I just realized that today is Lady Day – that is, Annunciation. Once upon a time, this was New Year’s Day. It probably derives from the date being originally set on the Spring equinox, which makes a pretty sensible first day of the year if your concept of the world derives from observations of the sun. […]
Tag Archives: manuscripts
1 Spaniard is worth 100 oranges
From SP 94/14 ff. 47-48, Cocks to Wilson as usual: “the news is still confermed that the hollanders haue taken & Sunke all those Spanish gallions, & now is anexed that they haue Carid the Spaniards into Barberry, and Soulde them for Slaues, to say, on[e] Spaniard for 100 of orrenges & 4 or 5 […]
“French news”
Most of the time, Cocks (whose letters I’m working on) includes a disclaimer when he reports on news and rumours of, shall we say, less credibility: “but I doe not beleeve that to be trew / for it is french news” (SP 94/13 f.69r) This made me think of national stereotypes and classic insults, but […]
pig calligraphy
Not depicting pigs, I should say. Look at this example from a calligraphy manual from 1597: Looks like gibberish or code, but then your eye gets accustomed to the nudge in the middle of each letter, and it becomes readable. Voila, ig-pay alligraphy-cay. (The above image was copied from the Digital Scriptorium of Columbia University […]
NaTheWriMo Day 10: Autocorrection (was/were)
It’s still grammatical in some English dialects to say things like “we was going to church” – that is to say, the verb be can occur equally in plural form with a singular referent pronoun, or vice versa – contrary to standard English usage and what we are taught in school. Having read thousands of […]