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Re: Constructive linguistics

From:Muke Tever <hotblack@...>
Date:Tuesday, February 22, 2005, 16:17
David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
> Sally wrote: > > << > We've talked before about the ludicrous fantasy of the "exact" map: one > that is the size of the land it maps. Wasn't that Borges who came up with > that? > >> > > Indeed it was. That was in _The Chronicles of Bustos Domecq_, if I > remember rightly.
There's an exact map in Lewis Carroll's _Sylvie and Bruno Concluded_ as well: << "What a useful thing a pocket-map is!" I remarked. "That's another thing we've learned from _your_ Nation," said Mein Herr, "map-making. But we've carried it much further than _you_. What do you consider the _largest_ map that would be really useful?" "About six inches to the mile." "Only _six inches!"_ exclaimed Mein Herr. "We very soon got to six _yards_ to the mile. Then we tried a _hundred_ yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a _mile to the mile!"_ "Have you used it much?" I enquired. "It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So now we use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well." >> Sounds about right. *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/ deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/ FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki: http://wiki.frath.net/