palimpsest

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sardith
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palimpsest

Postby sardith » Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:01 am

Hello word lovers,

I know that this is an older word, but I have run into this quote, and I would like a fuller understanding of it. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
Sardith :)


“Language is an archeological vehicle...the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.” ~Russell Hoban, award winning American science fiction author~

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Slava
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Postby Slava » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:58 pm

Hi sardith,

I don't know if you saw these earlier posts, but they might help you here:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=196

http://www.alphadictionary.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3876

The first one has lots of comments, but off on a tangent about English words with diacritical marks.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

sardith
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palimpsest

Postby sardith » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:32 pm

Thank you, Slava,

I had looked up the word using the Alpha Dictionary index, so I had read the entry, but I did not see any of the comments with it. Perhaps I am not accessing it the correct way? :?

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Slava
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Postby Slava » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:43 pm

I expect you looked in the home page archives. For the Agora you need to use the Search option near the top right of the page. That will find every use of whatever word you put in. That way you see suggestions and other places the word has been employed.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

sardith
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Posts: 267
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:21 am
Location: Central California

palimpsest

Postby sardith » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:46 pm

Ahhh, wonderful....you can teach an old lady new tricks!

Bless you! :D

MTC
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Postby MTC » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:08 pm

Sardith, you may be interested to learn (in the event you do not know already) that Freud compared the unconscious to a palimpsest on which earlier inscriptions can still be seen below the most recent inscriptions. Traumatic memories, like earlier inscriptions, can be retrieved and "erased" through Psychoanalysis. Freud based his conception of the unconscious in part upon John Locke's concept of the mind as "tabula rasa." A good metaphor goes a long way...

sardith
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palimpsest

Postby sardith » Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:39 pm

Oh really, wasn't aware that that was Dr. Freud's conception of analysis. This may be simplifying a bit, but was he suggesting that people take their waxy selves to his office to have traumatic memories melted off their unconscious and smoothed out so that they could go out and have new memories stamped on? Yikes! :roll:

MTC
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Postby MTC » Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:51 pm

Whether Freud would endorse your waxy analogy I really do not know, at least without a seance; but you do seem to have invented a new metaphor for memory--cerography.

sardith
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palimpsest

Postby sardith » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:14 pm

Well, he certainly could've melted a plethora of wax with all of those cigars he was accustomed to smoking incessantly.

MTC
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Postby MTC » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:54 pm

He was quite a fan of phallic symbols.

sardith
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palimpsest

Postby sardith » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:12 am

It is true, but then he did say,
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." :lol:

MTC
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Postby MTC » Thu Mar 24, 2011 7:36 pm

Yes, he did say that, but rather conveniently after spending years explaining why things longer than they are wide are indeed phallic symbols!

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Slava
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Re: palimpsest

Postby Slava » Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:12 pm

“Language is an archeological vehicle...the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.” ~Russell Hoban, award winning American science fiction author~
Going all the way back to the original post, I think I may have a bit of an explanation for this quote.

I just started reading "Et Cetera, Et Cetera" by Lewis Thomas. As I say, I just started it, but one theme does already come up, and that is the idea that all the meanings of a word and its roots are always there for us to work with. We may think of language as what we see and understand right this moment, but it all has a history. No matter how we try to obliterate it and make it a palimpsest, the roots are always going to be there. Try as you might, a squirrel will always mean a shadow tail, etc. Traces of the past remain.

I guess that's why it's called history.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

MTC
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Postby MTC » Fri Mar 25, 2011 5:42 am

That's right. We cannot judge a word by its appearance anymore than we can judge a book by its cover.

sardith
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palimpsest

Postby sardith » Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:06 am

Excellent points.

I think that is why I look forward to the Word History section of the Good Doctor's column every day the most. :)


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