3 ms·

There was amusing humor in this writing with allusion to Douglas Adams & Kurt Vonnegut (& maybe others I missed). This seems especially apt for a young person

by cb321 3y ago

There was amusing humor in this writing with allusion to Douglas Adams & Kurt Vonnegut (& maybe others I missed). This seems especially apt for a young person with ambitions to chair a committee for standardizing such an old language.

rcarmo 3y ago
oh yes. Worth reading for those alone.
mijoharas 3y ago
I noticed the Douglas Adams reference[0] but couldn't remember where it was from, so thank you! What was the Kurt Vonnegut reference? [0] In the beginning, Scheme was created. This made a lot of people very happy and has widely been regarded as an excellent idea.
- cb321 3y ago
  "So it goes" was a line used gajillions of times by Vonnegut in a similar way.[1] So, at least that. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/660696-so-it-goes-unlike-many-of-these-quotes-the-repeated https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/660696-so-it-goes-unlike-ma...
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    "So it goes" can't be called a Vonnegut reference unless it's surrounded by other Vonnegut references, because it's a perfectly ordinary phrase in common use outside Vonnegut. Think of it this way: "So long, and thanks for all the fish" is a Douglas Adams reference, but mentioning a dolphin isn't.
    - cb321 3y ago
      An "allusion" is an indirect reference/pun. The degree of indirection is clearly subjective. The phrasing great grandparent recognized from Adams (at least one other person) is actually a negation of the famous line from Restaurant At The End of the universe. (EDIT: which, for the record, is "The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.") I do agree "So it goes" is more of a stretch here especially since dpk seems to live in Germany and it's a common translation of "So geht's" which may be more common in Germany than "So it goes" in primarily English speaking countries. I.e., how "perfectly ordinary" may be reader-dependent. I think it's a stretch supported by the Adams adaptation two paragraphs earlier, though. In primarily English speaking countries it is "signature enough" that they use it for the Vonnegut Library: https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/so-it-goes/ https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/so-it-goes/ , but sure it comes up a lot more than "thanks for all the fish". I think these are disputes of degree more than kind. TL;DR - I stand by my guess, but you'd have to ask dpk to be sure. EDIT: and Vonnegut's parents were German - so, this may also just be V being an "ambassador" making the more "perfectly ordinary" in one domain more "signature" in another domain. It happens.

by cb321 3y ago

rcarmo 3y ago

oh yes. Worth reading for those alone.

mijoharas 3y ago

I noticed the Douglas Adams reference[0] but couldn't remember where it was from, so thank you! What was the Kurt Vonnegut reference? [0] In the beginning, Scheme was created. This made a lot of people very happy and has widely been regarded as an excellent idea.

cb321 3y ago
"So it goes" was a line used gajillions of times by Vonnegut in a similar way.[1] So, at least that. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/660696-so-it-goes-unlike-many-of-these-quotes-the-repeated https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/660696-so-it-goes-unlike-ma...
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  "So it goes" can't be called a Vonnegut reference unless it's surrounded by other Vonnegut references, because it's a perfectly ordinary phrase in common use outside Vonnegut. Think of it this way: "So long, and thanks for all the fish" is a Douglas Adams reference, but mentioning a dolphin isn't.
  - cb321 3y ago
    An "allusion" is an indirect reference/pun. The degree of indirection is clearly subjective. The phrasing great grandparent recognized from Adams (at least one other person) is actually a negation of the famous line from Restaurant At The End of the universe. (EDIT: which, for the record, is "The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.") I do agree "So it goes" is more of a stretch here especially since dpk seems to live in Germany and it's a common translation of "So geht's" which may be more common in Germany than "So it goes" in primarily English speaking countries. I.e., how "perfectly ordinary" may be reader-dependent. I think it's a stretch supported by the Adams adaptation two paragraphs earlier, though. In primarily English speaking countries it is "signature enough" that they use it for the Vonnegut Library: https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/so-it-goes/ https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/so-it-goes/ , but sure it comes up a lot more than "thanks for all the fish". I think these are disputes of degree more than kind. TL;DR - I stand by my guess, but you'd have to ask dpk to be sure. EDIT: and Vonnegut's parents were German - so, this may also just be V being an "ambassador" making the more "perfectly ordinary" in one domain more "signature" in another domain. It happens.