{ lost in translation. }

[delga]

Woke up at the usual time which I near to a miracle because I didn't fall asleep until 1.30am. The Mother told me yesterday that she's going to call this morning which means I'll hear from her after 10am. Later today we should be getting our washer/dryer to replace the 'temp' washer we've got; also, the landlord called to tell us that some people will be here to see the house so, you know, joy.

Will basically be spending the day reading because I have four texts to read from ths week, not three. I also need to do the extra reading for On Reading today because of the 'presentation' N and I are doing.

Aaaand I just realised that the money I took out of the bank this week was unnecessary because The Dad gave me some when I left London a week ago. Wtf.

--

Hee, for the person that asked:

Words like children and people already denote a plural form. So when you're making them genitive (possessive), you just add 's. We called it the rule of thumb. Cover up the apostrophe and everything that comes after it and whatever word is left tells you whether it's singular or plural. Examples:

The boy's socks.
The people's sheep.
The girls' tennis shoes.

Apply the rule of thumb and you get: boy, people, girls; singular, plural, plural. My problem with everyones/everyone's is that in the case of the genitive, does it need an apostrophe, or is it like its? I don't think it is, but recently it's been a cause for consternation.

And for the two of you that care, the reason we use possessive apostrophes is for he same reason we use apotrophes in words like don't - there's a letter missing. The (regular) genetive form used to be denoted by -es. Also, irregular plurals such as oxen and children (using -en) are actually using a pluralisation used by a northern English dialect. A long, long, long, long time ago, people further north used to call eggs iren. It's just the way the northern dialects made plurals.

Thus endeth the class.

--

And now some more poetry by Zbigniew Herbert.

Daedalus & Icarus.
Translated by Marek Lugowski

Daedalus says:

Go on sonny but remember that you are walking and not flying
the wings are just an ornament and you are stepping on a meadow
that warm gust is just the humid earth of summer
and that cold one is a brook
the sky is full of leaves and small animals


Icarus says:

The eyes like two stones return straight to earth
and see a farmer who knocks asunder oily till
a grub which wiggles in a furrow
bad grub which cuts the bond of a plant with the earth


Daedalus says:

Sonny this is not true The Cosmos is merely light
and earth is a bowl of shadows Look as here colors play
dust rises from above the sea smoke rises to the sky
of noblest atoms a rainbow sets itself now


Icarus says:

Arms hurt father from this beating at vacuum
legs are getting numb and miss thorns and sharp stones
I cannot keep looking at the sun as you do father
I sunken whole in the dark rays of the earth


Description of the catastrophe:

Now Icarus falls down head first
the last frame of him is a glimpse of a heal childlike small
being swallowed by the devouring sea
Up above the father cries out the name
which no longer belongs to a neck or a head
but only to a remembrance


Commentary:

He was so young did not understand that wings are just a metaphor
a bit of wax and feathers and a contempt for the laws of gravitation
I cannot hold a body at an elevation of a great many feet
The essence of the matter is in having our hearts
which are coursed by heavy blood
fill with air
and this very thing Icarus did not want to accept

let us pray

by Zbigniew Herbert.