miscoranda: by Sean B. Palmer

Viol-da-Gam

The n3proc test suite is currently up to sixty-five test cases, and now covers some particularly tricky corner cases (especially formulae-08 and paths-06). At the moment, there's even a test for "@this" which uses it in the sense of referring to the current formula, though that functionality doesn't really exist; it could be fulfilled using either <>!log:semantics or a new keyword such as @current, but that has a lot of potential associated discussion.

In the Wikipedia article on Thomas Gainsborough, there's a wonderful quote of his that runs:

I'm sick of Portraits, and wish very much to take my viol-da-gam and walk off to some sweet village, where I can paint landskips and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease.

"Viol-da-gam" and "fag end" kept me amused for quite a while in figuring out their meanings. The ever-magnificent Jon Hanna provided me with the meaning of the latter, saying that it constitutes the "frayed bit of cloth or rope". On the other hand, viol-da-gam doesn't appear anywhere else on Google but that quote. I had the idea of search for viol-de-gam instead, and the only usage that came back was from Shakespeare; from Twelfth Night in the First Folio, thanks to the line breaks:

 To. Fie, that you'l say so: he playes o'th Viol-de-gam-
boys, and speaks three or four languages word for word
without booke, & hath all the good gifts of nature.

Long story short, it's from the Italian "viola da gamba", a leg-viol, and the OED defines it as a "viol held between the legs of the player while being played; in later use restricted to the bass viol corresponding to the modern violoncello." First usage? 1597.

Also, I'd like to apologise to Cody for thinking for so long that his wonderful jottage logo was in fact just a USELESS BLACK BLOB. Sorry!

by Sean B. Palmer, at 2004-12-14 04:53:07. Comment?

n3proc · On Toki Pona

Sean B. Palmer