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[Raphael]

They then said they spoke a "mixed language" (their term). I then said it was nice meeting them and wished them a good evening, to which one of them replied with what I can best render as "ich aa", presumably cognate with StG "ich auch".

This sounds very mysterious. Almost like the start of an airport bookshop thriller about someone who wasn't in any way looking for trouble but accidentally stumbled upon an ancient secret society with a secret language.

[Travis B.]

They then said they spoke a "mixed language" (their term). I then said it was nice meeting them and wished them a good evening, to which one of them replied with what I can best render as "ich aa", presumably cognate with StG "ich auch".

This sounds very mysterious. Almost like the start of an airport bookshop thriller about someone who wasn't in any way looking for trouble but accidentally stumbled upon an ancient secret society with a secret language.

The thing is that some plain people (i.e. some Amish and Mennonites) traditionally spoke a variety of non-Anglic West Germanic varieties, both High and Low, hence why I assumed they were speaking one of these and hence approached them in StG. It is likely that they had no real knowledge of StG, i.e. what they called Deutsch, since StG has largely died out in North America, but retained some High or Low variety with substantial Anglic influence as a sociolect, hence why they said they spoke a "mixed language". Note that these were all younger people, seemingly in their early 20's or even late teens, which is why I was curious in the first place, as I didn't expect people so young to have retained such.

[Raphael]

When people talk about history, they sometimes describe this or that time period as "a time of great changes", or "a time of rapid change", or something like that.

Which makes me wonder: which was the last time when, in at least some places somewhere in the world, for quite a while, not much changed?

[zompist]

Which makes me wonder: which was the last time when, in at least some places somewhere in the world, for quite a while, not much changed?

Depends on how you look at it. Politics is always tumultous. But the bulk of humanity, it never mattered very much who was on top. Wars were just another affliction, like famines and floods and plagues.

In terms of everyday life for the peasantry, you could say that life in Italy didn't change much between 300 BCE and 200 CE... or between 1100 and 1400 CE. The basics of the Chinese Empire, apart from the rulers, didn't spectacularly change between 900 and 1800 BCE. Japan was famously static in the Tokugawa era.

There was technological and cultural change, of course. You can make the Middle Ages sound pretty dynamic if you want, especially if you concentrate more on the middle and upper classes. But it's not hard to think of things that did change life for the peasants: new crops, better yokes or plows, mills, different market structure, changes in religion, etc.

Maybe one way of putting it into perspective is this: in what eras are old people considered out of touch, unable to help with current problems?

[xxx]

in truth, nothing changes,
except circumstances...

between birth and death,
men are always the same,

with the same needs,
the same limitations,
and the same aspirations...

[Raphael]

Thank you, zompist.

in truth, nothing changes,
except circumstances...

This meal is vegetarian, except for the big steak in the middle.

[xxx]

in truth, nothing changes,
except circumstances...

This meal is vegetarian, except for the big steak in the middle.

you get it...

[xxx]

Maybe one way of putting it into perspective is this: in what eras are old people considered out of touch, unable to help with current problems?

not yet this year...

[Raphael]

Maybe one way of putting it into perspective is this: in what eras are old people considered out of touch, unable to help with current problems?

not yet this year...

Well, given the number of complaints about having to choose between those two...

[Raphael]

I don't really get the idea of an "overlong book". The only context where I think that concept makes sense is if you're assigned books - in class or something - so you're reading them not because you want but because you have to, and then, there's a book among them that you don't like. In that case, of course, it's the worse for you the longer it is.

But if you actually enjoy reading a book, then why would you complain about it if there's more of the book for you to read?

Besides, many people who read will cheerfully read trilogies or even longer series. If you're used to doing that, and there's a book where you think it's too long, why not just pretend to yourself that it's an omnibus edition of something that was originally a multipart series?

[xxx]

too long is when it falls out of our hands,
when you like you don't count...

[WeepingElf]

I think what is meant with an "overlong" or "too long" book is a book that includes too many filler passages and digressions which do nothing to advance the plot. Things that could be removed or shortened without crippling the narrative. Of course, it is all a matter of taste.

[xxx]

TV series or novels in multilogies abound in filler,
but the addiction they provoke makes the public hooked,
to the point where I think the time out is more important than the action,
to install in an outside the real world and time...

[Torco]

I think i get something similar regarding anime: one of the reasons I don't watch one piece or, say, detective conan, is that there's like seventy million thousand billion episodes. I'm not sure exactly what about this fact discourages me, but perhaps it is a sense of "oh, golly, that'll eat up so much of my life", assigning some expected enjoyment to the finishing of the work besides what one obtains out of each episode consumed. this would compound, vis a vis books in form traditional, with the sheer mass of the cellullose.

[bradrn]

I just discovered that things related to the major Pictish kingdom of Fortriu are called Verturian.

[Man in Space]

I just discovered that things related to the major Pictish kingdom of Fortriu are called Verturian.

Albion ~ Almea

[Raphael]

Serious question: At which time did explicit sex scenes in "mainstream" novels published in major Western countries become unremarkable? I mean, back in the Victorian Age, while there was, of course, an underground trade in "dirty" books, I guess the kind of books that people would publicly admit they read probably didn't contain anything explicit. But by the last years of the 20th century, you could generally assume that, on any given day, out of all the books on the fiction bestseller lists for a major Western country, at least some would contain explicit (straight) sex. If not the serious literature, then at least the entertainment fiction.

So, what I'm wondering is, at which time did this change happen?

[zompist]

Serious question: At which time did explicit sex scenes in "mainstream" novels published in major Western countries become unremarkable?

You'd need experts to give you a better answer, but my very rough estimate would be: in the 1940s in English, in the 1800s in French.

In both cases there were scandalous predecessors, often banned or hard to get, e.g. Ulysses (1922), Lady Chatterley's Lover (1929), Tropic of Cancer (1934); Les liaisons dangereuses (1782), Justine (1791). But within a generation or two you could have explicit sex in mainsteam novels.

But this raises the question, when did Western literature get so prudish? Because medieval literature didn't shy away from the explicit.

[malloc]

But this raises the question, when did Western literature get so prudish? Because medieval literature didn't shy away from the explicit.

Now there is quite a surprising claim. Considering how fanatically religious they were, I struggle to imagine Mediæval literature allowing anything beyond furtive glances.

[Travis B.]

But this raises the question, when did Western literature get so prudish? Because medieval literature didn't shy away from the explicit.

Now there is quite a surprising claim. Considering how fanatically religious they were, I struggle to imagine Mediæval literature allowing anything beyond furtive glances.

Read Under der linden (no, I don't mean Unter den Linden).