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| | :To cut a long story short, within the next 50 years, every single full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal had died, the last one being an elderly female, Truganini, in Hobart in 1876. They were shot, or starved, or caught European diseases or pined away in places alien to their ancestral tribal lands. Wherever the blame lies, the fact reminds that government policy and British land hunger caused the death of a race. (The Tasmanian and mainland Aboriginals were not the same – similar, but different.) | | :To cut a long story short, within the next 50 years, every single full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal had died, the last one being an elderly female, Truganini, in Hobart in 1876. They were shot, or starved, or caught European diseases or pined away in places alien to their ancestral tribal lands. Wherever the blame lies, the fact reminds that government policy and British land hunger caused the death of a race. (The Tasmanian and mainland Aboriginals were not the same – similar, but different.) |
| | :I refer to | | :I refer to |
| − | *the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, 1976, p. 305. *“Van Diemen’s Land” by James Boyce, pub 2008. [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 18:00, 9 March 2009 (EDT) | + | *the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, 1976, p. 305. |
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| | + | *“Van Diemen’s Land” by James Boyce, pub 2008. [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 18:00, 9 March 2009 (EDT) |
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| | + | ::Coupled with that, the idea that if the word doesn't exist the concept doesn't exist is wrong in every sense. To this day English speakers are capable of embracing and understanding concepts that have no specific English word ascribed to the meaning of the concept. A patently obvious example of this is the smell of freshly cut grass. This is a concept that all of us understand immediately, a concept that would have been around for millenia, and yet there is no word in English for the concept of the smell of fershly cut grass. If you want to say that something smells like freshly cut grass you have to say 'it smells like freshly cut grass'. Now, say that I invent a word to describe that smell: chlorowhiff, and go further and say that chlorowhiff becomes popular in use and enters the dictionary. the word was invented on the 9th March 2009 but it is immediately and patently obvious that the concept existed long before the creation of the word. Or consider how long humanity has been eating chicken. Those people who have eaten chicken (which is probably all of us reading this) understand the concept of the taste of chicken, but English has no word that specifically means the taste of chicken. If we want to say that something tastes of chicken then we say 'it tastes of chicken', yet the lack of a word in English that means 'the taste of chicken' doesn't mean that Enlgish speakers haven't grasped the concept. Or how about words in other languages. Take the Welsh word 'hiraedd' or the Japanese word 'giri'. Both words express concepts that English speakers are capable of understanding and even experiencing, yet neither word has an equivalent English word that defines the concepts enshrined in those two words. As to the word genocide, well it is a word that, in all likelyhood, was dreamt up by committee as a way of sounding official in describing a concept that has been around for as long as humanity has been around.--[[User:Ieuan|Ieuan]] 18:10, 9 March 2009 (EDT) |
| | + | :::Let's take the phrase, ''“Renaissance” is a French word for “rebirth”''. The term belongs to the 19th century. (However, as "''renascency''" it had some use in the 17th century. Lets look at "The Fertile Crescent" as that extremely ancient area of arable land in the Middle East. The term was invented in 1916 or thereabouts. Were there no ''atheists'' before 16th century. And so on. [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 18:35, 9 March 2009 (EDT) |
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| | + | ==Great Wall of China== |
| | + | Mr. Schlafly, I'm a bit confused about a minor point in this lecture. It says, ''The Qin dynasty began to construct the Great Wall to defend against foreign invaders, which stretches today for 1,400 miles and is the only man-made structure easily seen from outer space.''. I've just been editing the CP article on the [[Great Wall of China]] (mostly for grammar, but I did some reference-checking too), and it says that the Wall is ''not'' easily seen from outer space, that it can barely be seen at low orbit, and that other man-made structures are easier to see, which is a bit different than what you've said here. Could you take a look? I know this is a fairly minor issue in the big scheme of things, but we don't want to confuse our students by saying two different things. (Remember, I'm far from an expert in either Geography or China!) Thanks. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 13:54, 10 March 2009 (EDT) |
| | + | :If I recall correctly, Hsmom is right. Several cities (New York, etc) are visible from space, but ''not'' the Great Wall. [[User:EdGlorpus|EdGlorpus]] 20:31, 11 March 2009 (EDT) |
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| | + | :: I've modified the lecture slightly, with supporting citation. Thanks.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 21:44, 11 March 2009 (EDT) |
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| | + | :::Excellent! I'd love to get a glimpse of earth from space - wouldn't that be amazing? One ''very'' minor quibble - you might want to change "outer space" to simply "space". It seems that the man-made structures are visible from lower orbits but not from farther away; and I get the impression that, in general, "space" is used more often nowadays than "outer space". I really enjoy researching stuff for CP - I learn so many new things! --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 14:50, 13 March 2009 (EDT) |
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| | + | == Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon == |
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| | + | Slight point - the couple didn't have any ''surviving'' sons. They actually had three sons. Their first son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born on January 1, 1511 and lived for 53 days. Their second (unnamed) son was stillborn in 1513. A second Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born and died in December 1514.[http://www.nndb.com/people/427/000086169/] |
| | + | :Edited to add: it's interesting to think about what direction England might have taken had one of these sons lived and Henry and Catherine had remained married. The Church of England might never have been established, and instead of being ineligible to reign if a follower of the Catholic faith, the monarch of England might still ''be'' Catholic. --[[User:SharonW|SharonW]] 16:07, 16 August 2011 (EDT) |
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| | + | ::That's a fascinating observation!--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 16:09, 16 August 2011 (EDT) |