Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "Beyond the pale (the Pale of Settlement- דער תּחום-המושבֿ)" video.

  1. I only knew of the root of that expression from its Irish origins, not the wooden fence, or Jewish connotations. I have a few books on etymology, which has always fascinated me, ever since I heard Noam Chomsky explain how the languages we use today are a recent, largely political, development, in a world where it was the norm to speak a range of dialects across all of Europe, with a good chance of being understood and understanding others wherever you went. Whereas, conversely, you could live in Bordeaux and go to Paris and not understand anything people were saying, as recently as two or three hundred years ago. Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle - a series of novels set during the enlightenment, involving spies, pirates, natural philosophy (science), philosophy and all manner of fascinating developments in that period of history - delves rather eloquently into that whole language issue, showing through fiction the manner in which languages evolved and why they were used in the way they were, among a new species of, “vagabond,” and upper classes alike, who suddenly found themselves capable of rapid communications and transport for the first time in human existence. I don’t want to bore you with this digression, but I would only urge you, (if you have time for reading fiction at all?) to read those novels. To a man of your stamp, I cannot think of anything more likely to entertain, make you laugh out loud, and to fascinate you, from an intellectual point of view. I would imagine you read very little fiction in your spare time? But, if you have read Voltaire, Diderot or the lighter works of René Descartes and found them the least bit intriguing, then you will thoroughly enjoy the ingenuity, creativity, subtlety, scholarly knowledge and sheer entertainment value of these books. As always, thank you. This time, for imparting a little knowledge to me which I did not previously have. I do love to learn knew things. ✌️👍
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