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This is where Cynda will post her reading challenge and describe her reading progress.

Like many other readers, I have a too-long TBR list. For the last several years, I have attempted to read by topic so that I feel as though I have made progress on a topic or two or three or four. I read about 150 books a year. I can make some progress, or so one would think.

I will come back through to provide links to titles and writers.

All Things Language

KINDLE
1. Lingo by Gaston Dorren

SCRIBD
1.Through the Language Glass (also CCLib)
2. Long Live Latin: The Pleasures of a Useless Language
3. The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of Proper
4. The Secret Life of Pronouns
5. Inventing English: Portable History of the Language
6. On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works
7. I Saw the Dog: How Language Works
8. National Healing: Race, State, and the Teaching of Composition
9. Crucial Conversations: Tools for When the Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, et al. (Told Lena at GR Deweys that I will read.)
10. The Soul of the First Amendment by Floyd Abrams
11. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung by Mao Zedong

HOOPLA
1.Babel travels through twenty languages
2. Watching TV with a Linguist
3. A Theory of Semiotics by Umberto Eco

BOOK SHELF
1. Caught in the Web of Words
2. Men, Women, and Language
3. The Adventure of English
🎒 4. How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die by David Crystal Feb 2023⭐⭐��
5. The Rhetoric of Fiction
🎒 6. Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary by Henry Hitchings April 06 ⭐⭐��
🎒 7. Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History by William J. Bernstein April 30th ⭐⭐��
🎒 8. This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges June 11 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

LIBRARY
1. The Story of Spanish
🎒 2. La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language by Dianne Hales March 19 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
3. Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries
4. The Word Detective: Searching for Meaning of It All
5. A Theory of Semiotics by Umberto Eco

ILL
1. Language--the unknown-- initiation into linguistics
by Julia Kristeva

Here I will list possibilities for language books I will read on 2023. I will list out 25 or 30 or more books. I will commit to 20 books.

Here is where I post the books I have actually read. From here it will be possible to see the difference between the books I thought I would read and what I actually read.

Please feel free
* to make brief comments.
* to share your experiences with a book I have listed.
* to suggest buddy reads.
* to suggest I read 1 or 2 books.

February 2023
How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die by David Crystal
⭐⭐⭐⭐
/review/show...

March 2023
La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language by Dianne Hales
⭐⭐⭐⭐
/review/show...

April 2023

Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary by Henry Hitchings
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Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History by William J. Bernstein April 30 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

May 2023

The Rhetoric of Mao Zedong: Transforming China and Its People by Xing Lu May 16 ��

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December 2023

Rserved 1

Reserved 2

Reserved 3

Reserved 4

Reserved 5

Reserved 6

Buddy Read Welcome to come join a Buddy Read
From here on Cynda and Cosmic will be buddy reading--and hope others will join us--as we read
Masters of the Word: How Media Shaped History from the Alphabet to the Internet by William J. Bernstein.

I will be joining you to read this in April. Thank you for the invite. See you in April.

Yea 🐝

Let me know when you want to start.

I have started Cosmic. I have read the Introduction and Chapter 1. No ideas that are particularly new to me though the ideas are expressed differently from I am used to linguists or rhetoricians talk about the power of the written word (or idea/concept) or about the development of writing.

But this is to be expected as William J Bernstein was a financial theorist and neurologist. I am excited to read further--in about 2 days.

I will start the book tomorrow.

Good. Then in about two days I will be read y to start reading again as I will have finished some books.

I am writing things the way I see it. I am not going to change your point of view on things. I don't like repeatedly saying in an apologetic way "this is how I see it.". This goes without saying. I may not agree with the author...or I might, but this is basically what i find interesting and important.

I thought starting the intro with 1984 made this book feel very edgy. But then asking a question like this:

"Given, then, the ever-advancing nature of surveillance technology, how did the state lose the battle for control of the individual?"

Seemed rather naive.

I read a book by a person that was tortured n Romania for his belief in Jesus Christ. He said that the government would loosen up its grip on the people. People felt freer. But it was deceptive. It went up like the arm of a hammer to strike again....harder.

So also he fails to mention that Hitler disarmed the people. They couldn't defend themselves. They had a gun pointed at them that said get on the train car...and they went to the camps.

In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes and The Technological Society education is essential for propaganda.

So his statement about civilization and reading/writing, technically is correct. Because what is a civilization but control over the masses. They need to be educated by the state. This is what standardized testing is all about. They determine what is science...or true.

I really appreciated what he said about the Nasi collecting sweat so that they could use dogs. Also was not lost on me that it was the doctors.

This of course has nothing to do with language.

Even though he mentions pictures along with hieroglyphs i was disappointed he didn't say anything about petroglyphs. I have a Paleoclimentologist that i watch on YouTube that studies these, especially in the four corners, but he has been all over the world.

The "corn laws" were interesting!

Interesting because this was during the

Sounds like they probably knew there would be a famine since they understand the solar cycles. When there is low solar activity there is high cosmic rays that penetrate the earth and create move volcanic activity and ash...and clouds...and no summer and no growing season.

Okay. Glad to hear you will not be apologetic. . . . . .I will read some of the book tonight starting in about an hour.

"Later, radio and television stations were, similarly, so costly that they and their enormous propaganda potential were either directly run, or at least closely regulated, by the state."

This is not true just of these medias but also the universities where people are trained how to report the news.

"This cycle, in which cutting-edge communications technologies are first acquired by the state and employed to oppress the population, and then are embraced and controlled by the general population, thus enabling the people to take back power, is nothing new."

This statement is completely moronic! Do you own a TV station? Ronald Reagan made it where TV conglomerates could buy up huge markets...doing away with mom and pop television stations. And even radio is mostly done by syndicated programming. This is not a free press. Propaganda isn't free. It cost money to pay for that air time and the largest contributors of that is the pharmaceutical companies. So it might be very interesting to study the history of pharmaceutical companies and the "state". (I just got through reading Infinite Jestand last yearInglorious Empire: What the British Did to India)

When i think about lobby money for a particular vaccine...and all the payoffs. The word " state" really means ...to repeat George Orwell

"It follows that British democracy is less of a fraud than it sometimes appears. A foreign observer sees only the huge inequality of wealth, the unfair electoral system, the governing-class control over the press, the radio and education, and concludes that democracy is simply a polite name for dictatorship." From The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

So do we have a free press?

I have a link to put here but my internet is super slow tonight.

What chapter are you reading Cosmic? So I better connect what you're reading and what you're saying.

I read the Introduction and chapter 1. I stared looking at my highlights from the introduction.

I want to know more about the paleoclimentologist you follow. Will you post a link here or on a private message, either way?

Reading Chapter 1: Origins.
Some Book Links.

about Little Ice Age
In 2016 Iread one book of Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 and have long wanted to read more of his books. I will do a STEM study next year and will read some of his books then.

about Mathematical Abstraction.
In 2020 I read The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics by Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive neuroscientist. Very informative.
My review and quotes: /review/show...

about Mesopotamia.
In 2022 I read Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. In this book can be found a description of the complexity of the city and the region, both needing writing to develop business and administrative capabilities. . . . .I will need to reread before being able to write a review. So much information can be found here.

I love it that you are a serious reader. I also like the kinds of books you are interested in!!

I will write more tomorrow.

Okay.
I am grateful to have friends who read with me. I entertain or learn new ideas, get different aspect.

One final comment about Chapter 1: Origins:
Future clergy members, administrators (including scribes), and business people depended on receiving rhetorical education. Along the way, they often learned Latin and Greek. Thks was true into the Ear!y Modern Period and somewhat into the mid-19th century and sometimes in the 20th century.

Reading Chapter 2
about ancient Greek epics.
To find a better description of how Homer used memory and language to recite The Iliad and The Odyssey, I reccommend reading Why Homer Matters by Adam Nicolson. I read this book, but I cannot find the book listed among my read books.

Another worthwhile book about The Odyssey is An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn. More about literary analysis rather than language analysis, though.

Reading Chapter 2
about Greek plays

As late at the sixth century BC, public renditions of the orally derived classics, prime among which were the Homeric epics, were "staged" in the traditional fashion: by a solo performer who simply recounted the narrative in formulaic verse.

Even when multiple performers came on stage, the text was still formulaic enough that we modern readers can have difficulty reading the written text. Example: Euripides' plays. Here is my review of Euripides's The Trojan Women: /review/show...

Reading Chapter 2
about Laws before and after Written.

Although some rulers continued to claim divine rights into the Early Modern Period and although those rulers could become tyrannical, the written laws continued to gain power and the rulers continue to lose power. I have just finished reading The Robe where the emperor has power to condemn people to death because the law disallows practicing Christianity, but the emperor seems a fool for pressing the issue. No consisent effort made. Effort made for personal reasons of the emperor. Now this could not happen so easily. We are all about the written law, and fewer and fewer are above the law.

Reading Chapter 2
about the Development of Rhetoric.

If you were a playwright, literacy and word abilities could get you in and out of trouble. In the 5th century BC, rhetoric was being developed to help playwrights and others get out of legal trouble.

Example of early play that shows the use of legal rhetoric: The Eumenides (The furies) of Aeschylus, the final play of the trilogy The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides by Aeschylus. My review: /review/show...
Open the spoiler to see my comments about the legal rhetoric/courtroom play.

Reading Chapter 2
about Ostracism, Literacy, and Participatory Government.

We have ways of ostracizing political personages not wanted or no longer wanted. We vote someone else in. We provide little hope or support for further political efforts. And we call politicians to account/to court.

Literacy in law, government, politics both domestic and international, and social issues are required for those serving at the federal level.

And we know the issues of voting, emailing, protesting, marching.

These things may look different from ancient times, but the basic theory remains the same.

And without literacy, like among the Helots or American slaves, participation in government is limited.

I went back and looked more deeply at the introduction and chapter 1. I think my first reaction was that because I wasn't familiar with this ancient history just to skim over it as fast as possible. I started listening to a video about mind maps and decided to take better notes.

I thought it was interesting that he mentions different verses of the Bible but fails to mention that Abraham was from Ur. I am not sure where in history this is because I am ignorant of ancient history.

So I read what you wrote about the climate and revolutions in a book review. I want to add this

Checkout this man


Chizhevsky proposed that not only did geomagnetic storms resulting from sunspot-related solar flares affect electrical usage, plane crashes, epidemics and grasshopper infestations, but human mental life and activity. Increased negative ionization in the atmosphere increased human mass excitability. Chizhevsky proposed that human history is influenced by the eleven-year peaks in sunspot activity, triggering humans en masse to act upon existing grievances and complaints through revolts, revolutions, civil wars and wars between nations.[8]

He analyzed sunspot records (and approximated records), comparing them to riots, revolutions, battles and war in Russia and seventy-one other countries for the period 500 BCE to 1922 CE. (A process known as historiometry.) He found that a significant percent of what he classified as the most important historical events involving large numbers of people occurred around sunspot maximum. Edward R. Dewey, founder of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, analyzed and published his data in 1951 in the Foundation's publications.[9] In a 1971 book Dewey described the "four components" of Chizhevsky's eleven-year cycle and their approximate lengths: 1) a three-year period of minimum activity characterized by passivity and autocratic rule; 2) a two-year period during which masses begin to organize under new leaders and one theme; 3) a three-year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war; 4) a three-year period of gradual decrease in excitability until the masses are apathetic. Dewey questioned Chizhevsky's theory because in Chizhevsky's data, the sunspot cycle height lagged about a year ahead his "mass excitability index."[10]

I have on my tbr list Solar History: The Connection of Solar Activity, War, Peace and the Human Mind in the 2nd Millennium

And

Solar Behavior: How Solar- and Geomagnetic Conditions shape Human History, the current Self- Destruction Attempt of the West and the new Golden Age

I will be super busy until evening of April 12th. I see you links. I will take closer look then.

This is one of my favorite parts of the book so far:

"They don’t make archaeologists like Flinders Petrie any more."

(Probably because of standardized testing. Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World of Compulsory Schooling)

"Young Willie, as he was called, quickly demonstrated a thirst for knowledge; by age nine, he had digested his father’s thousand-page chemistry text. Nothing, however, fascinated him as much as old objects, particularly his mother’s collection of minerals and fossils.

"After Willie had a disastrous experience with an overly strict governess/tutor, his physician recommended that he be kept out of school, so he never obtained a formal education. He soon fell under the influence of a self-educated polymath, N. T. Riley, the proprietor of a local antique shop. Petrie thrived amid Riley’s collection of tripods, sextants, and coins, and under his tutelage became an expert surveyor and numismatist.

" In Riley’s shop, Petrie acquired a talent for authenticating rare coins. This, in turn, attracted the attention of a customer of Riley’s, the Coins and Medals curator at the British Museum. By age twenty-one Petrie was awarded a coveted reader’s ticket at the museum, which became his university. In addition, Petrie’s surveying skills turned him into a meticulous archaeologist."

Because I value a self taught person!!

Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid by Charles Piazzi Smyth

The Formation of the Alphabet by William Matthew Flinders Petrie

Cynda wrote: "I will be super busy until evening of April 12th. I see you links. I will take closer look then."

That's fine I will have times like this also this month. We will just write as we can.

"While mass literacy requires both a simplified alphabet and readily available writing implements, they are not in and of themselves sufficient. Literacy is also spurred by two other conditions: prosperity, which gives people the leisure to pursue it; and urbanization, which provides the critical mass of human contact to propagate it."

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World of Compulsory Schooling says leisure time was crucial in making people literate in the 1800's. No doubt the availability of printed material also helped. But we have plenty of printed material today but we are not as literate.

I think about Charles Dicken and how his stories were so popular they would wait on the docks to get the next addition of the magazine. Some were even killed on the docks as the crowd pressed in.

Maybe. Maybe not. Part of nation building was developing a basic literacy, and that basic literacy was pretty basic. Example: The newspapers for the masses were image-dependent. Consider propaganda and fear as news and how image-dependent that can be. Below is my review of The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold ]bookcover:The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper|37570548]


my review
In 1888 London was overcrowded. The district of Whitechapel even more so. The busy-ness of street life and the blanket of foggy dark can provide cover for murders done efficiently and without struggle.

We have seen the newspaper articles printed to sell papers to the semi-literate, heard the women called "prostitute", knew the women were killed in or near the infamous Whitechapel district. Sometimes we forget that reading materials geared for the semi literate often tend to be graphic, slightly incorrect, and much exaggerated. We forget that "prostitute" can describe many women's experience, even some who are married. We forget that women's living in Whitechapel can be not of their choice, is not necessarily a reflection of their character though maybe a determiner of their options.

I encourage all who want to meet these five canonical to come meet the women here. Rubenhold has sought to set the record straight on the nature of these women's characters. Only one of these women was a prostitute.

A Challenge. Will you join me for the month of March, Women's history Month, to remember to acknowledge women who we as a society often chose to ignore or forget. All I ask you do is to open your heart and eyes, to be open to the possibility of acknowledging a human being that you will never in this lifetime be a friend of. Women will step into your space/near space. Women's history month belongs to those women too. What will you do?. . . .If you will ask me what I have done recently in the comments below, I will tell you.

Reading Chapter 3. This is where in history I start to recognize historical elements. I have just read the historical fiction The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas, a novel where many of the elements described here in our nonfiction book were at least touched upon in the historical novel.

In this novel were the emperors, senators, legates, farmers, trademen, pagans, Jewish, Christians, rich and poor, men, women, children, justice and injustice, life, death, and resurrection.

The senator and the legate had leadership skills, warrior skills, and some literacy. Yet it was the Greek slave-companion who was more literate and wise, though not as wise as the literate Jewish weaver, though probably more literate than the Christian leadership. . . .much like our book.