Current
(Copyright Jonathan Swift 1726-7)
Writing machine art taken from the original English edition
When I see, read, or hear things about our glorious high-tech future (and present for that matter) it puts me in mind of Guliver’s Travels. Not the bit about the Lilliputians, a tired allusion at any rate, but rather of Gulliver’s lesser cited visit to Balnibarbi, what you might call an early progressive society run by an academic elite.
Excerpts from Guliver’s Travels, Part III – A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan:
Swift relates Gulliver’s conversation with a Balnibarbian explaining the local way of things:
The sum of his discourse was to this effect: “That about forty years ago, certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came back with a very little smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in that airy region: that these persons, upon their return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot. To this end, they procured a royal patent for erecting an academy of projectors in Lagado; and the humour prevailed so strongly among the people, that there is not a town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy. In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals.
“The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life, without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.”
Swift’s description of the writing machine at the academy of Lagado:
“Perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge, by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness; and he flattered himself, that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other man’s head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.” He then led me to the frame, about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without any order.
The professor then desired me “to observe; for he was going to set his engine at work.” The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.
Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour; and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials, to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their several collections.
Filed 1/31/25
Mr. Word Tells You — Write More Better
Make your writing more dynamic, get readers to sit up and pay attention; whenever possible use the active voice which engages the reader more directly than the passive voice. Take the following examples:
Poor (passive voice): “Last night Bill Gates was shot by a disgruntled employee.”
Such wimpy verbiage doesn’t engage the reader, but leaves them flat and bored, the audience yawns and turns on the TV instead.
Better (active voice): “Last night a disgruntled employee shot Bill Gates.”
Now that’s something people would like to read.
Filed 8/23/24
Besides Saint Peter at the legendary pearly gates of Heaven, not as well know is Saint Elmo at Heaven’s complaint desk where one recent day a disgruntled Boomer newcomer grumbles, “What goes on here? Don’t I get a harp, wings and halo?”
“First, you don’t play the harp.” explains the saint. “Next, only angels have wings. Lastly, you aren’t a saint, you’re just dead.”
The newbie growls, “That’s unacceptable. I demand to see a lawyer.”
“Go to Hell.”
“Hey! That’s a rotten thing to say.”
“Well, You’re the one that wanted to see a lawyer.”
Filed 1/22/25
“I wouldn't worry about it. Having an imaginary friend
is fairly common and quite harmless.”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery
Top Ten Articles of Faith in 2024
Filed 1/17/25
Top Ten “Trending” Trends in 2024
Filed 1/15/25
Top Ten Things Establishment Elites Learned from the Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East in 2024
Filed 1/10/25
Hover to open book
Thus we wind up the series with the only actual quote from, as the DOJ has it, “an elderly man with a bad memory.”
Filed in The Little Read Book of Uncle Joe Squarehair 1/8/25
Parse, punctuate, capitalize or whatever the following so they make sense:
What? Gibberish, right? Nope. They are all proper English that make sense. Just not obvious sense. If there’s such a thing as devious sense this is it. These are them? That can’t be right. Anyway, before I go completely off the beam, here are those statements made coherent:
Still don’t get the last one? Understandable. That’s because buffalo can be a proper name of a city, an animal, or a verb. With that in mind you get:
To make it super clear we use the alternative plural of bison, bisons; plus an optional comma to mark where a slight pause helps:
This last one is a garden-path sentence, I think. At any rate a garden-path sentence is a grammatically correct statement that at first seems to be saying one thing but isn’t and so must be reread and reinterpreted to make sense. For insance “The old man the boat.” Most take “the old man” to be determiner – adjective – noun, but when “the boat” follows it makes no sense because there’s no verb. The correct interpretation of “the old man” is determiner – noun – verb, as in “The old (are the persons who) man the boat.”
If that isn’t clear there’s more at: Garden-path Sentence
Filed 1/3/25
“Yegads! Here’s Another One!” —Mortimer Brewster
Filed 1/1/25
