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The John Donne Memorial is a bronze bust of John Donne by Nigel Boonham, installed in the garden to the south of St Paul's Cathedral in London, United Kingdom. Donne faces east towards his birthplace on Bread Street. Below the bust is an inscription with the text
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the West,
This day, when my Soul's form bends to the East.
It was commissioned by the City of London, led by Alderman Hall, and marks the first public memorial to Donne.
John Donne (1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs and satires. He is also known for his sermons.
Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorised. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.
Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children. In 1615 he was ordained Anglican deacon and then priest, although he did not want to take holy orders and only did so because the king ordered it. He served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in 1614.
Donne was born in London in 1571 or 1572, into a recusant Roman Catholic family when practice of that religion was illegal in England. Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, was married to Elizabeth Heywood. He was of Welsh descent and a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London. He avoided unwelcome government attention out of fear of religious persecution.
His father died in 1576, when Donne was four years old, leaving his mother, Elizabeth, with the responsibility of raising the children alone. Heywood was also from a recusant Roman Catholic family, the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of the Reverend Jasper Heywood, a Jesuit priest and translator. She was a great-niece of Thomas More. A few months after her husband died, Donne's mother married Dr. John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children of his own.
Donne was educated privately. There is no evidence to support the popular claim that he was taught by Jesuits. In 1583, at the age of 11, he began studies at Hart Hall, now Hertford College, Oxford. After three years of studies there, Donne was admitted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for another three years. Donne could not obtain a degree from either institution because of his Catholicism, since he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy required to graduate. In 1591 he was accepted as a student at the Thavies Inn legal school, one of the Inns of Chancery in London. On 6 May 1592, he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court.
In 1593, five years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada and during the intermittent Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), Queen Elizabeth issued the first English statute against sectarian dissent from the Church of England, titled "An Act for restraining Popish recusants". It defined "Popish recusants" as those "convicted for not repairing to some Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Divine Service there, but forbearing the same contrary to the tenor of the laws and statutes heretofore made and provided in that behalf". Donne's brother Henry was also a university student prior to his arrest in 1593 for harbouring a Catholic priest, William Harrington, and died in Newgate Prison of bubonic plague, leading Donne to begin questioning his Catholic faith.
During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel. Although no record details precisely where Donne travelled, he crossed Europe. He later fought alongside the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cadiz (1596) and the Azores (1597), and witnessed the loss of the Spanish flagship, the San Felipe. According to his earliest biographer,
... he returned not back into England till he had stayed some years, first in Italy, and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned perfect in their languages.
By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking. He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, and was established at Egerton's London home, York House, Strand, close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social centre in England.
During the next four years, Donne fell in love with Egerton's niece Anne More. They were secretly married just before Christmas in 1601, against the wishes of both Egerton and Anne's father George More, who was Lieutenant of the Tower. Upon discovery, this wedding ruined Donne's career, getting him dismissed and put in Fleet Prison, along with the Church of England priest Samuel Brooke, who married them, and his brother Christopher, who stood in, in the absence of George More, to give Anne away. Donne was released shortly thereafter when the marriage was proved to be valid, and he soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when Donne wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. It was not until 1609 that Donne was reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife's dowry.
After his release, Donne had to accept a retired country life in a small house in Pyrford, Surrey, owned by Anne's cousin, Sir Francis Wooley, where they lived until the end of 1604. In spring 1605 they moved to another small house in Mitcham, Surrey, where he scraped a meagre living as a lawyer, while Anne Donne bore a new baby almost every year. Though he also worked as an assistant pamphleteer to Thomas Morton writing anti-Catholic pamphlets, Donne was in a constant state of financial insecurity.
Anne gave birth to twelve children in sixteen years of marriage, including two stillbirths—their eighth and then, in 1617, their last child. She spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. The ten surviving children were Constance, John, George, Francis, Lucy (named after Donne's patron Lucy, Countess of Bedford, her godmother), Bridget, Mary, Nicholas, Margaret and Elizabeth. Three, Francis, Nicholas and Mary, died before they were ten.
In a state of despair that almost drove him to kill himself, Donne noted that the death of a child would mean one mouth fewer to feed, but he could not afford the burial expenses. During this time, Donne wrote but did not publish Biathanatos, his defence of suicide. His wife died on 15 August 1617, five days after giving birth to their twelfth child, a still-born baby. Donne mourned her deeply, and wrote of his love and loss in his 17th Holy Sonnet.
In 1602, Donne was elected as a member of parliament (MP) for the constituency of Brackley, but the post was not a paid position. Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, being succeeded by King James VI of Scotland as King James I of England. The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave Donne a means to seek patronage. Many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially for MP Sir Robert Drury of Hawsted (1575–1615), whom he met in 1610 and who became his chief patron, furnishing him and his family an apartment in his large house in Drury Lane.
In 1610 and 1611, Donne wrote two anti-Catholic polemics: Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius His Conclave for Morton. He then wrote two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul (1612) for Drury.
Donne sat as an MP again, this time for Taunton, in the Addled Parliament of 1614. Though he attracted five appointments within its business he made no recorded speech. Although King James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders. At length, Donne acceded to the king's wishes, and in 1615 was an ordained priest in the Church of England.
In 1615, Donne was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from Cambridge University. He became a Royal Chaplain in the same year. He became a reader of divinity at Lincoln's Inn in 1616, where he served in the chapel as minister until 1622. In 1618, he became chaplain to Viscount Doncaster, who was an ambassador to the princes of Germany. Donne did not return to England until 1620. In 1621, Donne was made Dean of St Paul's, a leading and well-paid position in the Church of England, which he held until his death in 1631.
At the same time he was granted the living as rector of a number of parishes, including Blunham, in Bedfordshire. Blunham Parish Church has an imposing stained glass window commemorating Donne, designed by Derek Hunt. During Donne's period as dean his daughter Lucy died, aged eighteen. In late November and early December 1623 he suffered a nearly fatal illness, thought to be either typhus or a combination of a cold followed by a period of fever.
During his convalescence he wrote a series of meditations and prayers on health, pain and sickness that were published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. One of these meditations, Meditation XVII, contains the well-known phrases "No man is an Iland" (often modernised as "No man is an island") and "...for whom the bell tolls". In 1624, he became vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West, and in 1625 a prolocutor to Charles I. He earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher. 160 of his sermons have survived, including Death's Duel, his famous sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I in February 1631.
Donne died on 31 March 1631. He was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral, where a memorial statue of him by Nicholas Stone was erected with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself. The memorial was one of the few to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666 and is now in St Paul's Cathedral. The statue was said by Izaac Walton in his biography, to have been modelled from the life by Donne to suggest his appearance at the resurrection. It started a vogue of such monuments during the 17th century. In 2012, a bust of the poet by Nigel Boonham was unveiled outside in the cathedral churchyard.
Writings
Donne's earliest poems showed a developed knowledge of English society coupled with sharp criticism of its problems. His satires dealt with common Elizabethan topics, such as corruption in the legal system, mediocre poets and pompous courtiers. His images of sickness, vomit, manure and plague reflected his strongly satiric view of a society populated by fools and knaves. His third satire, however, deals with the problem of true religion, a matter of great importance to Donne. He argued that it was better to examine carefully one's religious convictions than blindly to follow any established tradition, for none would be saved at the Final Judgment, by claiming "A Harry, or a Martin taught [them] this."
Donne's early career was also notable for his erotic poetry, especially his elegies, in which he employed unconventional metaphors, such as a flea biting two lovers being compared to sex. Donne did not publish these poems, although they circulated widely in manuscript form. One such, a previously unknown manuscript that is believed to be one of the largest contemporary collections of Donne's work (among that of others), was found at Melford Hall in November 2018.
Some have speculated that Donne's numerous illnesses, financial strain and the deaths of his friends all contributed to the development of a more sombre and pious tone in his later poems. The change can be clearly seen in "An Anatomy of the World" (1611), a poem that Donne wrote in memory of Elizabeth Drury, daughter of his patron, Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead, Suffolk. This poem treats Elizabeth's demise with extreme gloominess, using it as a symbol for the fall of man and the destruction of the universe.
The increasing gloominess of Donne's tone may also be observed in the religious works that he began writing during the same period. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne quickly became noted for his sermons and religious poems. Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, "Death Be Not Proud".
Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death's Duel sermon, which was later described as his own funeral sermon. Death's Duel portrays life as a steady descent to suffering and death; death becomes merely another process of life, in which the 'winding sheet' of the womb is the same as that of the grave. Hope is seen in salvation and immortality through an embrace of God, Christ and the Resurrection.
Style
His work has received much criticism over the years, especially concerning his metaphysical form. Donne is generally considered the most prominent member of the metaphysical poets, a phrase coined in 1781 by Samuel Johnson, following a comment on Donne by John Dryden. Dryden had written of Donne in 1693: "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love."
In Life of Cowley (from Samuel Johnson's 1781 work of biography and criticism Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets), Johnson refers to the beginning of the 17th century in which there "appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets". Donne's immediate successors in poetry therefore tended to regard his works with ambivalence, with the Neoclassical poets regarding his conceits as abuse of the metaphor. However, he was revived by Romantic poets such as Coleridge and Browning, though his more recent revival in the early 20th century by poets such as T. S. Eliot and critics like F. R. Leavis tended to portray him, with approval, as an anti-Romantic.
Donne is considered a master of the metaphysical conceit, an extended metaphor that combines two vastly different ideas into a single idea, often using imagery. An example of this is his equation of lovers with saints in "The Canonization". Unlike the conceits found in other Elizabethan poetry, most notably Petrarchan conceits, which formed clichéd comparisons between more closely related objects (such as a rose and love), metaphysical conceits go to a greater depth in comparing two completely unlike objects. One of the most famous of Donne's conceits is found in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" where he compares the apartness of two separated lovers to the working of the legs of a compass.
Donne's works are also witty, employing paradoxes, puns and subtle yet remarkable analogies. His pieces are often ironic and cynical, especially regarding love and human motives. Common subjects of Donne's poems are love (especially in his early life), death (especially after his wife's death) and religion.
John Donne's poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry. Donne is noted for his poetic metre, which was structured with changing and jagged rhythms that closely resemble casual speech (it was for this that the more classical-minded Ben Jonson commented that "Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging").
Some scholars believe that Donne's literary works reflect the changing trends of his life, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years. Other scholars, such as Helen Gardner, question the validity of this dating—most of his poems were published posthumously (1633). The exception to these is his Anniversaries, which were published in 1612 and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624. His sermons are also dated, sometimes specifically by date and year.
Legacy
Donne is remembered in the Calendar of Saints of the Church of England, the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar and the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for his life as both poet and priest. His commemoration is on 31 March.
During his lifetime several likenesses were made of the poet. The earliest was the anonymous portrait of 1594 now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which was restored in 2012. One of the earliest Elizabethan portraits of an author, the fashionably dressed poet is shown darkly brooding on his love. The portrait was described in Donne's will as "that picture of myne wych is taken in the shaddowes", and bequeathed by him to Robert Kerr, 1st Earl of Ancram. Other paintings include a 1616 head and shoulders after Isaac Oliver, also in the National Portrait Gallery, and a 1622 head and shoulders in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1911, the young Stanley Spencer devoted a visionary painting to John Donne arriving in heaven (1911) which is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Donne's reception until the 20th century was influenced by the publication of his writings in the 17th century. Because Donne avoided publication during his life, the majority of his works were brought to the press by others in the decades after his death. These publications present what Erin McCarthy calls a "teleological narrative of Donne's growth" from young rake "Jack Donne" to reverend divine "Dr. Donne". For example, while the first edition of Poems, by J. D. (1633) mingled amorous and pious verse indiscriminately, all editions after 1635 separated poems into "Songs and Sonnets" and "Divine Poems". This organization "promulgated the tale of Jack Donne's transformation into Doctor Donne and made it the dominant way of understanding Donne's life and work."
A similar effort to justify Donne's early writings appeared in the publication of his prose. This pattern can be seen in a 1652 volume that combines texts from throughout Donne's career, including flippant works like Ignatius His Conclave and more pious writings like Essays in Divinity. In the preface, Donne's son "unifies the otherwise disparate texts around an impression of Donne's divinity" by comparing his father's varied writing to Jesus' miracles. Christ "began his first Miracle here, by turning Water into Wine, and made it his last to ascend from Earth to Heaven."
Donne first wrote "things conducing to cheerfulness & entertainment of Mankind," and later "change[d] his conversation from Men to Angels." Another figure who contributed to Donne's legacy as a rake-turned-preacher was Donne's first biographer Izaak Walton. Walton's biography separated Donne's life into two stages, comparing Donne's life to the transformation of St. Paul. Walton writes, "where [Donne] had been a Saul… in his irregular youth," he became "a Paul, and preach[ed] salvation to his brethren."
The idea that Donne's writings reflect two distinct stages of his life remains common; however, many scholars have challenged this understanding. In 1948, Evelyn Simpson wrote, "a close study of his works... makes it clear that his was no case of dual personality. He was not a Jekyll-Hyde in Jacobean dress... There is an essential unity underlying the flagrant and manifold contradictions of his temperament."
In literature
After Donne's death, a number of poetical tributes were paid to him, of which one of the principal (and most difficult to follow) was his friend Lord Herbert of Cherbury's "Elegy for Doctor Donne". Posthumous editions of Donne's poems were accompanied by several "Elegies upon the Author" over the course of the next two centuries. Six of these were written by fellow churchmen, others by such courtly writers as Thomas Carew, Sidney Godolphin and Endymion Porter. In 1963 came Joseph Brodsky's "The Great Elegy for John Donne".
Beginning in the 20th century, several historical novels appeared taking as their subject various episodes in Donne's life. His courtship of Anne More is the subject of Elizabeth Gray Vining's Take Heed of Loving Me: A novel about John Donne (1963) and Maeve Haran's The Lady and the Poet (2010). Both characters also make interspersed appearances in Mary Novik's Conceit (2007), where the main focus is on their rebellious daughter Pegge. English treatments include Garry O'Connor's Death's Duel: a novel of John Donne (2015), which deals with the poet as a young man.
He also plays a significant role in Christie Dickason's The Noble Assassin (2012), a novel based on the life of Donne's patron and (the author claims) his lover, Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford. Finally there is Bryan Crockett's Love's Alchemy: a John Donne Mystery (2015), in which the poet, blackmailed into service in Robert Cecil's network of spies, attempts to avert political disaster and at the same time outwit Cecil.
Musical settings
There were musical settings of Donne's lyrics even during his lifetime and in the century following his death. These included Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger's ("So, so, leave off this last lamenting kisse" in his 1609 Ayres); John Cooper's ("The Message"); Henry Lawes' ("Break of Day"); John Dowland's ("Break of Day" and "To ask for all thy love"); and settings of "A Hymn to God the Father" by John Hilton the younger and Pelham Humfrey (published 1688).
After the 17th century, there were no more until the start of the 20th century with Havergal Brian ("A nocturnal on St Lucy's Day", first performed in 1905), Eleanor Everest Freer ("Break of Day, published in 1905) and Walford Davies ("The Cross", 1909) among the earliest. In 1916–18, the composer Hubert Parry set Donne's "Holy Sonnet 7" ("At the round earth's imagined corners") to music in his choral work, Songs of Farewell. Regina Hansen Willman (1914-1965) set Donne's "First Holy Sonnet" for voice and string trio. In 1945, Benjamin Britten set nine of Donne's Holy Sonnets in his song cycle for voice and piano The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. in 1968, Williametta Spencer used Donne's text for her choral work "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners." Among them is also the choral setting of "Negative Love" that opens Harmonium (1981), as well as the aria setting of "Holy Sonnet XIV" at the end of the 1st act of Doctor Atomic, both by John Adams.
There have been settings in popular music as well. One is the version of the song "Go and Catch a Falling Star" on John Renbourn's debut album John Renbourn (1966), in which the last line is altered to "False, ere I count one, two, three". On their 1992 album Duality, the English Neoclassical dark wave band In the Nursery used a recitation of the entirety of Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" for the track "Mecciano" and an augmented version of "A Fever" for the track "Corruption." Prose texts by Donne have also been set to music. In 1954, Priaulx Rainier set some in her Cycle for Declamation for solo voice. In 2009, the American Jennifer Higdon composed the choral piece On the Death of the Righteous, based on Donne's sermons. Still more recent is the Russian minimalist Anton Batagov's " I Fear No More, selected songs and meditations of John Donne" (2015).
Works
The Flea (1590s)
Biathanatos (1608)
Pseudo-Martyr (1610)
Ignatius His Conclave (1611)
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (1611)
The Courtier's Library (1611, published 1651)
The First Anniversary: An Anatomy of the World (1611)
The Second Anniversary: Of the Progress of the Soul (1612)
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
The Good-Morrow (1633)
The Canonization (1633)
Holy Sonnets (1633)
As Due By Many Titles (1633)
Death Be Not Proud (1633)
The Sun Rising (1633)
The Dream (1633)
Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed (1633)
Batter my heart, three-person'd God (1633)
Poems (1633)
Juvenilia: or Certain Paradoxes and Problems (1633)
LXXX Sermons (1640)
Fifty Sermons (1649)
Essays in Divinity (1651)
Letters to severall persons of honour (1651)
XXVI Sermons (1661)
A Hymn to God the Father (unknown)
Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star (1633)
Nour Al Gharibeh, Design Strategy and Brand Development Officer, SYNTAX, Jordan during the Session: Building New Platforms of Cooperation at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa 2019, Jordan 2019. Copyright by World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell
Vi / Vim / Gvim new scripting feature (plugin) for geek bloggers:
- syntax highlighting: different between vi/vim and gvim (richer color handling)
- XMLRPC access to blog
- exception handling in ruby and vi function
- ... needs some more hours of hacking
Usage in vi command line:
:Blog option [arg]
switches:
- rp [x] => show recent [x] posts
- np => create a new post
- gp [id] => get post with id [id]
- publish => publish an edited/new post
- draft => save edited/new post as draft
i posted this minutes ago. Here it is possible to see the :Blog gp 124 on a xterm, gvim (gtk+ vim) and vim under a gnome console. Almost ready for source sharing of the .vim script file. Syntax highlighting needs a bit more work because of the body getting header syntax parse. Get the script here:
(poster) Esperanto, Elvish, and Beyond: The World of Constructed Languages
What are Constructed Languages?
Many people are familiar with languages like English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Swahili, and German. Lesser-known languages include Basque, Georgian, Tibetan, Mohawk, Quechua, and Guguyimidjir. Some languages that are no longer spoken include Etruscan, Gothic, Gaulish, Tocharian, Hittite, Akkadian, and Ancient Egyptian. The one thing that all these languages share is that they all evolved naturally, arising organically within a group of people through various natural forces. No single person defined their vocabularies, designed their syntaxes, or deliberately decided to create them.
Of course, this is a continuum. Some languages (French, for example) are regulated by government bodies like l'Académie Française. Some (like Korean or Cherokee) have had writing systems created for them but otherwise have evolved naturally.
Constructed languages, or conlangs for short, stand at the other end of the spectrum: a single person (or a small group) defines the vocabulary, designs the syntax, and deliberately decides to create a language. Why would someone want to do this when there are so many "real" languages to learn? The reasons are legion: from the simple artistic desire to play with linguistic concepts to the obsession to provide the world with a universal language. Conlangers (those who construct languages) bring a myriad of skills, tastes, and goals to the art and craft of conlanging. Conlanging is a worldwide phenomenon practiced by people of all ages. It is hoped that this exhibit will provide a glimpse into the fascinating world of conlangs and those who take part in this art. As J.R.R. Tolkien may have said in Quenya: Á harya alassë! Enjoy!
(Top left) Invent a new language anyone can understand.
~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Challenges to Young Poets” (excerpt)
(Top right) My language! heavens!
I am the best of them that speak this speech,
Were I but where 'tis spoken.
~ Shakespeare, The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2)
(middle left, quote only) La plus part des occasions des troubles du monde sont grammairiennes.
The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to disputes about grammar.
~ Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book 2
(Middle, left w/photo) …language is not the frosting, it’s the cake.
~ Tom Robbins, “What is the Function of Metaphor?” Wild Ducks Flying Backward
(Middle, center) But language is wine upon his lips.
~ Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room
(Middle right) We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.
~ Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
(Middle left, quote only) ...und in irgend einer fernen Zukunft wird es eine neue Sprache, zuerst als Handelssprache, dann als Sprache des geistigen Verkehres überhaupt, für Alle geben, so gewiss, als es einmal Luft-Schifffahrt giebt.
...and in a future as far removed as one may wish, there will be a new language which will first serve as a means of business communication, later as a vehicle for intellectual relations, just as certainly as there will be some day travel by air.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, “Anzeichen höherer und niederer Cultur,” Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1876) (Nietzsche’s skeptical late-nineteenth-century prophecy of the possibility of both an international language and air travel.)
(Bottom) Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality
(Dr. Seuss) “In the places I go there are things that I see
“That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
“I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re one of my friends.
“My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!
~Dr. Seuss, On Beyond Zebra!
(small rectangular disclaimer; place in one bottom corner of case please):
NOTE: Translations from The Bible (Genesis 11:1-9 (Tower of Babel text) and Genesis 6:6-7) should not be taken as an endorsement of any specific religion. The use of verses from The Bible for illustrative purposes is due to the prevalence of translations of this work across both time and languages.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
~ Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (Chomsky cites this sentence as one which makes no semantic sense but can make grammatical sense.)
Nour Al Gharibeh, Design Strategy and Brand Development Officer, SYNTAX, Jordan during the Session: Building New Platforms of Cooperation at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa 2019, Jordan 2019. Copyright by World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell
This is a photo from South Coast, the award winning documentary about the Hip Hop scene in Brighton, Sussex, England, UK
by Thomas Rowlandson. From The Tour of Doctor Syntax, &c. The copy these are taken from was lacking a Plate 19.
VERACRUZ, VERACRUZ, 01JULIO2012.- Durante la mañana de este día miles de veracruzanos acudieron a ejercer su voto en las diversas casillas instaladas en la zona conurbada en el marco de la contienda electoral 2012.
FOTO: FÉLIX MÁRQUEZ /CUARTOSCURO.COM
BERNARD PIERRE WOLFF / PHOTOGRAPHIES, 1971-1984
EXPOSITION
28.06.2017 - 27.08.2017
MAISON EUROPÉENNE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE
Bernard Pierre Wolff possédait l’art singulier d’un photographe qui, sans mise en scène, réussit à mettre en harmonie désir et réalité et à créer dans la syntaxe du photojournalisme classique, un monde à la fois terriblement intime et parfaitement universel. La Maison Européenne de la Photographie lui consacre une exposition qui revient sur plus d’une décennie d’images révélant tant son quotidien new-yorkais que ses voyages en Inde ou au Japon.
Bernard Pierre Wolff est mort le 28 janvier 1985, à l’âge de cinquante-quatre ans. C’est à New York, où il vivait depuis plus de vingt ans, qu’il acquit sa notoriété. En France, deux expositions durant le Mois de la Photo et deux livres, En Inde et New York Macadam, publiés aux éditions du Chêne, suffirent à faire de lui une figure de proue de la jeune création contemporaine.
L’ensemble de son œuvre appartient aujourd’hui à la Maison Européenne de la Photographie.
Bernard Pierre Wolff, qu’une mort brutale a mythifié, n’a laissé sur sa vie et son œuvre que peu d’informations et de commentaires. À première vue, son travail s’inscrit dans la tradition du grand photojournalisme d’après-guerre. Comme Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bernard Pierre Wolff a toujours considéré que le talent du photographe consistait, face à l’incohérence du réel, à révéler et à imposer un ordre latent. Comme lui, il a parcouru le monde à la recherche de l’image universelle capable de rendre compte instantanément d’une situation ou d’un événement. On ne doit point s’étonner, dès lors, de trouver dans chacune de ses images (dont aucune n’est recadrée) le souci de la composition et de la perfection formelle. La plupart d’entre elles pourraient illustrer le fameux concept bressonien de l’« instant décisif », où la tête, l’œil et le cœur du photographe sont sur une même ligne de mire. En ce sens, Bernard Pierre Wolff est un classique… mais un classique qui a retenu les leçons d’un Robert Frank et, surtout, d’un Charles Harbutt, pour lesquels «tout désormais peut être photographié» : le laid, le banal, l’insignifiant…
Dans cette perspective, les rues de New York, avec leur cortège de figures inouïes, leur faune incongrue et souvent incroyable, allaient devenir un champ d’observation privilégié. À partir de 1974 et pendant plus de quatre ans, Bernard Pierre Wolff arpenta la ville en tous sens, photographiant tout ce qui pouvait l’être : les dingues, les drogués, les travestis, mais aussi les scènes de vie les plus anodines. Il composait des images quotidiennement, avec ivresse et volupté, transformant peu à peu son art en une pratique hallucinatoire.
Toute son œuvre, que ce soit son magnifique reportage sur l’Inde ou, plus tard, le travail qu’il fit sur le Japon, témoigne de cette subjectivité forcenée qui, chez lui, bouscule tout et menace, à l’intérieur du cadre, jusqu’à l’équilibre trop parfait des formes et des lignes. En effet, le principe constitutif des photographies de Bernard Pierre Wolff s’articule autour des fulgurances du désir. Un désir obsessionnel et à chaque fois décisif, qui déclenche le processus créatif et fait que chaque image porte en elle, comme irradiant, cette empreinte indélébile — sorte de trou noir — par laquelle tout s’ordonne.
Ici, la sensuelle cambrure d’une hanche, là, un sourire complice, plus loin encore, à moitié caché et presque hors du cadre, le torse nu d’un homme au travail… le désir en acte rejoint le réel pour le façonner et lui donner sens.
"Perhaps the last stronghold of autonomous man is that complex "cognitive" activity called thinking." B. F. Skinner
aka: Proteo
BERNARD PIERRE WOLFF / PHOTOGRAPHIES, 1971-1984
EXPOSITION
28.06.2017 - 27.08.2017
MAISON EUROPÉENNE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE
Bernard Pierre Wolff possédait l’art singulier d’un photographe qui, sans mise en scène, réussit à mettre en harmonie désir et réalité et à créer dans la syntaxe du photojournalisme classique, un monde à la fois terriblement intime et parfaitement universel. La Maison Européenne de la Photographie lui consacre une exposition qui revient sur plus d’une décennie d’images révélant tant son quotidien new-yorkais que ses voyages en Inde ou au Japon.
Bernard Pierre Wolff est mort le 28 janvier 1985, à l’âge de cinquante-quatre ans. C’est à New York, où il vivait depuis plus de vingt ans, qu’il acquit sa notoriété. En France, deux expositions durant le Mois de la Photo et deux livres, En Inde et New York Macadam, publiés aux éditions du Chêne, suffirent à faire de lui une figure de proue de la jeune création contemporaine.
L’ensemble de son œuvre appartient aujourd’hui à la Maison Européenne de la Photographie.
Bernard Pierre Wolff, qu’une mort brutale a mythifié, n’a laissé sur sa vie et son œuvre que peu d’informations et de commentaires. À première vue, son travail s’inscrit dans la tradition du grand photojournalisme d’après-guerre. Comme Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bernard Pierre Wolff a toujours considéré que le talent du photographe consistait, face à l’incohérence du réel, à révéler et à imposer un ordre latent. Comme lui, il a parcouru le monde à la recherche de l’image universelle capable de rendre compte instantanément d’une situation ou d’un événement. On ne doit point s’étonner, dès lors, de trouver dans chacune de ses images (dont aucune n’est recadrée) le souci de la composition et de la perfection formelle. La plupart d’entre elles pourraient illustrer le fameux concept bressonien de l’« instant décisif », où la tête, l’œil et le cœur du photographe sont sur une même ligne de mire. En ce sens, Bernard Pierre Wolff est un classique… mais un classique qui a retenu les leçons d’un Robert Frank et, surtout, d’un Charles Harbutt, pour lesquels «tout désormais peut être photographié» : le laid, le banal, l’insignifiant…
Dans cette perspective, les rues de New York, avec leur cortège de figures inouïes, leur faune incongrue et souvent incroyable, allaient devenir un champ d’observation privilégié. À partir de 1974 et pendant plus de quatre ans, Bernard Pierre Wolff arpenta la ville en tous sens, photographiant tout ce qui pouvait l’être : les dingues, les drogués, les travestis, mais aussi les scènes de vie les plus anodines. Il composait des images quotidiennement, avec ivresse et volupté, transformant peu à peu son art en une pratique hallucinatoire.
Toute son œuvre, que ce soit son magnifique reportage sur l’Inde ou, plus tard, le travail qu’il fit sur le Japon, témoigne de cette subjectivité forcenée qui, chez lui, bouscule tout et menace, à l’intérieur du cadre, jusqu’à l’équilibre trop parfait des formes et des lignes. En effet, le principe constitutif des photographies de Bernard Pierre Wolff s’articule autour des fulgurances du désir. Un désir obsessionnel et à chaque fois décisif, qui déclenche le processus créatif et fait que chaque image porte en elle, comme irradiant, cette empreinte indélébile — sorte de trou noir — par laquelle tout s’ordonne.
Ici, la sensuelle cambrure d’une hanche, là, un sourire complice, plus loin encore, à moitié caché et presque hors du cadre, le torse nu d’un homme au travail… le désir en acte rejoint le réel pour le façonner et lui donner sens.
3rd Set set of photos
Duathlon Held at the Mohonk Preserve, High Falls NY
cm2promotions.com
mohonkperserve.org
Averaged distance from every vertex of the street network graph to the midpoint of every segment within 1200m. This value, depth, is compared to the direct distance producing a ratio of indirectness within the network. Compared to the previous map this prioritizes local integration and better highlights local distruptions or discontinuities.
The overall length of this proximate network is recorded by the size of the circle. Larger networks denote greater integration.
Averaged distance from every vertex of the street network graph to the midpoint of every segment. This gives a value, Depth Distance, which suggests the degree to which that point is well integrated in the network because isolated or disconnected points will give higher values.
This map includes two new connections across the Sébeillon–Malley site in heavy black (at the center right).
Note that compared to the other maps in this set, the color key is reversed with red indicating the lowest values and blue the highest.
No. 3a - 6: Travelling from Berlin Ostbf via Berlin Hbf – Berlin-Spandau – Braunschweig Hbf – Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe – Fulda Bf – Frankfurt Hbf – Mannheim Hbf either via Karlsruhe Hbf – Freiburg Bf to Basel SBB (ICE line 12) or via Stuttgart Hbf – Ulm Hbf – Augsburg Hbf to München Hbf (ICE line 11)
- from Stuttgart.
Intercity-Express version ICE 3
The Intercity-Express — in Austria, Denmark and Switzerland: InterCityExpress (formerly also syntax in Germany); abbreviation: ICE (German pronunciation: [iːtseːˈʔeː]) — is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn. The brand name "ICE" is among the best of Germany, with a brand awareness close to 100%, according to DB.
There are currently 259 trainsets in five different versions of the ICE vehicles in use, of these ICE 3 was deployed in 1999. The ICE 3, including its variant models, is made by a consortium led by Bombardier and Siemens.
Third generation
Main article: ICE 3
- to overcome the restrictions imposed on the ICE 1 and ICE 2, their successor, the ICE 3, was built to a smaller loading gauge to permit usability throughout Europe. Unlike their predecessors, the ICE 3 units are built not as locomotive-pulled trains (albeit aerodynamically optimised), but as electric multiple units with underfloor motors throughout. This also reduced the load per axle and enabled the ICE 3 to comply with the pertinent UIC standard.
Two different classes were developed: the Class 403 (domestic ICE 3) and the Class 406 (ICE 3M), the M standing for Mehrsystem (multi-voltage). The trains were labelled and marketed as the Velaro by their manufacturer, Siemens.
Just like the ICE 2, the ICE 3 and the ICE 3M were developed as half-length trains (when compared to an ICE 1) and are able to travel in portions, with individual units running on different lines, then being coupled to travel together. Since the ICE 3 trains are the only ones able to run on the Köln-Frankfurt high-speed line with its 4.0 % incline, they are used predominantly on services that utilise this line.
Deutsche Bahn is planning to order another 30 units - worth € 900 million - for international traffic, especially to France.
The newest high-speed line in Germany, the Nuremberg-Ingolstadt high-speed rail line, which opened in May 2006, is the most recent addition to the ICE network. It is one of only two lines in Germany (the other being the Cologne to Frankfurt line) that are equipped for a line speed of 300 km/h. Since only 3rd generation ICE trains can travel at this speed, the ICE line 41, formerly running from Essen Hbf via Duisburg Hbf – Frankfurt Südbf to Nürnberg Hbf, was extended over the Nuremberg-Ingolstadt high-speed rail line and today the service run is Oberhausen Hbf – Duisburg Hbf – Frankfurt Hbf – Nürnberg Hbf – Ingolstadt Hbf – München Hbf.
The ICE 3 runs at speeds up to 320 km/h on the LGV Est railway Strasbourg – Paris in France.
Equipment
ICE design
An outstanding characteristic of the ICE trains is their colour design, which has been registered by the DB as an aesthetic model and hence is protected as intellectual property.[11] The trains are painted in Pale Grey (RAL 7035) with a Traffic Red (RAL 3020) stripe on the lower part of the vehicle. The continuous black band of windows and their oval door windows differentiate the ICEs from any other DB train.
ICE 3:no power heads, but an EMU: end cars with rounded windshield and passenger lounge, unpowered transformer car with pantograph; red stripe is interrupted at the end cars by ICE logo, then runs downwards and across the nose lid; window band becomes narrow and ends near the windshield.
Wikipedia
To see Large: farm5.static.flickr.com/4061/4463192608_707ed261fe_b.jpg
Taken on October 17, 2007 at 10:05
Here's some pretty funny text at the beginning of this article, wherein an editor and a reporter seem to be communicating about an edit to the headline:
:-)
eek, how embarrassing! thanks.
Note the syntax problem in the long headline — it says Hitler was in Seoul
Cotton-top Tamarin (Saguinus oedipus)
The cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus) is a small New World monkey weighing less than 0.5 kg (1.1 lb). One of the smallest primates, the cotton-top tamarin is easily recognized by the long, white sagittal crest extending from its forehead to its shoulders. The species is found in tropical forest edges and secondary forests in northwestern Colombia, where it is arboreal and diurnal. Its diet includes insects and plant exudates, and it is an important seed disperser in the tropical ecosystem.
The cotton-top tamarin displays a wide variety of social behaviors. In particular, groups form a clear dominance hierarchy where only dominant pairs breed. The female normally gives birth to twins and uses pheromones to prevent other females in the group from breeding. These tamarins have been extensively studied for their high level of cooperative care, as well as altruistic and spiteful behaviors. Communication between cotton-top tamarins is sophisticated and shows evidence of grammatical structure, a language feature that must be acquired.
Up to 40,000 cotton-top tamarins are thought to have been caught and exported for use in biomedical research before 1976, when CITES gave them the highest level of protection and all international trade was banned. Now, the species is at risk due to large-scale habitat destruction, as the lowland forest in northwestern Colombia where the cotton-top tamarin is found has been reduced to 5% of its previous area. It is currently classified as critically endangered and is one of the rarest primates in the world, with only 6,000 individuals left in the wild.
Taxonomy and naming
S. oedipus has the common names "cotton-top tamarin" and "cotton-headed tamarin" in English. Its name comes from the white hair that spans its head and flows down past the neck. In Spanish, it is commonly called bichichi, tití pielroja, "tití blanco, tití cabeza blanca, or tití leoncito. In German-speaking areas, the cotton-top tamarin is commonly known as Lisztaffe (literally "Liszt monkey") most likely due to the resemblance of its crest to the hairstyle of Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt.
The species was first described by Linnaeus in 1758 as Simia oedipus. Linnaeus chose the species name oedipus, which means swollen foot, but as the species does not have particularly large feet, it is unknown why he chose this name. (Linnaeus often selected names from mythology without any particular rationale, and he may have used the name of Oedipus, the mythical Greek king of Thebes, more or less arbitrarily.) In 1977, Philip Hershkovitz performed a taxonomic analysis of the species based on fur coloration patterns, cranial and mandibular morphology, and ear size. He classified Geoffroy's tamarin S. geoffroyi as a subspecies of S. oedipus. Subsequent analyses by Hernández-Camacho and Cooper (1976), Mittermeier and Coimbra-Filho (1981), and later Grooves (2001) consider the S. oedipus and S. geoffroyi types to be separate species.
Some researchers, such as Thorington (1976), posit that S. oedipus is more closely related to the white-footed tamarin (S. leucopus) than to S. geoffroyi. This view is supported by Hanihara and Natoria's analysis of toothcomb dental morphology (1987) and by Skinner (1991), who found similarities between S. oedipus and S. leucopus in 16 of 17 morphological traits considered.
This species of white-headed tamarin is thought to have diverged from the other Amazonian forms such as S. leucopus. This is supported by morphological considerations of the transition from juvenile to adulthood, during which the fur coloration patterns change significantly and are similar between the two species. Hershkovitz proposed that the separation of the two species happened in the Pleistocene at the height of the Atrato River, where it intersected the Cauca-Magdalena. At that time, the area was covered by a sea, which created a geographic barrier that caused the species to diverge through the process of allopatric speciation. Today, the two species are principally separated by the Atrato River.
Physical characteristics
The cotton-top tamarin is part of the most diminutive family of monkeys, Callitrichidae, the marmosets and tamarins; it weighs 432 g (15.2 oz) on average. Its head–body length is 20.8–25.9 cm (8.2–10.2 in), while its tail—which is not prehensile—is slightly longer at around 33–41 cm (13–16 in).[ The species is not sexually dimorphic, the male and female are of a similar size and weight. Members of the Callitrichinae subfamily (including this species) have sharp nails (tegulae) on all digits except the big toes, which have the flat nails (ungulae) common to other primates. Tegulae resemble a squirrel's claws and help with movement through trees.
The cotton-top tamarin has a long sagittal crest, consisting of white hairs, from forehead to nape flowing over the shoulders. The skin of the face is black with gray or white bands located above the eyes. These bands continue along the edge of the face down to the jaw. Tamarins are generally divided into three groups by their facial characteristics: hairy-faced, mottled-faced, and bare-faced. The cotton-top tamarin has fine white hairs covering its face, but they are so fine as to appear naked, thus is considered a bare-faced tamarin. Its lower canine teeth are longer than its incisors, creating the appearance of tusks. Like other callitrichids, the cotton-top tamarin has two molar teeth on each side of its jaw, not three like other New World monkeys.
The cotton-top tamarin has fur covering all of the body except the palms of the hands and feet, the eyelids, the borders of the nostrils, the nipples, the anus, and the penis. The back is brown, and the underparts, arms and legs are whitish-yellow. The rump and inner thighs and upper tail are reddish-orange. The fur is distributed with varying densities throughout the body: the genital region (scrotum and pubic zone), axilla, and the base of the tail have lower densities, while the forward region is much higher. Many individuals have stripes or whorls of fur of striking coloration on their throats. The cotton-top also has whiskers on its forehead and around its mouth.
Habitat and distribution
The cotton-top tamarin is restricted to a small area of northwest Colombia, between the Cauca and Magdalena Rivers to the south and east, the Atlantic coast to the north, and the Atrato River to the west. They mostly live Brazil; two-thirds of their habitat has been destroyed. Historically, the entire area was suitable for the cotton-top tamarin, but due to habitat loss through deforestation, it survives in fragmented parks and reserves. One of the most important areas for the cotton-top is the Paramillo National Park, which consists of 460,000 hectares (1,800 sq mi) of primary and secondary forests.
The cotton-top tamarin is found in both primary and secondary forests, from humid tropical forests in the south of its range to tropical dry forests in the north. It is seldom found at altitudes above 400 m (1,300 ft), but has been encountered up to 1,500 m (4,900 ft). It prefers the lower levels of the tropical forests, but may also be found foraging on the ground and between the understory and the canopy. It can adapt to forest fragments and can survive in relatively disturbed habitats. In the dry forests are pronounced seasons. Between December and April, it is dry, while heavy rainfall occurs between August and November which can flood the forest floor. Across its range, annual rainfall varies between 500 and 1,300 mm (20 and 51 in).
Ecology
The cotton-top tamarin has a diet of mainly fruit (40%) and animal material (40%). This includes insects, plant exudates such as gum and sap, nectar, and occasionally reptiles and amphibians. Due to its small body size and high food passage rate, its diet must be high-quality and high-energy. Insectivory is common in the cotton-top and the species hunts for insects using a variety of methods: stealth, pouncing, chasing, exploring holes, and turning over leaves.
Tamarins act as seed dispersers in tropical ecosystems. While larger primates eat larger seeds, tamarins eat the smaller ones. The expelled seeds have a higher germination rate than others and ingesting larger seeds may help to dislodge and expel intestinal parasites.
The cotton-top tamarin is diurnal and sleeps with its social group in trees with foliage cover. The group leaves the sleeping tree together an hour after dawn and spends the day foraging, resting, travelling, and grooming. The species is thought to rise late and increases the speed of its foraging and travelling before dusk to avoid crepuscular and nocturnal predators. Its main predators include raptors, mustelids, felids, and snakes. The cotton-top tamarin is extremely vigilant, always looking for potential predators. When the group is resting, one individual moves apart and acts as a lookout to alert the group if it sees a threat.
The cotton-top tamarin can live as long as 24 years in captivity, while its lifespan in the wild averages 13 years.
Behavior
Social systems
The cotton-top tamarin is a highly social primate that typically lives in groups of two to nine individuals, but may reach up to 13 members. These small familial groups tend to fluctuate in size and in composition of individuals and a clear dominance hierarchy is always present within a party. At the head of the group is the breeding pair. The male and female in this pair are typically in a monogamous reproductive relationship, and together serve as the group's dominant leaders.
Dominant pairs are the only breeding pair within their groups, and the female generally has authority over the breeding male. While nonbreeding group members can be the leading pair's offspring, immigrant adults may also live with and cooperate in these groups. This social grouping in cotton-top tamarins is hypothesized to arise from predation pressure. Cotton-top tamarins exhibit prosocial behavior that benefits other members of the group, and are well known for engaging in cooperative breeding whereby the group's subordinate adults help in rearing the offspring of the dominant pair. The dominant female is more likely to give birth to nonidentical twins than a singleton, so it would be too energetically expensive for just one pair to raise the young.
To prevent younger, subordinate females within the group from breeding, the dominant female uses pheromones. This suppresses sexual behavior and delays puberty. Unrelated males that join the group can release the females from this reproductive suppression; this may result in more than one female of the group becoming pregnant, but only one of the pregnancies will be successful.
Cooperation
In cooperative breeding, the effort put into caring for the dominant breeders' offspring is shared by the group members. Parents, siblings, and immigrant adults share young rearing duties for the breeding pair's young. These duties include carrying, protecting, feeding, comforting, and even engaging in play behavior with the group's young. Cotton-top tamarins display high levels of parental investment during infant care. Males, particularly those that are paternal, show a greater involvement in caregiving than do females. Despite this, both male and female infants prefer contact and proximity to their mothers over their fathers. Males may invest additional support in rearing offspring as a form of courtship to win favor of the group's dominant female. However, evidence indicates that time spent carrying infants does not correlate with a male's overall copulation frequency.
Since only one female in a group breeds, heavy investment in infant care ensures that all offspring survive until independence. Accordingly, cotton-top tamarins bear excessive costs to care for the group's young. Male carriers, especially paternal carriers, incur large energetic costs for the sake of the group's young. This burden may cause some male cotton-tops to lose up to 10–11% of their total body weight. The large weight loss may occur from reduced food intake as infant-carrying inhibits foraging ability for a carrier. The trend of male-carrier weight loss and decreased food intake is in contrast to the dominant female's periovulatory period, when she gains weight after increasing her own food intake and relinquishing much of her infant-carrying duties.
Altruism
While caregiving by males appears to be altruistic, particularly in cotton-top sires, the costs of infant care may in fact be tolerated for selfish reasons. Namely, the costs to male weight and foraging ability may in turn promote consecutive pregnancies in dominant females, thereby providing more offspring bearing the sire's genes. Additionally, the cooperative breeding structure of cotton-tops can change with group size and parental experience. First-time sires spend a greater amount of time carrying the infant than experienced ones, and in smaller groups, sires do a greater proportion of carrying and feeding the infant than in larger groups, where helpers take on more of the work. Total care for infants remains constant with varying group size, and infant outcome is not significantly different in groups that have differing levels of experience in raising offspring.
The cooperative breeding hypothesis predicts that cotton-top tamarins engage with this young-rearing paradigm, and in turn naturally embrace patterns of prosocial behavior. These monkeys engage in such behavior by acting altruistically within their groups in caring for infants, vocalizing alarm calls, and in sharing food. Though some studies indicate that cotton-top tamarins have the psychological capacity to participate in reciprocally mediated altruism, it is unclear whether the cotton-top tamarin acts solely using judgements on reinforcement history.
Other studies involving cotton-top tamarins have hinted that positive reciprocity and reciprocal altruism are irrelevant in the prosociality of these primates.[20] Some researchers believe these primates tend to cooperate for selfish reasons and in situations where they incur some benefit for themselves. That is, cooperation in cotton-top tamarins can be better described by mutualism than by true altruism.
Tamarins in captivity have shown the ability to distinguish other individuals based on cooperative tendencies and past behavior. Cotton-tops ultimately use this information to guide future cooperation. Brief periods of defection tend to cause swift, irreparable breakups between these primates and their cooperators. To avoid this, cotton-top tamarins may make economically driven decisions based on the projected incentives of a potential cooperator.
Spite and aggression
Despite an expansive array of altruistic behaviors, cotton-top tamarins engage in great bouts of spite through negative reciprocity and punishment. They have been observed to immediately start denying cooperation with monkeys that deny them benefits. Further, in captivity, these primates are not observed to increase altruistic behavior with fellow primates that are committed fully to cooperation. Based on this, researchers believe that repeated interactions in a cooperative society like that of the cotton-top tamarin can heighten the chances that an individual will designate behavioral punishments to others in its group. This reaction has also been observed in other species. However, these reciprocal punishments, or relative lack of altruistic actions, may alternatively happen as a result of response facilitation that increases the chances of a cotton-top punishing another primate after watching that individual perform a similar action.
Another way to look at punishment in cotton-top tamarins is by observing their aggressive behavioral responses within and between groups, as well as between species. The cotton-top tamarin, like many marmosets, other tamarins, and specifically those in the genus Saguinus, stages aggressive displays almost exclusively towards fellow monkeys that belong to the same gender. These intrasexual displays of aggression are more frequent in females, and are vital when a breeding female is forcing both subadult and adult females to emigrate out of a familial group.
Though aggression can occur within groups, the response towards intruders of another species is much more drastic and can involve a sexual dimorphism in displays. Females typically employ scent-marking intruder response tactics, whereas males are more prone to vocalizing threats, physical aggression, and piloerection. Scent-marking in cotton-top tamarins is done in two ways: either using anogenital scent-marking, or suprapubic scent-marking. The ability to use both of these separate glandular fields for threat signals may indicate females have developed diverging evolutionary threats through differential use of these markings. These variable signals may be used to sign a territorial encounter, or serve as a reproductive signal. The intensity of female threats are generally comparable when directed at intruders of either genders. In contrast, male cotton-tops are considerably more threatening towards fellow males than towards females.
Communication
The cotton-top tamarin vocalizes with bird-like whistles, soft chirping sounds, high-pitched trilling, and staccato calls. Researchers describe its repertoire of 38 distinct sounds as unusually sophisticated, conforming to grammatical rules. Jayne Cleveland and Charles Snowdon performed an in-depth feature analysis to classify the cotton-top's repertoire of vocalizations in 1982. They concluded that it uses a simple grammar consisting of eight phonetic variations of short, frequency-modulated "chirps"—each representing varying messages—and five longer constant frequency "whistles". They hypothesize that some of these calls demonstrate that the cotton-top tamarin uses phonetic syntax, while other calls may be exemplars of lexical syntax usage. Each type of call is given a letter signifier; for example, C-calls are associated with finding food and D-calls are associated with eating. Further, these calls can be modified to better deliver information relevant to auditory localization in call-recipients. Using this range of vocalizations, the adults may be able to communicate with one another about intention, thought processes, and emotion, including curiosity, fear, dismay, playfulness, warnings, joy, and calls to young.
Language acquisition
Over the first 20 weeks after a cotton-top tamarin is born, it is not fully capable of producing the range of vocalizations that an adult monkey can. Despite this limitation on speech producibility, researchers believe that language acquisition occurs early on with speech comprehension abilities arising first. Infants can at times produce adult-like chirps, but this is rarely done in the correct context and remains inconsistent across the first 20 weeks of life. Regardless, infant cotton-tops are able to respond in behaviorally appropriate ways to varying contexts when presented with adult chirps. This indicates that verbal perception is a quickly acquired skill for offspring, followed closely by auditory comprehension, and later by proper vocal producibility.
Castro and Snowdon (2000) observed that aside from inconsistent adult-like chirping, cotton-top infants most often produce a prototype chirp that differs in vocalization structure from anything seen in the full adult range of vocalizations. Infants are thought to imitate adult speakers, which use differing calls in various contexts, but by using solely the infant prototypical chirp. For instance, adult cotton-tops are known to significantly reduce the amount of general alarm calling in the presence of infants. This is likely adapted so that adults in close proximity to the group's young do not attract attention of predators to infant-dense areas. Additionally, infants reduce their prototype chirping in the presence of predators. Whether infants are shadowing the calling behavior of adults or they are comprehending danger remains unclear. However, researchers argue that young cotton-top tamarins are able to represent semantic information regardless of immature speech production.
To confirm the notion that language acquisition occurs as a progression of comprehension before production, Castro and Snowdon (2000) showed that infants respond behaviorally to vocalizing adults in a fashion that indicates they can comprehend auditory inputs. When an adult produces a C-call chirp, used to indicate food preference and when navigating to a food source, an infant approaches the adult caller to be fed, but do not use the prototype calling as a proxy for C-calls. This finding argues for the idea that infants are able to understand vocalizations first, and later acquire the ability to communicate with adult vocalizations.
General calling
Among the typical cotton-top tamarin communicative vocalizations, the combination long call (CLC) and the alarm call (AC) are the most heavily represented in the literature. CLCs encompass a range of contact calls that are produced by isolated individuals using chirps and whistles. This type of call is also used for seemingly altruistic alarm calls, thus adding to its range of cooperative behaviors. It is issued in the presence of kin when a threatening llamas predator is seen. Predators of the cotton-top tamarin include snakes, ocelots, tayras, and most notably, hawks. Early observations by Patricia Neyman even showed that cotton-tops produce diverse sets of alarm calls that can discriminate the presence of birds of prey versus ground-based predators.
CLCs involve the production of complex sequence multisyllabic vocalizations. Researchers have argued that long calls exhibit individual differences, thus can carry information sufficient for recipients to determine caller identity. Using habituation-discrimination paradigms in language experiments, this theory has been confirmed multiple times in literature. However, the individual syllables within a complete CLC vocalization in isolation of each other do not transfer sufficient information to communicate messages between monkeys. Scientists thus consider the whole, intact string of vocalizations to be the unit of perception for CLCs in the cotton-top tamarin. These examinations may confirm that cotton-tops incorporate a lexical syntax in areas of their communication.
Since tamarins can discriminate between predatory threats using varying vocalizations, recipients of an AC are thought to extract various complex signals from this form of communication. Primarily, cotton-tops are able to glean the identity of the cooperating tamarin through differences in individuals' alarm calls. Further, adults are able to discriminate the gender of callers from their ACs and determine the range of calls within a related tamarin's alarm calling repertoire. Alarm call-based identification is postulated to play a number of functional roles in the cotton-top tamarin. Firstly, an AC recipient is able to identify a cooperating tamarin, and by recognizing which in their group it is, be able to judge the reliability of the AC from past experience. This may arise from a selective pressure for being able to statistically determine the amount of risk present, and how endangered an individual and its group are.
Additionally, being able to localize auditory signals may help determine predator location, especially in the presence of a second AC from a different tamarin in the group. This can help confirm predator presence, type (e.g. flying versus ground-based), and support the recipient in triangulating a predator's location. In the context of the cotton-top's cooperative breeding groups, this is postulated as being adaptive for determining the variable risk to one's group members. For example, a call recipient is able to determine which of its kin are and are not at risk (e.g. young offspring, mates, subordinates, relatives, carriers, etc.) and plan subsequent actions accordingly.
Food calls
The cotton-top tamarin makes selective, specialized vocalizations in the presence of food. These include the C-call, produced when a cotton-top approaches and sorts through food, and the D-call, which is associated with food retrieval and is exhibited while eating.
C-call chirping is believed to be an honest signal for communicating food preference, and a cotton-top tamarin more often and more rapidly vocalizes with these chirps when approaching a highly favored food source. Functionally, this behavior may inform other tamarins of the actions the caller will take in a feeding context and whether a preferable food source is available. Despite this research indicating that food calls may be informative to fellow group mates, other observations of cotton-tops show that quantity and distribution of food and audience do not significantly alter a caller's food-centered vocalizations.
The cotton-top tamarin is seen to produce food calls both in the presence and absence of group members. Additionally, response to food calls are directed back to an original caller independent of visual confirmation of a food source. While this may appear to be a result from a very primitive form of communication, Roush and Snowdon (2005) maintain that the food-calling behavior confers some mentally representable information about food to recipient tamarins.
Conservation status
The wild population is estimated at 6,000 individuals, with 2,000 adults. This species is critically endangered, and was listed in "The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates between 2008 and 2012." The publication lists highly endangered primate species and is released every two years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group. The cotton-top tamarin was not selected for the 2012–2014 publication.
Habitat destruction through forest clearing is the main cause of this collapse, and the cotton-top has lost more than three-quarters of its original habitat to deforestation, while the lowland forest in which it lives has been reduced to 5% of its historical range. This land is then used for large-scale agricultural production (i.e. cattle) and farming, logging, oil palm plantations, and hydroelectric projects that fragment the cotton-top tamarin's natural range.
The illegal pet trade and scientific research have also been cited as factors by the IUCN. While biomedical studies have recently limited their use of this species, illegal capture for the pet trade still plays a major role in endangering the cotton-top. Before 1976, when CITES listed the species under Appendix I banning all international trade, the cotton-top tamarin was exported for use in biomedical research.
In captivity, the cotton-top is highly prone to colitis, which is linked to an increased risk of a certain type of colon cancer. Up to 40,000 individuals were caught and exported for research into those diseases, as well as Epstein-Barr virus, for the benefit of humans. The species is now protected by international law. Although enough individuals are in captivity to sustain the species, it is still critically endangered in the wild.
The Proyecto Tití ("Project Tamarin") was started in 1985 to provide information and support in conservation of the cotton-top tamarin and its habitat in northern Colombia. Proyecto Tití's programs combine field research, education, and community programs to spread awareness about this endangered species and encourage the public to participate in its protection. It now has partner status with the Wildlife Conservation Network.
In January 2015, two captive cotton-top tamarins at the Alexandria Zoological Park in Alexandria, Louisiana, died when a caretaker left them outside overnight in temperatures as low as 30 °F. One other individual survived.
[Credit: en.wikipedia.org]
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Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) was a leading caricaturist of his day – the era of King George III – who notably created John Bull as the personification of the United Kingdom.
He also illustrated 'Dr Syntax', a series of books by William Combe (1742-1823) about a fictional English clergyman and school teacher. The character appeared in a range of publications in the early 1800s – The Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, Dr Syntax in Search of Consolation, and The Third Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of a Wife. He also produced a series of erotic prints and woodcuts.
Rowlandson lived in John Adam Street, London, for a while. Here's an example of his work (Dr Syntax, below).
Spikel max moc, model inspired by dark_syntax claw mech, upgrade to android mode (not mech anymore), prefer design as android than mecha
"BOSTON FAMILIES FOUND AMERICAN CITY" blurts a headline on the Lincolnshire County Council website trivia page.
Huh? They mean founded of course.
The smug cretins. I think it somewhat unlikely that the city of Boston, Mass., was just sitting there empty, waiting for Puritan religious extremists to arrive from the coast of Lincolnshire.
On the other hand, anyone who has been to Boston in Lincolnshire will have no trouble understanding why they were prepared to risk 67 days drenched by violent storms, vomiting rotten food all over each other in a leaky tub to get away from it, with not even the prospect of a ready-built Ally McBeal-style metropolis to greet them at the other end.
If the Council's evil errorists believe they can carry out wanton attacks on English without retribution they can think again.
Pictured above is my newly built confinement solution for language abusers, erected by Greuiesecheheimer and his colleagues at Grammartoknow Bay, a mosquito-infested mudflat in the Gulf of Syntax.
Here, Council employees who have been hired in their thousands without passing the most basic checks into their ability to make sense will be "reeducated", or in most cases, just educated for the first time.
Butt-naked in a pit full of dictionaries, they'll be forced to conjugate irregular verbs and write essays on the role of tmesis in the Cat In The Hat books.
To complete their humiliation posh birds from the Arts Council will dangle overhead on bungee cords, clutching to their bosoms the ample financial endowments which the unfortunate prisoners earnestly believe will set them on the road to - o irony - our literacy.
Our War On Error will restore a Puritanical fear of God into our lingoterrorists and show any other slaphappy fluorocrats out there that their extraordinary renditions will be met with our own.
.