A Rant About the Hyphen

Dave Wilton links to a fine rant in The Atlantic about hyphens. (Yes, we care.)  And that link will get you to this one in Mental Floss about the difference between the em-dash and the en-dash.

Now I am careful to use the en-dash when separating ranges of numbers, such as an article being on pages 317–24 of a journal (although you can’t see the difference in this font), but how did I get through various writing and editing jobs without knowing about “the storied ‘compound adjective hyphen,’ an event so rare in the English language that proofreaders shiver with excitement whenever they come across it”?

Me with a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style always within reach. I am but an egg.

Nazi ‘Neo-Pagans’ and Their War on Christmas

A headline from 75 years ago in the International Herald-Tribune:  ” ‘Neo-Pagans’ Target Carols” with further discussion about the relations between National Socialism and Christianity here.

“Don’t Mess with Firefly”

Not just a cult-favorite TV show but an issue of free speech on campus at the University of Wisconsin. With Neil Gaiman  and a thick-headed campus police chief. Don’t underestimate the fans of Firefly.

UPDATE: Sorry, the YouTube link disappeared for a while.

Slightly Tipsy Religion Scholars Having Fun

Direct from Edinburgh, “Christmas Special — Only 60 Seconds!”

May I challenge the speaker if Rudolf Otto never actually used the term “the sacred”? Is speaking German a “deviation”?

“Far too many  -isms going on here.”

A ‘Going Out of Civilization’ Sale

The local weekly newspaper arrived in my post office box today.

I see that a liquor store in my little mountain county is announcing a new 12/21/12 pricing plan:

Bud or Bud Light six packs will cost you two chickens or a goat . . . Canadian Mist 175’s will cost you 1,000 rounds of 12 gauge . . . All wine 750’s will be traded for five gallons of gas.

People up in the county seat must be well-armed and thirsty. I wouldn’t give more than a box  (25 total) of shotgun shells for 175 ml. of blended Canadian whisky myself .

The Equinox Pagan Studies Series Continues

As I mentioned in November, the Equinox Series in Historic and Contemporary Paganism will continue, even though two books in the series will be published by Acumen, the result of the two firms’ merger and then de-merger. These are the titles:

1. Kaarina Aitamurto and Scott Simpson, eds. Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe.

2. Donna Weston and Andy Bennett, eds., Pop Pagans: Pagans and Popular Music.

Both are well worth reading. Unfortunately, the Central and Eastern European volume will be available only in high-priced hardback at first—one of the problems that my co-editor, Nikki Bado, and I had with Acumen’s approach.

So during 2013 we will be interested in seeing new proposals for the series.

The Knife Goes In, But You Don’t Feel It

Never underestimate the ability of senior academics to dismiss a book with what sound like words of praise.

Today’s example, Wendy Doniger’s (leading scholar of history of religion, particularly in India) blurb on a new book called The Origins of the World’s Mythologies.

“Not since Frazer’s Golden Bough, has anyone achieved such a grand synthesis of world mythology. Boldly swimming upstream against the present scholarly emphasis on difference and context, Witzel assembles massive evidence for a single, prehistoric, Ur-mythology. An astonishing book”

–Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago and author of The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was

In other words, I think she is saying that it follows a solipsistic (“swimming upstream”) and out-of-date methodology (the Golden Bough reference), and what astonishes her is that Oxford actually published it.

Weirdest Google Search String Yet

This brought a visitor to the blog: “grizzly bears knowing Jesus Christ is coming.”

The truth is that I did have Jesus Christ and a grizzly bear in one blog post.

The Khan of the Winter

Siberianwinterking

The King of the Winter — Sakha Republic (NE Siberian) ritual costume.

This man is costumed as the King (or Khan or Bull) of the Winter, as envisioned in the Sakha Republic of northeastern Siberia.

Here is the translation of the page about him in the Turkish Wikipedia, with a link to the photograph.

The Turkic people of Sakha were originally followers of shamanic traditions before being converted to Orthodox Christianity, and some are going back.

There seems to be a suggestion in the Wikipedia text that the bull horns might have been originally mammoth tusks, which would make more sense for that part of the world.

The website English Russia has a selection of photos of winter life there as well. “Yakutia has turned cold into brand!”

Why the Solstice Sunrise is not the Latest

The winter solstice is the shortest day, so why is the sunset is already happening later then than it is occurring now? And why does the sunrise keep on getting later after December 21st?

Blame the fact that the day is not a perfect 24 hours long.