe generates soundwaves with a 32-foot wavelength)

[Nortaneous]

Now, for one thing, it's a little odd thinking of, basically, newspaper adverts in 1700

Is it?

Ben Franklin was pretty old at the time of the Founding (so he would've been born sometime shortly after 1700) and started writing for newspapers in his teens - so newspapers would've been established by 1720.

But I don't know of any early European newspapermen who'd be as prominent as Franklin, so that could still be surprising in Europe.

[Pabappa]

Now, for one thing, it's a little odd thinking of, basically, newspaper adverts in 1700

Is it?

Ben Franklin was pretty old at the time of the Founding (so he would've been born sometime shortly after 1700) and started writing for newspapers in his teens - so newspapers would've been established by 1720.

But I don't know of any early European newspapermen who'd be as prominent as Franklin, so that could still be surprising in Europe.

Newspapers go back even further than that, but I think of advertisements as a modern phenomenon. Most people were very poor back then, as well as illiterate ... I'd think the newspapers would just be for people who could probably afford to pay their share of the printing cost without needing it to be subsidized by advertisements. Besides, most people probably stayed in the same town and knew all of the stores already. But I could be wrong.

[Salmoneus]

As I said in my post, European newspapers actually go back to around 1600. [they sort of go back to before that, since they emerge out of various avisi, subscription newsletters, open letters from abroad and so forth, but they took the form of privately-published, publically-purchased newspapers from around 1600].

It's sort of odd in a Tiffany way to think of that - people don't tend to think of them being that old - though not bizarre (there being some sort of gazette available fits in well with our image of the 18th century, at least, though I think the 17th is more associated with pamphlets (which, indeed, seem to have remained the main news source at least in England throughout the century)). The stranger thing is having adverts in them.


But they did - as I say, the Daily Courant (from 1702) was 50% adverts. Which makes sense when you think about it, it's just "a little odd".

Merc: what!?

a) no, most people were not very poor, at least in the sense of having disposable income (obviously they were poor in real terms compared to today, in that they didn't have the same things to spend money on)

b) no, most people were not illiterate. At least in England, the 17th century is famous for its mass literature! Broadsides began as soon as the printing press was introduced, and were available on every street corner in London. And they were soon followed by chapbooks - poetry books, almanacs, theological tracts, and the ubiquitous political pamphlets. Apparently there's a record of itinerent booksellers (selling to a patcher of old clothes) from 1578. Millions of these chapbooks were sold - the sale of printed materials was so ubiquitous that they doubled as toilet paper. By 1700 there were 500 registered street book-peddlers in London alone.

In the 1660s, there were 400,000 almanacs alone being published every year in England - one almanac for every three families in England. The estate of a minor bookseller contained supplies to print around 90,000 chapbooks; another publisher had in their stock inventory the equivalent of one book for every 15 families in England, and again, they were just one of a huge number of publishers (there were 500 booksellers in London alone). Another bookseller's inventory had 31,000 books and 130,000 blank sheets of paper. There were entire genres aimed specifically at particular crafts - such a books about weavers, books about shoemakers and so on. Political debates happened through street literature; most folksongs originate in street literature.

[exchanges of pamphlets were usually important in the civil war and post-civil war eras]


OK, so apparently in 1650 most people in England WERE illiterate. By 1750, most people WEREN'T. Even in 1650, a third of the population was literate, and not just the rich - craftsmen were usually literate, although admittedly most peasants on the farms probably weren't.



c) most people wouldn't know all the stores already. Newspapers tended to be published in cities (though they'd often make their way to the countryside eventually), and cities have a lot of shops. Besides, even if you know what shops exist, you don't know what they sell. So when, in this case, Herr Denner invents the clarinet, how does he tell people about this? Hang a sign on his window? No, he takes out an advert in the local paper! [sure, many people can't read it, but most of the people who might be interested in buying a clarinet can...]

d) you'd be surprised how much people moved around! Travelling for days, weeks, months at a time was not unusual.

[Vijay]

There's a Pashto movie from 1975 called Zartaja, which is the name of the heroine. It ends with her fighting like a dozen men singlehandedly from a considerably lower elevation. That's practically the polar opposite of the images you see of Pashtun women today, even strong Pashtun women.

[Frislander]

As I said in my post, European newspapers actually go back to around 1600. [they sort of go back to before that, since they emerge out of various avisi, subscription newsletters, open letters from abroad and so forth, but they took the form of privately-published, publically-purchased newspapers from around 1600].

It's sort of odd in a Tiffany way to think of that - people don't tend to think of them being that old - though not bizarre (there being some sort of gazette available fits in well with our image of the 18th century, at least, though I think the 17th is more associated with pamphlets (which, indeed, seem to have remained the main news source at least in England throughout the century)).

Part of the thing with newspapers is that they haven't often stayed around for all that long, for instance none of the major British print newspapers nowadays are more than 150 years old, which, compared to many other British institutions seems a bit on the young side (the oldest of the lot are only a couple of years shy of my college at Cambridge, which is very young in relation to most of the more well-known of the bunch). Consequently, people may not necessarily connect the newspapers of today to the pamphlets of the 17th century simply because there is no single newspaper that represents a direct connection to that earlier time period.

There's a Pashto movie from 1975 called Zartaja, which is the name of the heroine. It ends with her fighting like a dozen men singlehandedly from a considerably lower elevation. That's practically the polar opposite of the images you see of Pashtun women today, even strong Pashtun women.

Interesting. How much of this change might be the result of the influence of the Mujaheddin and subsequent Taliban rule?

[Vijay]

There's a Pashto movie from 1975 called Zartaja, which is the name of the heroine. It ends with her fighting like a dozen men singlehandedly from a considerably lower elevation. That's practically the polar opposite of the images you see of Pashtun women today, even strong Pashtun women.

Interesting. How much of this change might be the result of the influence of the Mujaheddin and subsequent Taliban rule?

A lot, from what I can tell, although if I remember correctly, women in rural areas were always marginalized. Before Taliban rule, 40% of the doctors, 60% of the faculty, and 65% of the students in Kabul University were all women. Both the monarchy and the communist government consistently passed reforms for women's rights. This started to change with the establishment of the Islamic state and changed more drastically when the Taliban came to power.

Of course, the Taliban also implemented a lot of other drastic changes affecting more than just women. Banning music altogether is the weirdest one to me. The more I listen to Afghan music (especially from before the Taliban era), the weirder it is to me.

[Raphael]

Something I tweeted about recently: I find it interesting how many of the things that, in Western culture, are commonly associated with the Baby Boomer generation these days were in fact either invented or pioneered by individual members of either the World War II generation or even earlier generations - in other words, the very generations against whom many Boomers were rebelling back in the day: LSD, the electric guitar, the idea of a sexual revolution, white Westerners dabbling in Eastern mysticism...

[Vijay]

white Westerners dabbling in Eastern mysticism...

https://youtu.be/OmY-9W2WkjI?t=1139

[Salmoneus]

Something I tweeted about recently: I find it interesting how many of the things that, in Western culture, are commonly associated with the Baby Boomer generation these days were in fact either invented or pioneered by individual members of either the World War II generation or even earlier generations - in other words, the very generations against whom many Boomers were rebelling back in the day: LSD, the electric guitar, the idea of a sexual revolution, white Westerners dabbling in Eastern mysticism...

That's very often the case with revolutions: they're carried out by the youth, but they're often inspired by dissidents from the older generation. Lenin was 47 when he took power. Timothy Leary was 49 at the time of Woodstock (and was university collegue of the future Ram Dass).

"white Westerners dabbling in Eastern mysticism", however, I think really took off in the 18th century, and has never really gone away since. In the 19th century, it was one of the big selling points of Schopenhauer (who saw himself as essentially synthesising Kant with the Upanishads), and seems to underlie, albeit mostly implicitly, the entire Hegelian worldview that dominated the Victorian era. Then with the growth of freethought, the fin de siecle era saw a big explosion of orientalism (much of it superficial).

[Vijay]

I've been kind of fascinated with I Love Lucy lately even though I used to not pay any attention to that show. It's kind of remarkable to me looking back now. It seems like Americans nowadays think it's really controversial if a Latino person gets a lead role in a TV show or a public figure who happens to be a woman does unconventional things. Yet over sixty years ago, during the Age of Conformity, the main actors in the most popular show in the country were a Cuban immigrant who frequently switched to Spanish and his wife who apparently does pretty much whatever the fuck she wants (played by an actual Cuban immigrant! Who actually speaks Spanish natively! And his actual wife! Nowai!). She goes to Mexico and does the Highly Unladylike Thing of entering a bullfighting ring? Sure, why the hell not.

[zompist]

I've been kind of fascinated with I Love Lucy lately even though I used to not pay any attention to that show. It's kind of remarkable to me looking back now. It seems like Americans nowadays think it's really controversial if a Latino person gets a lead role in a TV show or a public figure who happens to be a woman does unconventional things. Yet over sixty years ago, during the Age of Conformity, the main actors in the most popular show in the country were a Cuban immigrant who frequently switched to Spanish and his wife who apparently does pretty much whatever the fuck she wants (played by an actual Cuban immigrant! Who actually speaks Spanish natively! And his actual wife! Nowai!). She goes to Mexico and does the Highly Unladylike Thing of entering a bullfighting ring? Sure, why the hell not.

Yeah, this is surprising in many ways. According to Wikipedia, they did get pushback from their producers but Ball refused to have an Anglo on-screen husband.

Still, part of this is that Americans used to be hyper-conscious not so much (or not just) of race, but of ethnicity. See my page on dialect mangling-- people had strong feelings and stereotypes about ethnicities that are a big yawn today. I'm not sure, but people may have thought of Arnaz more as "Cuban" than as Hispanic.

Also, Ricky Ricardo was a bandleader, and before rock, Latin music used to be more mainstream.

[MacAnDàil]

Concerning your page on screen accents ('dialects'), I see that the vast majority of your comments concern misinterpretations. Two may however involve differing pronunciations between the time periods: other English accents do pronounce 'curb' with 4 phonèmes and I wouldn't be surprised that umwhile GA did this too. Likewise, French people certainly did pronounce [ə] at some point. The question is when the sound change occurred.

[Vijay]

Still, part of this is that Americans used to be hyper-conscious not so much (or not just) of race, but of ethnicity. See my page on dialect mangling-- people had strong feelings and stereotypes about ethnicities that are a big yawn today. I'm not sure, but people may have thought of Arnaz more as "Cuban" than as Hispanic.

Which in itself is probably another Tiffany problem. It's all kind of scary in a way, isn't it? At least back then, Americans seem to have been aware on some level that a Cuban, a Mexican, a Honduran, and a Peruvian are not all the same thing and that regularly seeing a Cuban guy on their TV screens was not a big deal. Nowadays, most of us seem to think they're all "Latinos" or "Hispanics" or whatever and oh my God! How DARE someone speak Spanish on some show I happen to be watching!!! (I hope no one has said this when watching one of the Spanish channels, but probably someone has by now...).

[Nortaneous]

I've been kind of fascinated with I Love Lucy lately even though I used to not pay any attention to that show. It's kind of remarkable to me looking back now. It seems like Americans nowadays think it's really controversial if a Latino person gets a lead role in a TV show or a public figure who happens to be a woman does unconventional things. Yet over sixty years ago, during the Age of Conformity, the main actors in the most popular show in the country were a Cuban immigrant who frequently switched to Spanish and his wife who apparently does pretty much whatever the fuck she wants (played by an actual Cuban immigrant! Who actually speaks Spanish natively! And his actual wife! Nowai!). She goes to Mexico and does the Highly Unladylike Thing of entering a bullfighting ring? Sure, why the hell not.

After the Spanish-American War, there was serious talk of annexing Cuba to the US, but instead it was made into an American puppet state, and it stayed that way until Castro. And I Love Lucy aired a generation after some of the most restrictive immigration laws in US history had been put in place, so of course Americans would be more tolerant of Hispanics then!

(Where do people have more of a problem with Californians: Massachusetts or Oregon?)

And wasn't the unitary Hispanic identity a product of the 1960s/70s left?

[mèþru]

And wasn't the unitary Hispanic identity a product of the 1960s/70s left?

Pretty sure it predates the founding of the US

[Vijay]

After the Spanish-American War, there was serious talk of annexing Cuba to the US, but instead it was made into an American puppet state, and it stayed that way until Castro. And I Love Lucy aired a generation after some of the most restrictive immigration laws in US history had been put in place, so of course Americans would be more tolerant of Hispanics then!

Puerto Rico is already part of the US and has been for over a hundred years now. Yet Americans outside Puerto Rico don't seem to think of Puerto Ricans as fellow Americans.

[Nortaneous]

And wasn't the unitary Hispanic identity a product of the 1960s/70s left?

Pretty sure it predates the founding of the US

I doubt it - there were distinctions between people born in the colonies and people born in the metropole, at least. Even now, "Hispanic" in the US sense only includes people from Spain as a technicality. (I don't think Spanish-speakers from Equatorial Guinea would be generally considered Hispanic either, even though they technically are - and of course, if you're a monolingual English-speaker but your parents or grandparents spoke Spanish, aren't you still Hispanic?)

The "cosmic race" stuff dates back to 1920s Mexico, although it was probably around earlier than that - there were similar ideas going around in the early days of the US, although obviously they didn't catch on.

After the Spanish-American War, there was serious talk of annexing Cuba to the US, but instead it was made into an American puppet state, and it stayed that way until Castro. And I Love Lucy aired a generation after some of the most restrictive immigration laws in US history had been put in place, so of course Americans would be more tolerant of Hispanics then!

Puerto Rico is already part of the US and has been for over a hundred years now. Yet Americans outside Puerto Rico don't seem to think of Puerto Ricans as fellow Americans.

So? We don't think of Frenchmen as fellow Americans either, but that doesn't mean we hate the French. But if the French started moving en masse to our cities, we'd probably start. Look at how people in the Pacific Northwest talk about Californians.

(These days, the "fellow Americans" line doesn't really hold much weight - there are moderate Democrats in my family who've recently started talking about how the South should've won the war because then those bible-thumping cavemen wouldn't be in "our country".)