Wordie: Brain: Comments

Comment by rolig, about 1 month ago

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:47:56 +0000

I wonder if Herm meant something different by "inconsiderable" than we would mean today. Maybe something like "imponderable" or "dumbfounding", i.e., so astounding that one cannot consider (contemplate) it.

Comment by yarb, about 1 month ago

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:44:18 +0000

Ha ha - a bad citation I think. The subject is a whale, natch, and the braining of the "bashing on the head" variety. Herm has been expounding the "potency" of the sperm whale, and so proposes to show us some of its more trifling accomplishments that we may have an impression of the terrible extent of its full wrath.

Oh god, now I'm starting to sound like him.

That passage in its full glory:

Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood is--by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow.

Comment by sionnach, about 1 month ago

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:33:47 +0000

mumbling to self ...

some of his more inconsiderable braining feats? lesseee now... we can work this out ...

a braining feat ... some kind of mental accomplishment
a considerable braining feat .... an impressive mental accomplishment
an inconsiderable braining feat .... an unimpressive mental accomplishment
a more inconsiderable braining feat ... a totally unimpressive mental accomplishment

Yet, somehow, one feels that Hermann actually means to say the opposite.

Oh, Hermy, why must you be so deliberately abstruse?

Comment by yarb, about 1 month ago

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:01:26 +0000

...I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining feats...

- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 76

Comment by gangerh, 7 months ago

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 10:13:15 +0000

Something with which we think that we think.

Comment by oroboros, 9 months ago

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:23:32 +0000

A species is born
Brain is the body's baby
New kid on the block!

Stu Charno

Comment by oroboros, about 1 year ago

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:40:23 +0000

One man had a phone, but it did him no good: he had no ears.
One man had a book, but it did him no good: he had no eyes.
One man had a brain, but……..
(A chap who resides in another place wishes to note that "Abrupt parables went out with knee breeches and the second ice age.")

--Jan Cox