Defenestration and Linguistics
Monday, November 26, 2007 considering that just about anyone that's active on facebook these days has superpoke, i'd say that the vast majority of people that have facebook are familiar with the term 'defenestration', even if they don't know what it means.i could just post the definition here, but while doing some searching for the meaning (it means 'to be thrown out the window'), i came across something rather interesting: the word 'defenestration' (from 'de' and 'fenestra', the latin word for window) was invented in 1620 to describe the throwing of two catholics deputies of the National Assembly out a window in Prague by protestants, an event that sparked off the Thirty Years' War.
i had initially wanted to question why on earth would they even bother to coin a word for the act of being thrown out the window (because, well, it's not quite something that happens everyday), but now i'm rather curious about who coined such a word, and how did it manage to make its way into facebook and from there into the collective consciousness when all it's been used for, in all of 400 years, is to describe an event that happened in Prague.
which brings me to the point that, in a perfect world, i'd be a linguistics major at some liberal arts college, striving towards a degree that will probably not land me any kind of job worth talking about, which doesn't matter because the last thing i want in this life is to have a brilliantly successful (read: busy) career that makes all my hair fall out by age 40.
and on a related note, someone i met over the weekend made this observation: that the singapore education system breeds engineering undergrads, who have no idea what engineering entails, or whether it would suit them.
Labels: general
6 Comments:
"in a perfect world, i'd be a linguistics major at some liberal arts college, striving towards a degree that will probably not land me any kind of job worth talking about"
GUFFAWS. thanks ah.
xping: haa you linguistics meh? i tot you is language?
SAME LA. nus calls it english language major. other unis call it linguistics major. it's essentially the same major.
well, since the gahmen wants 30%? 40%? of the population to get a college degree, and we do have an awful lot of old relics like leftover buildings, profs and mindsets from the 'ol days...why not, eh? need to house them somewhere don't we.
xping: but linguistics is very properly the study of the roots of language mah. so you all study that too? haha i tot like.. you would be studying forms and structure and other shit like that =P
yuch: eh.. this is why the profs should just go overseas and do research (and get paid more in the process)? btw, you locked your wordpress?
bao gar liao. lol.
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