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Dr. Word Person

@drwordperson.bsky.social

320 followers 1.1K following 1.3K posts

Linguist with an interest in various dead languages (Ancient Greek, Hittite, Sanskrit, Latin...) Ph.D. UCLA, Indo-European Studies; currently an MS student at Uni Stuttgart. Native of Texas. I enjoy lutes, languages, plants, recorders, and rocks.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

Anyway, hooray for bikes.

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

Anyway, I wish that everywhere used this sort of city planning. Getting around by bike did not make it harder to do anything, was a complete game-changer for my happiness and level of fitness, and the cyclists/cycling infrastructure did not at the same time make things worse for me as a driver.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

Some notes:

-- My town had dedicated bike paths in places, and bike parking almost everywhere

-- Car speed limit on city roads was 30 kilometers per hour (18 mph), and some areas were exclusive pedestrian/cycle zones.

-- Cyclists were everywhere. Even grandmas ride bikes!

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

After your errands, do you want to experience the joy of nature? That's cool, you can take your bike and literally ride straight into the woods.

The only place where car wins are (1) large cargo loads, and (2) point-to-point transport between places not well served by train.

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

The doctor? The pharmacy? The city center? Ten minutes. Nearly the same as a car! And you can park CLOSER to where you need to be.

Need to go into the big city? Bike to the train station. And then you can-- get this-- take the bike with you ON THE TRAIN.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

Want to go to the grocery store? Bike to any of three grocery stores in less than five minutes. Between the bike basket and a backpack, I can get the food home easily. Comparable door to door travel time as a car, and less annoying-- you don't need to parallel park a bike!

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2h

I spent the summer on the outskirts of a town with 30,000 people and good (but not excellent) bike infrastructure, and getting around by bike was absolutely the best transportation experience of my life.

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 2d

“Now Scientific American has updated and re-released what it calls the “classic graphic” that shows that a human on a bicycle—able to coast, or freewheel, without pedaling—remains the world’s most energy effecient traveler.” @carltonreid.com on the re-release of the iconic graph in @forbes.com.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 22h

I stomped around in the woods collecting edible mushrooms.

Next steps: mushroom cream sauce, dried mushrooms.

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 23h

Meanwhile ancient Greek, and by extension Latin, picked up an enormous amount of material from various cultures in the ancient Near East, Semitic and otherwise. Gilgamesh got picked up (probably from the Assyrians) and recycled into...the Iliad.

Western literature.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 23h

And the older versions of these language subfamilies (Old English, ancient Greek, Latin, Avestan, Sanskrit, etc.) share most of the same themes, story structures, and poetic devices?

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 23h

I also get mad at the definition of "western"! Did you know that most European languages (excluding Basque, Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, and some others that are more obscure) share a common origin with Iranian languages like Farsi, and various north Indian languages?

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

I am currently eating a German bakery item that seems to be a banana wrapped in marshmallow cream (?) laid out on a cookie and dipped in chocolate. I have to give this one an A+. Why has no one else thought of this?

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

Okay but which famous figure from literature gets to jump scare you?

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

I love road trip novels and I love unattainable loves, so it hits all the right notes for me!

But it has a progression rather than a plot and so I think it confounds most Western storytelling schemas.

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

Gorgeous travelogue as the protagonist tells the messenger how to get to the object of yearning.

Messenger arrives, Protagonist tells messenger what the message is and how to recognize the object of yearning by how awesome they are.

The end!

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

Protagonist is yearning for someone, who is not there. Very yearning much sad.

They want to send a message and, in their grief, pick someone to carry a message who cannot possibly carry a message. Clouds, swan, wind, etc. The obvious impossibility is noted.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

I really love the Messenger Poem structure, originally developed in Indian literature after one poem by Kalidasa, The Cloud Messenger, was so awesome that it sparked a whole genre. Key elements--

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

You look RADIANT.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

You can eat sweet potato vines?

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

...but if you're really badass you say you're making your poem like a ship or a chariot.

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

In various ancient Indo-European traditions with very highly developed poetic craft, like, the people producing the Simone Bileses of lyric (e.g. in ancient Greek, Sanskrit...), the poets' own descriptions of making a poem are all craft metaphors! Textiles especially...

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 1d

In your heart is a song, and that song is pork.

(I would have done it, too! Also from the South.)

Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2d

With Deutsche Bahn it's always about the journey 😂

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2d

Also, I am writing this while waiting for the bus, which is late.

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Dr. Word Person @drwordperson.bsky.social · 2d

I did something like that yesterday! I was late for the train...but the train was even later. Win?