Univocalics

Here is part of a recent email I sent to my erudite French correspondent GH :

Before Christmas, I treated myself in an Oxfam shop to a second-hand copy of a book on words by Tony Augarde and published by the Oxford University Press in 1984.

One new challenge I discovered therein is the ''Univocalic,'' which, as you may have guessed, is a piece of written text using only one vowel throughout.

Here's an example in French:

Je cherche en même temps l'éternel et l'éphémère.

And another in English, a real gem dating from 1967. The virtuoso word-smith has also contrived to make it a palindrome.

It seems to be a conversation between two owls (or is it three?)

'Too hot to hoot!'
'Too hot to woo!'
'Too wot?'
'Too hot to hoot!'
'To woo!'
'Too wot?'
'To hoot! Too hot to hoot!'

I decided somewhat rashly to take up the challenge and found it more difficult than I had imagined. Too much turkey and Christmas cake, perhaps. Anyway, here it is, in the style of a 'lonely hearts' advert placed by a disconsolate Westminster lady :

Peerless peeress seeks perfect peer.
He'll be her ever-present seer,
Emerge whene'er her eye beseeches,
Excel her effervescent speeches.

A New Year's resolution for 2020: I must never again take for granted our humble little vowel friends : )

**************************************************************************

I tried my luck yesterday with a univocalic teetering close to a tongue-twister. It's a dialogue between Anna and  her Nan or Nana (short a's as in cat) who is a hard of hearing, nonagenarian grandma and good at grammar.

Anna's an anagrammer and Nana's a grammar Nana

Anna: Nana's an anagram-
Nana: A Nana gran?
Anna: An anagram, Nan!
Nana: A grammar Nan, Anna?
Anna: Nana's anagram's an-
Nana: Anna!  Nana's anagram's Anana!
Anna: Anana's a bananas anagram, Nana!

To be or not to be an apple: Wolfgang Smith's new article

Dr Wolfgang Smith has written a brief but powerful response to a critique of his work by Dr Alec McAndrew in ''When is an apple not an apple?''

You may find his article here: Philos-Sophia Initiative.

He demonstrates succinctly and irresistibly that the critique of what Dr. MacAndrew terms “the Cartesian assumption” (bi-furcation) is not in fact “uncalled for and misdirected.”

He also deals with the related question of perception of external realities by praying in aid the empirical work of James J. Gibson, a cognitive psychologist who began his career in the 1940’s at Cornell University on a government grant, tasked with discovering how one can visually perceive a so-called “aiming point” (e.g., the deck of a distant aircraft carrier as viewed from an approaching plane).

The conclusion from Gibson's ground-breaking research and analysis was:

...we do in truth perceive the “external world”  as just about everyone — from simple folk to the great philosophers — had thought all along! And that is why Gibson refers to it as “the ecological  theory of visual perception,” the point being that what we actually perceive is not “inside the head,” but outside:  it pertains in fact to what he terms “the environment,” which proves thus to be inherently what I term the corporeal  world.

Please be sure to visit the Philos-Sophia Initiative website. Smith's new film, The End of Quantum Reality, is due to be released in the USA on January 11, 2020.

Unto us

Unto Us[1]

by Spike Milligan (1918-2002)

Here is a poem I discovered today, to which I have added some notes.

Somewhere at some time

They committed themselves to me [2]

And so, I was!

Small, but I WAS! [3]

Tiny, in shape

Lusting to live

I hung in my pulsing cave.[4]

Soon they knew of me

My mother —my father.

I had no say in my being

I lived on trust

And love

Tho' I couldn't think,

Each part of me was saying

A silent 'Wait for me

I will bring you love!' [5]

I was taken

Blind, naked, defenceless [6]

By the hand of one

Whose good name

Was graven on a brass plate

in Wimpole Street,

and dropped on the sterile floor

of a foot operated plastic waste

bucket.

There was no Queens Counsel

To take my brief.

The cot I might have warmed

Stood in Harrod's shop window.

When my passing was told

My father smiled.

No grief filled my empty space.

My death was celebrated

With tickets to see Danny la Rue [7]

Who was pretending to be a woman

Like my mother was. 

Notes
[1] Unto Us: This may recall the chorus from Handel's Messiah:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, 
and the government shall be upon His shoulder; 
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, 
the Mighty God, 
the Everlasting Father, 
the Prince of Peace.

Or the words from the hymn, Unto us is born a son (Words: "Puer Nobis Nascitur," Authorship Unknown, Trier MS, 15th Century; Translator: George Ratcliffe Woodward, 1859-1934). Note the words in the third verse. 

1. Unto us is born a son,
King of choirs supernal:
See on earth his life begun,
Of lords the Lord eternal.

2. Christ, from heav'n descending low,
Comes on earth a stranger;
Ox and ass their Owner know
Now cradled in a manger.

3. This did Herod sore affray,
And did him bewilder,
So he gave the word to slay,
And slew the little childer.

4. Of his love and mercy mild
Hear the Christmas story:
O that Mary's gentle Child
Might lead us up to glory!

5. O and A and A and O,
Cantemus in choro,
Voice and organ, sing we so,
Benedicamus Domino.

Both Handel and the hymn refer to Chapter 9, verse 6 in the Book of Isaiah:

[6] Parvulus enim natus est nobis, et filius datus est nobis, et factus est principatus super humerum ejus : et vocabitur nomen ejus, Admirabilis, Consiliarius, Deus, Fortis, Pater futuri saeculi, Princeps pacis.[Vulgate]For a child is  to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.[Douay Rheims]For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.[King James][Isaiah 9]

[2] They: His parents, in the matrimonial act.

[4] Who answering, said to them: Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said:Qui respondens, ait eis : Non legistis, quia qui fecit hominem ab initio, masculum et feminam fecit eos? Et dixit :[5] For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.Propter hoc dimittet homo patrem, et matrem, et adhaerebit uxori suae, et erunt duo in carne una.[Matt 19]

[3] At the time, he would have cried ''I am!'' A new being has been created out of nothing and he now is. Recalling the words spoken to Moses:

[14] God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you.Dixit Deus ad Moysen : Ego sum qui sum. Ait : Sic dices filiis Israel : Qui est, misit me ad vos.[Gen 3]

[4] cave: Consider the cave where Jesus was born;

But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger, and here the Magi who came from Arabia found Him. (St Justin Martyr: Chapter LXXVIII, Dialogue with Trypho).

And the cave-sepulchre mentioned in connection with his death 

Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the sepulchre. Now it was a cave; and a stone was laid over it."[John 11:38]

[5] Consider the words of the beloved disciple, St John, for example: 

[9] As the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love.Sicut dilexit me Pater, et ego dilexi vos. Manete in dilectione mea.[John 15][19] Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us.Nos ergo diligamus Deum, quoniam Deus prior dilexit nos.[1 John 4]

The baby born at Bethlehem came to bring us love.
[6] Blind, naked, defenceless:

[64] And they blindfolded him... [Luke 22][28] And stripping him, they put a scarlet cloak about him.et exeuntes eum, chlamydem coccineam circumdederunt ei,[Matt 27][7] He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.Oblatus est quia ipse voluit, et non aperuit os suum; sicut ovis ad occisionem ducetur, et quasi agnus coram tondente se obmutescet, et non aperiet os suum.[Isaiah 53]

[7] Danny la Rue: Daniel Patrick Carroll, 1927 – 2009):Irish-English singer and entertainer known for his singing and drag act performances.