I’m not a prescriptivist, I swear. As someone who is math-oriented (and maybe has some neurodivergent features), I like formal rules. I enjoy treating English grammar like a math problem; and, due to the circumstances of my upbringing, I am highly proficient at “standard” English. When I was younger I understood this to be a…
Tag: writing
What this blog is and why it is like how it is
“Thoughts on mind” is a very literal title. This blog consists of anything I happen to be thinking about, hence the diverse range of topics and lack of cohesion. I like explaining things, so a lot of posts are my explanations of things I’ve learned. This isn’t really meant to be authoritative. I mostly write…
Stories in the history of written language (part 7)
The origins of literature To define narrative formally is to accept, perhaps dangerously, the idea or the feeling that the origins of narrative are self-evident, that nothing is more natural than to tell a story or to arrange a group of actions into a myth, a short story, an epic, a novel. (Genette and Levonas…
Stories in the history of written language (part 6)
Writing systems in fiction Back in part 2, we looked at some writing systems that were invented rather than developing naturally over a long time. There are many more invented writing systems, namely those invented for fictional languages. J. R. R. Tolkien was a pioneer of fictional languages, being a real-world language expert himself. His…
Stories in the history of written language (Part 2)
In Part 1, we looked at the early development of writing, the spread of different scripts, and the historical example of ancient Egyptian. In Part 2, we’ll look at a modern example of written language, some scripts that were invented in unusual ways, and how writing has been used as an art form. The history…
thoughts on mind 