I’m not very good at being topical (watch out for a hot take on the word dotard some time before the end of the week!) This is largely due to the fact that I write my posts the day before I publish them. You see, I used to publish them as soon as I wrote them, but some days I was tired, or it was a little difficult to write exactly what I wanted to, and I felt pressured and annoyed and just wanted to get it done.
Space may produce new worlds; whereof so rife,
There went a fame in Heaven that he ere long,
Intended to create, and therein plant,
A generation, whom his choice regard,
Should favor equal to the sons of Heaven:
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
I suppose, after talking about Earth and earth yesterday, there’s a certain logic to today having a look at the word space. Like earth, it’s got two very different levels of meaning, which are still quite similar.
Look at Daisy up there, simply enjoying the warmth of the sun, as only a dog really can. What a life of simple joys a dog lives, one we can all be envious of. Seeing her like that yesterday made me think of the phrase the dog days of summer. A lot of people assume that it refers to the hottest period of the summer, in which dogs are too tired to do anything else but lie in the afternoon heat. I can see the logic in that, but as I’d never looked into the origin of the phrase, I thought now was as good a time as any to do so.
The stars have always been important to us. When our first ancestors first noticed that those strange lights in the sky moved gradually over time, they tried to find explanations for this phenomenon. Perhaps these movements were linked to seasonal changes, and unpredictable, calamitous events. Perhaps they were gods, or great creatures like bears and crabs, manipulating events here on Earth. Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 