How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? dancing on a needle's point occurs in an expository work by the English divine, William Sclater (1575-1626). In "An exposition with notes vpon the first Epistle to the Thessalonians" (1619), Sclater claimed that scholastic philosophers occupied themselves with such pointless questions as whether angels "did occupie a place; and so, whether many might be in one place at one time; and how many might sit on a Needles point; and six hundred such like needlesse points." Harrison proposes that the reason an English writer first introduced the "needle’s point" into a critique of medieval angelology is that it makes for
Front and back Front and back From an articulatory perspective, phonemes can be described as front or back. Front vowels refer to vowels articulated towards the front of the mouth. This can either refer to vowels that are more front than central or, more rarely, only to fully front vowels, i.e. the ones that are articulated as far forward as possible in the mouth. A similar distinction holds for back vowels, which can refer to vowels that are more back than central or, more rarely, only to fully back vowels, i.e. the ones that are articulated as back as possible in the mouth.