Maxim 7 Slander

Do you know how long it would take the Yahoo groups to go through this? They'd take

That means for-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ver.

Shhh, shhhh, shhhh. Don't tell them I said this, but *whispers*  they're terribly slow.

It was more fun this time. I have a new approach based on what I internalized last time. The new approach is look for the essential elements, isolate those and let the minor elements around them take care of themselves. They're prepositions and tense markers and gender markers and determinatives, enclitic elements and random goofy trash.

Just as our prepositions interchange and overlap, so do theirs, so it does no good to fuss about whether the owl or the water zigzag means "by" or "in" or "through" or "vinegar douche" early on before the crucial elements are established. Then, after they are established, the little things all become clear which preposition or other odd end it must be. 

Did you know the preposition "at" gives Spanish speakers no end of difficulty as they learn English? There is no word for "at" in Spanish, the concept doesn't exist. It stops them cold as they are learning, they're all, "wha-a-a-a-a-a-t?" The idea of "at" seems strange to them. They shoot a gun "to" someone, or throw a ball "to" a catcher. They hurl invectives "to" someone but not at them. What does "at" mean, anyway? It means somebody or some thing is a target. And they can be hit or not. 

Allen is going on what he is reading in hieratic, and the originals are very sloppy. Slap dash, on rough materials. Crudely drawn and crammed together in places to force-fit them onto the page in spaces between lines. Today I noticed Allen has a little round bowl where a small circle belongs.

And they mean different things!

This maxim is not about slander. I don't know why they named it that. It's a about being a good messenger. To be true to the message. And not to engage in gossip. And the class thing again, never bad mouth one noble against another. 

I had fun with this today. My new approach that de-emphasizes the intermediary transliterations is more fun. It's like a thematic crossword puzzle. Once you get all the main entries and grasp the theme, then you win. Everything else is just crossword fill. That's what crossword constructors call it, "fill." Then, the necessary little insignificant stones crammed in-between the crucial large stones that make the wall are just there. Let them be whatever they want.