⭐
Pretentious mouse
“I’d gladly brave a trap for the perfect Camembert”
“If we want to see a little local colour, I know the perfect hole in the wall”
“Well… in a manner of squeaking, yes”
Dec 20, 2023
Related Recs
After seeing this post (by daphne) about vulvic imagery in medieval Christian texts, I decided (due to a combination of puzzle-solving curiosity and ADHD) to try to translate the text. I’ll let you fill in the very apropos linguist joke on your own 🤭
Anyway, I won’t bury the lead, so here are my translations. Scroll down for more detail on the process!
Transcription:
Nous monstre tres dous dier me tresguint largesce
Quant vousistes pour nous souffrir tant de destresce
Literal translation (attempt!):
(It [this image]/God) shows us (this) very soft/sweet door, (which) signals generosity to me
When you (God) wanted us to suffer so much distress
Freeish translation:
To present us such a pleasant portal is, to me, a grand gesture of generosity
When you’ve willed us so much woe
———
Ok so here’s what I did. I speak French decently, and at first glance it looked like Old/Middle French.
After eyeballing it a little, I needed to look up medieval script to see if I was reading the letters properly. As I was doing this I was cross-checking words in O/M French to see if things were lining up. For the most part it went well but I ran into a couple of real head-scratchers. First, dier. I thought this was probably related to French dire (to say/tell) but I wasn’t getting any hits. So then I thought, since I’d confirmed we’re in OF, could this be from eastern France / modern-day Belgium/Luxembourg/The Netherlands and be a dialect (like Walloon or Luxembourgish) that included some Germanic words? That led me to the Luxembourgish dier, meaning door, which made sense given the imagery. Then I ran into tresguint, which was extremely mysterious. It took me quite a while digging, and what I landed on is that it’s a combo of tres (very) and guint, a conjugation of the OF verb guignier (cognate with English wink), meaning to signal. So, that’s my best effort based on semi-educated guesses and instinct. If you’re still here, you get my final version of translation, the freest one. I guess it’s a poem.
✨
A glance, a wink, a glimmer
a place of warmth, a glow
beyond the gloom
✨
Aug 2, 2024
🧐
— Feeling it out…
— terra incognita is a lovely phrase you could make the tagline beyond issue 4
— going there together
— playing at comfort’s edge
I feel that maybe there’s some legs in the word play. cozier vibe than testing perhaps.
— invention through play
Although kinda getting down a Lego rabbithole
Might revisit when I don’t have Friday afternoon brain
May 17, 2024
🏰
“by merlin’s beard!”
“well i’ll be a newts eyeball.”
“mayhaps.”
“by the rivers of babylon!”
Feb 8, 2024
Top Recs from @msezrafurman
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The Tom Waitrix
Bill and franks excellent wild years
The rain dog’s advocate
The Waitrix: reloaded
Swordfishtromlakehouse
My own private bone machine
Bad As Speed
Speed 2: brawlers, bawlers and bastards
Tom Wick
Dec 21, 2023
⭐
They all come from somewhere and have their reasons for arising and it’s okay to feel them
Dec 25, 2023
⭐
This record “I Am The River, The River is Me” is the best protest music I’ve heard in forever, in that it’s just so goddamn human. with all the hurt and searching and sex that entails. But while addressing climate change, liberation of indigenous peoples, and more. amazing songs. Exactly what I needed this year.
Dec 20, 2023