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Nothing Compares.

I think i would've loved to major in what has come to be called "Translation Studies", where misunderstandings are the starting point in every issue, & "transparency" is what faster-than-light is to physics, a fairy tale. But i turned away from a career as an actual working translator, because i'd been overly impressed with the idea that words in different languages are completely not interconvertible (Latin being my chief unfortunate example): a "chien" is not a "Hund" is not a "dog" even though they are apparently used for the same things; in German, a dog is part of the class of things-that-can-be-kicked, like a football, while in France a French poodle can be higher than a German professor; in Spanish "puto" is far lower than "perro"... In that view, i would have to know every word in a language before i could translate it truthfully; more, i'd have to live in the exact country where it was used. Later i came to understand how social attitudes can be lifted out of their verbal matrix.

This reminds me, however, of an old notion of mine that, i think, is still worth pursuing. Each language has what might be called its polar axis, or a dichotomy that orders many of its concepts. German's is clean/dirty, but French is elite/vulgar. I suppose Spanish must be masculine-hard vs feminine-soft. Maybe Russian is holy/unholy (overlaid with its Francophile Enlightenment that is only skin-deep): such that only in St Petersburg did Symbolist poems become both secret (elite) AND holy... America? Clearly, popular/unpopular, but with much confusion, since every other binary has been superimposed (often carelessly), till even those of an analytical bent can't decide where a word should go... Sex is popular & fun but also dirty (& healthy?), but matrimony & babies are holy; children are pure. (--I'm sure the more i play this game, the more nonsensical the results.)

--England, of course, is U & non-U, as was figured out long ago.

"Today might have seen the biggest physics discovery of my lifetime."

"Dudes who stare at me like I’m some exotic specimen always look like they we[r]e dressed by their mom." --@mckenziewark

Decoy Apostle.