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1:01 AM
(Sorry, literary comment aimed elsewhere. Link to follow if it works out.)
It was about recent politics that are at once pragmatic, Panglossian, Wildean (?), Dickensian, and Orwellian.
Maybe even Shelleyan (?) as in Frankensteiner (?).
Guess it was aimed here after all:
How rare that a politician slings one worth admiration:
"This is not the best possible bill, it's the best bill possible." -- some USAhole
(bill = legislation)
Ah language.
1 hour later…
2:33 AM
Q: Is the Iliad hard for a high schooler

Typical Highschooler I am a high schooler and I tried reading Samuel Butler's Iliad by myself and I found it extremely hard to understand. I had a basic idea on what was going on, but lacked understanding of detail. Is it supposed to be this hard?

@Randal'Thor yeah, I know, I told myself I wouldn't do that but I still ended up doing it. What can I say? I just can't stand people being wrong on the internet!
@BESW , That's a piece of writing that reached my heart.
Asking for clarification that might help filter my outbursts:
Is this site about the craft of writing or the continuing history of it?
It's about literature, not composition.
Composition is over here:
Literature is for questions about existing works, not about the creation of new works.
Thank you (but they won't).
6 hours later…
9:27 AM
So we have a tag for , but what about literature from other English-speaking countries?
And didn't we vote against those tags anyway?
9:50 AM
@Gallifreyan We've never had a clear consensus on English-related tags. We have consensus to use language-based tags (not country-based tags) for French, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, ... literature, but English-language literature has always been a bit unclear.
If we had a single tag, it'd be easily the most popular tag on the site; I think it's OK not to have that tag, since English is the primary language of SE anyway.
Then why American literature?
We could split it into multiple tags like and and so on, but that could get difficult since some English-language literature doesn't come from primarily English-speaking countries.
And of course we'd run into the same issues that led us to decide on language-based over country-based in general.
Also, when are you planning on writing the next challenge announcement?
What about American Gods, for instance? Written by an Englishman living in America, set in America, covering a lot about American culture, but from the point of view of said Englishman, possibly published in Britain? (or maybe both simultaneously?)
I'd be fine with not having any English-related tags, neither an all-encompassing nor things like . But it needs a meta discussion.
@Gallifreyan Hopefully today.
questions now make up ~7 per cent of total questions.
10:00 AM
@Gallifreyan Also, our number of questions has almost overtaken our number of answers.
Write more answers, people! :-)
I was considering answering this.
Oh yes! Someone needs to answer that one.
2 hours later…
12:33 PM
Seafarers' navigation chart, #Micronesia, obtained from Chief Nalu 1896. Sticks represent currents/winds, shells re… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/878509638421008385
12:44 PM
Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Paperbacks),1997 created by casting the negative space of library shelves #womensart https://t.co/dEw8VK8LKD
Damn it. Read "Murder Mysteries" (the comic by P. Craig Russell based on the short story by Neil Gaiman). Was going to ask a question, but found the answer on his forum, and another reading confirmed it. And almost made me look silly.
SAQ material?
I even wrote the question, and added the relevant pictures with all the alt texts.
@BESW But the answer is either yes or no, and it's obvious when one finishes the story and then reads the first few pages again.
It's plain as day.
I could ask a different question, though. But the answer would be "because love". So not cool.
I.e. the answer is so obvious, and so easy to research, one simply has to search for "murder mysteries neil gaiman" and find this thread
1:11 PM
Only 6 days left on the @goodreads giveaway for the book @ZachWeiner and I wrote! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34490192-soonish?from_search=true https://t.co/aTwi53VnzE
2 hours later…
2:43 PM
Q: Why is The Dreaming a simple place compared to Hell?

GallifreyanIn chapter 2 of Season of Mists, Lucifer says the following to Morpheus, when trying to explain his burden of ruling Hell: I cannot say I see Lucifer's point here. In some of the further stories it is shown that Morpheus has lot of work in The Dreaming, and that it doesn't seem to be easy to r...

3:15 PM
A: Why does the poem "Naming of Parts" contrast war with nature?

HamletThis question is best answered using a technique called close reading. What is close reading, and why is it important? Close reading isn't a hard concept to understand. It simply means reading something closely, i.e. paying careful attention to every word in a passage, and seeing how the exact wo...

3:36 PM
@Randal'Thor many of the unanswered questions can be answered using close reading :)
@Randal'Thor do you mind if I edit out the phrase close reading from that answer?
@Gallifreyan at what point do they become problematic again? 10%? 20%? 50%?
@Hamlet I don't know. They're at ~25% now on SFF, if I'm not mistaken. In our case, some ~15 per cent will be noticeable. Not that we can do anything about it, except asking questions other than story-ID.
@Gallifreyan we could close all of them, which is what Shog told us to do if they took up too much oxygen.
1 hour later…
4:59 PM
Q: Announcing the July 2017 Topic Challenge: "I Am a Cat"

Rand al'ThorIn accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges, and since the list of suggestions has a clear winner as June nears its end, it's time to announce the next topic challenge! Throughout July 2017, our topic challenge, proposed by Torisuda, will be I Am a Cat, by Natsume Sōseki. ...

2 hours later…
6:39 PM
There goes my chance for a Tumbleweed :(
6:51 PM
@Gallifreyan On Lit you're not likely to get one. I try to look/vote on everything ;)
I was about to, but then someone commented.
7:41 PM
Hmm. I know that I read somewhere that Ring around the rosy" or whatever was connected to the Black Death somehow but I can't find it.
@Mithrandir Can you make the new challenge into an event for July, like Hamlet did with June's challenge?
@Gallifreyan possibly, I'll try when I'm not on mobile.
Apparently it's not based off the Black Death.
user image
8:09 PM
@Hamlet Further to my comment - there are 6 books and a pile of short stories. I've gone through 3 of the books and all teh free short stories that are online so far, so there's not a lot left before I've scooped up all the available info. So I mean yeah, people can totally add stuff, but this is a relatively limited body of work.
Not sure community wiki is super needed. I read fast so I should have it sorted out sooner rather than later. And it's been a fun excuse to read some of my favourite books again, paying a bit more attention!
8:39 PM
@Hamlet - why did you unfeature the TC post? It's best to feature it a little early so that people can get a chance to obtain the book, no?
@Mithrandir It has now become an event.
Ah, I see. *facepalm*
@Ash no worries, I forgot how fast you read.
@Hamlet I mean I am likely to slow down a little next week as my fiance will be in town but generally yes ;)
I just hoped I didn't come off as rude there
Gosh darn it. Wanted to read Paradise Lost for an epic self-answer, but the "poem" is so long it seems I'll be writing a thesis.
Or maybe not.
1 hour later…
9:55 PM
@Gallifreyan The Waste Land is a shortish poem that would lend itself well to a epic self-answer.
10:06 PM
1 hour later…
11:36 PM
Q: Seeking female (later beatnik?) author, used all lowercase

softwarekittyIn about 1998, I found a used paperback that I liked, but gave the book away and can no longer remember the author's name. The book was remarkable in that it used only lowercase letters throughout. The one story I remember clearly is that she would find abandoned, broken-down cars on the side o...

