Today I stumbled into two odd things: a curiosity and a rather depressing news.
" The Naming of Cats "
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
it isn't just one of your holiday games;
you may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
when I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
all of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
but all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
a name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
and that is the name that you never will guess;
the name that no human research can discover--
but THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
the reason, I tell you, is always the same:
his mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of His name: His ineffable
effable
effanineffable
deep and inscrutable singular Name.
Thomas Stearns Eliot - Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)
I've always been quite a musical fan, but from about a year now, "Cats" came strongly into my daily life and, with him, the collection of poems from which the texts are taken: "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." In
hilarious "The Naming of Cats" is an expression that, with "Alice in Wonderland 'in theaters (among other things, I'm going to definitely see) comes to mind often: "as mad as a hatter " - "mad as a hatter."
The origin of this expression, it seems, is not clear, but a good case that some make is that it derives from the usual sad consueguenze (popular until the nineteenth century) to use mercury-based compound in the working Felt hats to produce: the residues of the metal through the skin, were absorbed by the hatters had / have the effect of producing neurological disorders that have given rise to the figure of speech.
So much for curiosity.
The depressing news, however, I read the newspaper during lunch: apparently, the University of Florence did not quite sufficient funding to cover, from the end of the next academic year, the chair of Etruscologia.
The current teacher, who at the respectable age of 70 years is about to retire and that is contrary to the period of further two-year extension that could take - so that has not required - at this time was the speaker of 26 thesis (I think from the first and second levels ...), but the news of his upcoming retirement, despite the Faculty of Arts if you're doing to try to be able to fill the post which would then be discovered desolately, throws into disarray the Tuscan etruscologi aspirants of the University - there is some One might wonder why - according to the author, could migrate to different shores (Pisa, Siena and Bologna ... just to name three universities where etrusologia you study and you can make your own address Study ...).
course, a student of physics I did not think - until I began to see the other side of the fence because of my Moretta - that humans had problems all'insegamento research funding and, as I was convinced that given the unfortunate tendency to regard culture Italic series A and series B the humanistic scientific one, for they were a bit 'easier, but having no way of knowing that they are made even worse by scientists There is not a little sad ...
University of Florence without teacher Etruscologia ... seems to me only or is yet another nail in the coffin of the Italian university?
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