#Words Across Time

[wordacrosstime]

Bad Actors

[Bad Actors, by Mick Herron. 10 May 2022. Publisher - Soho Crime. 360 pages. ISBN-10: ‎1641293373. ISBN-13 - 978-1641293372. Weight - 1.18 pounds. Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1.17 x 8.52 inches. (publishing details thanks to Soho Crime)]

In 2010, writer Mick Herron published the first of his 8-book series centered on Slough House, an MI5 property that houses the discarded refuse of the British intelligence apparatus.  The slow horses (a play on the name of the facility) are embittered, disillusioned, and disgraced, but evidently not quite to the level of termination.  Instead, they labor on pointless, soul-crushing assignments for the Mother Ship of MI5, located at Regent’s Park in London (and prosaically dubbed The Park).

Heading up the slow horses is Jackson Lamb, himself a disgraced and hyper-cynical spy who, for reasons that are never made entirely clear, relishes his command position in this Purgatory of the intelligence community.  Lamb is ugly, foul-mouthed, misogynistic, anti-social in the extreme, and has repulsive personal and professional hygiene.  He claims to have total disregard (or possibly no regard whatsoever) for the people in his charge, whom he refers to as his joes.  But underneath the crass and off-putting demeanor lies a profound and singular intellect and an exceptionally keen understanding of the ways of the world, especially that part of the world dominated by intrigue, deception, treachery and violence.  And though he would never, ever admit it, he actually cares about his joes.  If anything is to happen to them, it had better be by his hand, or woe be unto the person or persons who got in the way.

The volume under review here, Bad Actors, is the eighth and final (?) book in the Slow Horses series.  In addition to Jackson Lamb, many of the usual suspects remain from the preceding seven installments:  Diana Taverner, the ruthless and rapacious First Desk at MI5; Roddy Ho, Slough House’s tech genius, a legend in his own mind only; Claude Whelan, who used to head up MI5; Catherine Standish, Lamb’s gal Friday and the bulwark standing between him and the chaos beneath him; and many more.

In this episode, a Downing Street superforecaster – someone who can predict, with startling accuracy, how policies will influence the electorate and advises the Prime Minister on same – has disappeared.  Claude Whelan has been assigned the job of finding her.  The trail leads back to The Park and Diana Taverner.  Just what is she up to?  Are her labyrinthine schemes for control of the Intelligence Service coming to a boil?  Or is something else at work?  Simultaneous to this domestic intrigue is the sudden arrival of Taverner’s opposite number in the Russian intelligence machine, who enters Britain under a false name and promptly loses his MI5 handlers.

Amid the tumult, the Slow Horses become involved in these machinations, for two reasons:  One, because they are terminally bored and eager to do something to set their personal records straight and perhaps – just perhaps – inveigle their way back into The Park, even though the history of Slough House suggests that this cannot happen; and Two, because Jackson Lamb hates Diana Taverner and The Park and loves to poke the hornet’s nest whenever and however he can.

Throughout this and the other seven Slough House novels, Mick Herron seamlessly interweaves caustic rhetoric with surprisingly poignant moments.  He plays off the Slow Horses against one another to varying degrees while Jackson Lamb lurks like a spider in his darkened corner of proceedings.  But when Lamb strikes, they all know to get out of his way (well, all but Roddy Ho who can’t seem to get out of his own way, much less anyone else’s) and let him do what he does best – whatever that is.  Lamb, both figuratively and literally, knows where the bodies are buried, and knows this not only within his own agency but with other intelligence services around the globe – including the Moscow directorate.  And though Slough House will never get their contributions acknowledged, even Lamb knows that sometimes the only solution to a sticky situation is a few Slow Horses – his joes.

Unlike many of his peers, Herron brings a decidedly literary quality to his writing.  Fans of John le Carré will find these novels great fun; they certainly move ahead more swiftly than, say, his Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Len Deighton's Funeral In Berlin.  There is a modern sensibility to these novels that will catch the interest of most readers of spy fiction and thrillers.  And if one can ignore Jackson Lamb’s foulness, one will be rewarding with some of the most sardonic humor to be found in modern fiction.  Herron’s writing pairs nicely with a chewy red wine and some spicy crisps of an evening.

Image credits from top : Cover with thanks to © publisher. Portrait of Mick Herron with thanks to photographer © Mikael Buck and Hachette

Kevin Gillette

Words Across Time

19 January 2024

wordsacrosstime

#Mick Herron #Kevin Gillette #Words Across Time #wordsacrosstime #January 2024 #Bad Actors #Slough House #British Intelligence #MI5 #Slow Horses #Regent's Park #The Park #Jackson Lamb #intrigue #deception #treachery #violence #Diana Taverner #Roddy Ho #Claude Whelan #Catherine Standish #Superforecaster #Downing Street #Prime Minister #Russian Intelligence #John le Carré #Len Deighton #Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy #Funeral In Berlin #chewy red wine

[cemeterything]

anyone who thinks dostoevsky's writing is dry and humourless is missing out on passages like this

#🐉 #i dont think my version is the most common translation because its worded a bit differently #(but still gets the same point across) #however im glad because this bit makes me howl every time i remember it

[annakarenina]

#every time i come across this vid on twitter i watch it like its the first time ive seen it #i love his brain #ethan hawke #ehawkeedit #ethanhawkeedit #dailyfilmactors #chewieblog #usercas #* #words

[justarmor]

ok but having miles hold gwen up with his web in the exact same way as when tasm2 gwen died, AFTER THEY LITERALLY TALKED ABOUT GWEN SUFFERING A TERRIBLE FATE AFTER FALLING FOR SPIDERMAN!!! and then to reverse that later on with gwen being the one to web him Like That and miles being the one to cut the thread and let himself fall, i’m going insane

#i just got back from watching the movie a second time #and my brain is still buzzing #so i couldn't word this properly #i'm sure people have pointed this out before #BUT IT'S JUST!!! THE PARALLELS!!! #THEY DID THAT #break the cycle dont let anyone else tell your story!!!! #across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse spoilers #spiderverse #gwen stacy #miles morales #sofia rambles #atsv #atsv spoilers #gwiles #ghostflower

[spider-phoenix]

NGL I love how the spiderverse fandom saw the ship potential and with our single collective braincell came up with the ship names on the spot and refused to change them.

No communication needed, no debate, we just knew what they'd be.

Punkflower, chaipunk, chaiflower

Yet for some reason , the Miles and Ganke ship name sucks. So I propose to the shared brain, riotflower.

Miles ship code is based on the song he was listening to in ITSV, Sunflower by Post Malone. So it only makes sense that Ganke's should be based on the song he listened to in that movie, Start a Riot by Duckworth and Shaboozey.

#across the spiderverse #into the spider verse #spiderman #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman into the spiderverse #spiderverse 2 #miles x ganke #ganke lee #miles morales #riotflower #punkflower #chaiflower #chaipunk #flowerpunk #ive typed flower to many times its not a word anymore

[frownyalfred]

I’m on the 1-2k chapter defense squad now. Y’all need to stop judging authors for writing short chapters.

The fact that they updated at all? For free?? And managed to write more than two words?? Readers can be a little more grateful.

5-10k weekly chapters are nice, but not routinely achievable for someone with a job/work or family/school etc.

#not about me #this is in general #I see people so self conscious about short chapters #to which I say #post the short chapter #post the 800 word chapter #you WROTE that and that was what you had time to post #anyone giving you grief come across as entitled #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #archive of our own #end rant #sorry I keep ranting about ao3

[bread-wizards]

The Crown Keeper and Fearne&Orym reunion is going to be very interesting because you have Fearne, who hesitated to take the shard because of the impact seeing dark!Fearne had on her, possibly seeing Opal again.. like this. She gets a front row seat to one of her very good friends heading down that path of corruption that she herself was scared of.

Then you have the Crown Keepers just seeing the toll these last few months have had on Orym and Fearne. I wonder if there would be any guilt from Dorian, knowing he left and came back to such a drastic change.

That Orym did get the answers he was looking for and he is crumbling under the weight of them. That Fearne has had to experience so much more loss and anger in these last few months than she had in over 100 years and she still doesn't know what to do with some of these feelings.

#cr spoilers #critical role #cr3 #text post #orym #fearne #opal #dorian #crown keepers #its always weird when you see someone again for the first time in a long time and you can barely recognise them anymore #25 words is just not enough to get across everything that happened #on the plus side #morrighan knows nana morri so she can talk to fearne about that #i hope they become friends i think the vibes would be great with them

[venomous-qwille]

Dear 5+ asks I have had since last saturday which I wont be answering individually cause I don't want to put a target on your back:

Don't send me messages asking about GITM updates without reading my bajillion posts/ANs on the subject.

'not trying to be rude' - well you are being rude, actually, friend. receiving these messages doesnt make me feel good. In fact, it makes me feel very bad. If you spent half the effort it takes to write an ask actually reading the information I have already given people, rather than demanding a personalised answer, then we would all be a lot happier.

Another reminder, a bit louder for people in the back:

My chapters are now 12-15k words each for gitm, because of this I am now following a 3 weekly update schedule. I work full time and write for hours every evening. If that is not good enough for you, you can kindly fuck off.

peace & love, and all that

#gitm au #ghost in the machine au #ghost in the machine #qwillechatter #im currently doing nanowrimo and its going well #gitm sits about about 150k words total #i will still be releasing every three weeks though to keep the breathing space #please have some fucking respect for me and my time #and think about how that shit actually comes across #not just your intentions #if you want more detailed updates on schedule #join the discord #we literally have a calendar for the chapter release dates #my dumb ass thought these asks would stop when i turned off anon #apparently not

[valiantstarlights]

101 Dalmatians meet cute but with Hob and Dream. Dream's dog is a purebred named Jessamy (very calm, very regal), and Hob's dog is a mutt named Matthew (excitable and energetic).

Hob has only just recently adopted Matthew and is new in town. Dream's family has been in the area for generations. Dream is a famous author and Hob is a history professor.

Dream is just quietly reading a book and enjoying a rare sunny day out with Jessamy when this handsome man sits beside him on the bench, cheerful and friendly and making small talk. There are literally other unoccupied benches.

Dream is wary because he has had to deal with crazy stalker fans before, so he leaves with Jessamy. Matthew (still on his leash) runs after him because he smells better quality dog treats on his person, and drags Hob along.

We get the tangled leash scene, Dream's and Hob's legs getting tied together, their bodies pushed against the other. Jessamy's leash also gets tangled up with Matthew's, so the mess is a bit more difficult to undo.

Hob is apologizing and doing his best to untangle the leashes, except Matthew is hindering (and consequently undoing) his progress by jumping around, sniffing at Dream's coat pockets, left then right then back again.

Hob is like, "Sorry, I'm really sorry, he's just very excitable and--Matthew no--I'm trying to train him--stop jumping and giving me kisses ow fuck--"

Dream starts laughing.

And Hob stares at him, the two of them still tied up against each other, because Dream's face lights up, his eyes crinkled, his cheeks becoming rosy, and he has the most ridiculous laugh Hob has ever heard but it's also so endearing, that Hob just blurts out, "You're beautiful."

#101 dalmatians meet cute AU #dreamling #the sandman #my writing #every time I come across the words 'new in town' i automatically think about john mulaney's bit #but rest assured Hob has a house and doesn't have aids in this AU

[muirmarie]

honestly the funniest thing is coming across ppl who are like "bones is so mean to spock 😡😡😡" like spock doesn't go out of his way to be just as big a cunt to mccoy??? it's their LOVE LANGUAGE!!! some of y'all didn't grow up watching tv shows with old broads and old queen-coded men being as cunty as possible to each other OUT OF LOVE. spock spends half his shift on the bridge coming up with mean things to say to his dr the moment mccoy flounce onto the bridge to flirt with jim (affectionate) and spock (derogatory and bloody, there will be no survivors except for them, THEY'RE having a BLAST).

listen when the cards are down they will be thoughtful and worried and touch each other SO gently and fight over who gets to die for each other. all of that is the floor they're standing on. they KNOW that. but GOSH in the meantime they're BOTH having an absolute blast bullying the shit out of each other, bless <3

#c word #since i know a lot of ppl aren't comfortable with it #but i really don't think there's any other word i could substitute because that's THEM lmao #star trek #st:tos #spones #star trek tos #leonard mccoy #spock #mccoy will be having a genuine emotion and spock will go up for a layup and literally dunk the ball ON MCCOY'S HEAD #don't you DARE say he's a poor little meow meow he has TEETH and he will BITE and mccoy's got half-lidded eyes saying BITE MORE PUSSY #and that's LOVE!!!!! #(if you can't guess I've come across one too many spock's a poor little meow meow things recently lmao. he is.......VERY not.) #(EXCEPT when he's hurt and mccoy's trying to help and spock is literally trying to bite his hand off and MCCOY is calling him a poor little #meow meow while PROFUSELY bleeding. that's the ONLY time he's a poor little meow meow) #(if JIM is there then spock will STILL bite mccoy but JIM will be calling him a poor little meow meow and mccoy will be calling him #a sonuvabitch bastard while spock looks up at jim with sad little eyes. jim is wrong in this scenario. mccoy is right. spock is smirking.)

[wordacrosstime]

Ingush Grammar

[Ingush Grammar. Johanna Nichols. First Edition: March 2011. University of California Press. Series: UC Publications in Linguistics. Pages: 830. Trim Size: 7 x 10 inches.  Illustrations: 1 map. Paperback. ISBN: 9780520098770]

Readers of my book reviews cannot help but notice my interest in – nay, my fascination with – linguistics and languages.  I am no stranger to Professor Nichols’s work: I read her award-winning treatise Linguistic Diversity in Time and Space a few years ago and was captivated by her command of language reconstruction principles.   Recently, it came to my attention that there might (in principle) be a call for persons to assist in national security-related activities who are fluent in, or at least familiar with, the Northeast Caucasian languages, especially Chechen and Dagestani.  The language discussed here, Ingush, is a closely-related language with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility with Chechen, Dagestani and Baltsi.  Since I couldn’t find a suitable book from which to learn Chechen, I thought I’d check this tidy little volume out.

“Tidy” is not the correct word for this work.  It tips the scales at almost 800 pages.  However, it is an undeniable tour-de-force of scholarship in the documenting of a comparatively obscure language. Prof. Nichols herself acknowledges that this tome is the culmination of about 30 years of work with Ingush, at least ten of which were spent in the homeland of the language itself, a region now known as Ingushetia in southern Russia adjacent to the Republic of Georgia and Chechnya.

The Northeast Caucasian languages are a small primary language family spoken almost exclusively in the region between the Republic of Georgia and the north end of the Caspian Sea.  Significant cities in this region are Ongusht (whence the name Ingush), Groznyy (the capital of Chechnya) and Makhachkala (the capital of Dagestan).   Though these languages share many features with Georgian (known as Kartuli to its speakers) and the similarly-named Northwest Caucasian languages (examples are Abkhazi and Cherkessian), they are not, in fact, related to them in any meaningful way.  This may seem surprising when one looks at a map of the region.  The area covered by these three language groups (Georgian is part of its own tiny language family called the Kartulian languages) is fairly small.  However, the area is peppered with mountain ranges that have carved it up geographically to a point where very ancient steppe peoples had settled in individual valleys and had no direct contact with even neighboring valleys for centuries. Little wonder, then, that language families developed independently from a still-more-ancient proto-language (as yet unidentified or classified).

Ingush, as alluded to in the previous paragraph, was named after a prominent community in its sprachbund, or speaking area.  Ingush people do not use this term, referring to their language as vai mott (our language) or, if speaking to non-Ingush speakers, vai neaxa mott (our people’s language).  Given that the homeland for this language has at least three well-defined geographic zones (alpine highlands, piedmont, and plains), it is not surprising that various dialects of Ingush have emerged.  All of these dialects are highly mutually intelligible, far from any objective criteria that would categorize them as distinct languages in their own right.

Nichols herself, in the introductory material, lists Ingush as one of the most morphologically complex languages in her experience, outstripping even daunting native American languages like Lakhota (a Siouan language of the northern Great Plains) and Halkomelem (a Salishan language from the Pacific Northwest in the USA).  Ingush has unusually large inventories of elements (phonemes, etc.), a high degree of inflectional synthesis in the verb (this is similar to some native American languages, especially the Athapaskan group) and a variety of categories of words, many of which do not have an analogue in English or any Indo-European language.  She comments that this might go some way toward explaining why this book took 30 years to produce!

Since the volume is so detailed, I will simply summarize my observations of its style and completeness.  I confess that I haven’t actually read the entire volume – I’ve probably read about 150 pages, or nearly 20% of it all told – but I have dipped into it in various places along its length to see what it was all about.  It is impossible for me to imagine that Prof Nichols missed anything; every conceivable component of Ingush seems to be covered here.  The book has 35 major sections, any one of which is worthy of at least a semester-long course of study (for the subject itself, not necessarily for Ingush per se).  Her writing tone and style strike an admirable balance between being very scholarly (it certainly is that) and yet being profoundly informative to a non-specialist like myself who is also not a trained linguist.

The best affirmation I can make of this book is that it is quite possibly the best template for any field linguist to follow when documenting and characterizing a language.  This is certainly true for someone working with an Endangered language, of which there are literally thousands still being spoken (some just barely) in the world today.  The level of commitment Prof Nichols has brought to bear on this work seems nothing short of miraculous.

This is definitely not a book for just anyone.  Like attempting to read all of Proust in the original French while not actually speaking French, a true appreciation of this book requires enormous patience and strong memory skills.  Prof Nichols refers to sections back and forth across the book, of necessity since linguistic elements do not exist in a vacuum.  That said, to truly appreciate the scope and even grandeur of this volume will command great mental agility and focus.  For anyone who is up to the challenge, I say, “Good luck – and enjoy!”  Even if you never speak Ingush or travel to that part of the world, this book will teach you something useful, edifying, and mind-expanding.

[Photo credits with thanks to : Book cover ©  2011 University of California Press / Portrait © 2012 Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin]

Kevin Gillette

Words Across Time

28 September 2022

wordsacrosstime

#Kevin Gillette #Ingush Grammar #Words Across Time #wordsacrosstime #September 2022 #University of California Press #Johanna Nichols #Linguistics. #Language Reconstruction #Northeast Caucasian Languages #Chechen #Dagestani #Ingush #Baltsi #Ingushetia #Southern Russia #Republic of Georgia #Chechnya #Caspian Sea #Ongusht #Groznyy #Makhachkala #Dagestan #Kartuli #Northwest Caucasian Languages #Kartulian #vai mott #Lakhota #Siouan #Halkomelem

[daylighteclipsed]

Sora’s stupid but well-meaning cartoon brothers/dads/uncles: don’t be sad :) always stay positive

Sora young and impressionable: I will never let you see me sad again or talk about it with you ever, heroes are always cheerful and you don’t wanna hang out with me if I’m not, my sadness is an inconvenience to everyone, got it, I am internalizing this forever

#i go from having no new drafts to like 14 in a day #kingdom hearts #sora #donald #goofy #as much as i do wanna smack the cartoon duck and dog for this i enjoy that they are flawed #they don’t mean for their words to come across this way #they don’t realize sora’s getting a different message than just ‘cheer up’ #they don’t mean any harm by it but i definitely believe they are a big reason why sora becomes a stepford smiler #why he’s unwilling to talk about his feelings especially with them #why he forces cheer and silliness #that kh2 potc scene is so… hurjthrhdhs like ohh my god. it could not be more obvious #and donald and goofy don’t press him about it when they Should #they drop it every time #or sometimes they just straight up don’t ask if sora’s okay #when he is obviously not #coupled with as the series progresses how everyone else also expects sora to always be cheery #you’ve got a real mess haha… it’s such a mess #it sure is interesting revisiting kh1 and seeing how different sora is

[rottengurlz]

lover, don't touch me // leave, i am a danger to you // but ooh, i hunger for you

#this is leona's vampire lover audra #i guess you could say the first time they met was when audra nearly killed her in a blood lust because she hadnt fed in so long #idk how to describe it well but audra suddenly stopped devouring her when leona looked at her with no fear in her eyes #but looked at audra like she was something to worship #she whispered that audra was so beautiful even as her own blood was splattered between them and staining her lips #leona had never seen someone or something so perfect and powerful #power that she wanted and knew exactly how to get when audra whimpered over the slightest bit of praise #i never talk about them but i am CONSTANTLY thinking about them <3 #some fun little facts is leona killed her husband in cold blood because he was pitiful and boring #she married the first person to show any interest in her just to get away from her family #he would have been a perfectly good husband for anyone else #but the best part of their marriage was when she stabbed him in the stomach 47 times and felt his blood splatter against her skin #for audra OBVIOUSLY had to make another oc who would do anything to be loved even if it means destroying herself #audra was turned very suddenly and without any guidance #she murdered her lover without even realizing it she opened her eyes to find them splattered across every surface of the room #because of that shes done everything she can to protect herself from others even if it means starving herself of blood #until she goes into a frenzy #leona is the first person she has ever willingly fed off of #idk if willingly is the right word since leona practically begs her to do it #i really want to remake leona now......... #i like how leona looks but i want her to match audra better #mysims #the sims 4 #simblr #sims 4 screenshots #sims 4 cas #ts4 cas #sims 4 edit #ts4

[acheronist]

so as far as i can tell, he got hit with a moment of Existential Panic And Misery and then wrote down his account of his entire sailing career to add in next to his issued ID papers in the wallet. so if the wallet survived then we would know who he was. thanks bestie the clues did help.

#tho he did conveniently leave out the year (1833) where he got disrated and lashed for being drunk and mutinous (according to wikipedia) #and the wikipedia source is a e g jones cited so i trust it #but still. gay people lying on their resumes across time and space amen #anyways sorry about the damaged spots tho.. i'm doing my best. i'm certain a few words in here are wrong lol #his script is so faded and loopy.... #it gets really tough to trace/read properly in spots even with the photoshop editing etc #henry peglar #📜 #peglar papers

[lunaryhues]

Barbara :)

#rayman #rayman legends #barbara rayman #artists on tumblr #a modified design mostly based on that one time she randomly got a redesign in Rayman Mini #and i thought an across-the-chest holster would look cool #is holster the right word? #i imagine there's a thing on the back for her to slide her axe into #she's giving rayman a noogie if that wasn't obvious idk i tried

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

endlessly captivated and fascinated by the way alex and miles talk about their personal/ creative relationship

#the bit where miles is lost for words as to how to describe their connection is one of my all time favourites #it’s so rare you see him in interviews tripping over his words or unsure of how to say something but he is in that moment #*whispers* #because the thing he has with alex transcends words #also i will never not love the sheer married domesticity of the ‘i’m waffling on again!’ head petting #and can we talk about the layers of emotion that pass across both of their faces when they’re talking about if they ever argue?? #milex #alex turner #miles kane #tlsp #the last shadow puppets #milex vid #lulu posts