#nonsense alphabets

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 091

Nonsense Alphabets

Edward Lear

Mulberry Press - no date

Edward Lear was an accomplished illustrator, and he could work in a variety of styles. His Nonsense Alphabets are done in a rough naive style that have a certain charm all their own.

[isbergillustration]

It is a Not At All Ominous Day in the city

[grim-has-issues]

guys, i don’t know what GBA is planning to do with those Greek letters, but it can’t be good.

[woodsplinter]

Some creatures I thought would commonly be used to advertise things like shops or events, or just a sturdy friend for traveling merchants.

[clonedchaos]

Erm guys… why is this guy standing outside my house on my birthday?? Am I about to get jumped by the Indominus Rex? 🙏😭

[tilbageidanmark]

"Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,  Waiting in a hot tureen!  Who for such dainties would not stoop?  Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!..."

(I started making memes).

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Kimberly

Published: Dec 18, 2021

The Queer lobby keeps adding letters to their banner to signal their holier-than-thou “inclusivity” and “diversity”. One of the more recent inclusions has been the 2S, which stands for Two-Spirit”, but what does this mean and where did it originate?

The english term “Two-Spirit” was coined in 1990 during the third annual intertribal Native American/First Nations gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The congregants wanted to distance themselves from European concepts of “gay” and the word “berdache”, a label given to the gender non-conforming natives by white settlers. “Two-Spirit” is a translation of the Ojibwe niizh manitoag.

I grew up in Manitoba. One Scottish branch of my family travelled here on Lord Selkirk’s ship to build and work for the Hudson’s Bay Settlement, which is now Winnipeg. Despite living in close proximity to many Cree, Ojibwe and Dakota communities, I know embarrassingly little about their cultures. I have (also embarrassingly) heard countless Queer activists over the past 20 years cite Two-Spirit as a local example of “transgender” history, but I’ve rarely heard this mentioned by First Nations people themselves. So, I’m curious: what were the historical and cultural meanings of the term? Ask, and the Universe/Creator/God provides.

I was introduced to a Dakota woman who resides in Winnipeg, not far from where I was born. She has several friends who attended the 1990 conference. I’ll call her “Teara” to protect her privacy. (She chose the pseudonym "cause I'm gonna tear this crap down...for my community's well being"). Teara reminded me a lot of my own grandmother, a powerhouse of a woman with a big heart, a loud voice and a sharp mind that can detect bullshit up wind. She’ll call it like it is.

Here's what she told me:

Dakota culture is organized around the Creator. What is given by the Creator is to be respected and appreciated. Teara comes from a long line of “seers” – a visionary gift. The Dakota people have long believed that everyone is born with two spirits – one masculine and one feminine. She gave examples of times when she draws from her male spirit when she needs to be strong, and from her female spirit when she needs to be gentle. Sometimes, one of those spirits is innately stronger in a person and so, some women tend to be more masculine, and some men tend to be more feminine. Since all natural traits are seen as the gifts from the Creator, they are honoured. Women with strong masculine spirits were permitted to go hunting with the men. Likewise, men with strong feminine spirits were permitted to participate in some activities with the women.

She explained that this understanding is very different from the contemporary “transgender” movement. Two-Spirit people were not seen as a third sex, nor the opposite sex. They understood that female and male are biological/reproductive categories. To “change sex” would be at act of rebellion against the Creator who gave us the gift of our bodies.

Queer politics have made their way into Teara’s own Manitoba community. She sees this as a threat to her culture, an attack on native women, and an effort to divide and conquer. She has raised her concerns in her community and met with hostility. She’s been asked to leave council meetings and has been physically attacked and intimidated.

I saw no hate or deceit in Teara. She was generous and gracious with me, freely offering her wisdom to a stranger. She has insights into the disruptive and divisive nature of critical gender theory which echo academics like James Lindsay.

Teara is a Knowledge Keeper.

For more information:

Dr. Myra Laramee, B.Ed., M.Ed., Ph. D (Education) of Fisher River First Nation discusses what it means to be Two-Spirit, as well as the term’s history and origin.

If everyone is two-spirit, then nobody is "Two-Spirit."

[re-discover-communication]

Throwback to that time in third year of middle school when I "stole" a russian dictonary from the school library and taught myself the cyrillic alphabet just for fun.

So now I can read cyrillic but not translate the words.

Freaking out russian/ukrainian players online is funny af, but also the face my music teacher did after I read out loud the sign above the russian embassy in Geneva. Good times.

And I still have that dictionary.

[electroniccollectiondonut]

tell me why instead of going to bed at a reasonable time I created a ravkan alphabet font?

[fookinstevienicks]

I try very hard not to bitch about some things because it is very much Not The Author's Problem but jfc nothing Stokes my chat tag rage like trying to deal with the tags on fics downloaded from ao3

literally none of these tags are useful for search or filtering and Tumblr users are ruining tags as an archival tool

like great you've tagged this with "poop joke in chapter four" and "also" and "(sort of)" and "(if you squint)" that's very useful when they aren't attached to whatever tag you're actually referencing

[faunandfloraas]

Had a strange dream about Seungmin and Felix. Taking it as a sign.

[slurping-up-grass]

Would you believe it?

Thank me later.

[lightspren]

when will they invent a wrist brace that’s not just as uncomfortable to wear as the chronic wrist pain is

[misterradio]

dog and i standing over my laptop watching alphabet animals and when the screen spelled the word "love" we both said AWW 😊

[patzweigz]

God your tags on the slur reclamation post, cause like yeah, it is such a white person conversation, cause white people don’t understand that slur reclamation is a very personal thing. They only see words that others are allowed to use and thus they should be able to, or words that have been used to hurt them so absolutely no one else ever can use them, as seen by the discourse among white folks with the N word vs queer

YES that's so so true. i think for a lot of white queer people, their first experience with slurs is through their queerness... which may not be something they come to terms with (from a social perspective anyway) until they're a teenager or an adult.

but even for me, a Black child who didn't fully realize what being Black entailed socially until i was much older, i had a distinct awareness and understanding of the n-word from very young, and why it carried so much weight. i think it's a lesson every Black person learns quite young, regardless of class, sexuality, ability, etc

and while racial slurs are different from ones centering gender and sexuality, they're similar enough to where all of the discourse about who can reclaim what is just... very infantile to me. if someone wants to reclaim a slur, that's their own personal prerogative... just as i wouldn't want anyone calling me any under any circumstances

[bumblingest-bee]

was organizing my playbill collection yesterday, as you do, and had the sudden realization that i was an adult with a job saying out loud to myself "hm, should i put all the phantom of the opera playbills together, or categorize them by location?"