Re: Has anyone made a real conlang?

Sally Caves scripsit:

> Thank GOD someone finally explained that to me!!  I've been given that
> nomenclature usually sarcastically: Miss "sweetness and light"--meaning that
> I had to be happy-go-lucky, and if I wasn't, I ought to be.
The original context, as far as anyone knows, is Jonathan Swift's _Battle
of the Books_, a fable wherein the ancient and modern authors (represented
by their books) argue which is more beneficial to humanity.  The Ancients
compare themselves to bees:

        As for us, the Ancients, we are content with the bee, to
        pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings and our voice:
        that is to say, our flights and our language.  For the rest,
        whatever we have got has been by infinite labour and search,
        and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is,
        that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to till
        our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the
        two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

But the phrase was really popularized by Matthew Arnold, in the first
part of _Culture and Anarchy_, called "Sweetness and Light".  The
phrase is used many times within the text, but is well-explained at
the beginning of Chapter II:

        I have been trying to show that culture is, or ought to be,
        the study and pursuit of perfection; and that of perfection as
        pursued by culture, beauty and intelligence, or, in other words,
        sweetness and light, are the main characters.


--
They do not preach                              John Cowan
  that their God will rouse them                jcowan@reutershealth.com
    A little before the nuts work loose.        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
They do not teach                               http://www.reutershealth.com
  that His Pity allows them                         --Rudyard Kipling,
    to drop their job when they damn-well choose.   "The Sons of Martha"