The Reading Room

1:23 AM

Although of course the second stanza is much worse:

עוד לא אבדה תקותנו \ התקוה

2 hours later…

Q: How does one search for patterns/motifs in folklore or mythology?

3:17 AM

Hey, anyone here?

What would be a good way to port this question over to Literature. (I wrote the question and answer):

I'm currently attempting to research how often a specific type of story (i.e. a motif) occurs in the global corpus of folklore (mythology). For instance, I might be interested in whether there are examples of powerful figures loosing an eye (other than Odin). I might also be interested in whether...

Q: Mathematics or gibberish? Understanding a description of an alien message in His Master's Voice

3:29 AM

I would also love to do something with the Corpus of Historical American English on this site -- it's a cool database that can be used to see how our use of words change over time.

Bookworm

4:16 AM

I'm reading the 1983 Michael Kandel translation of Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice. The plot revolves around a secret military project to decode an alien message. The main character is a mathematician, and in one scene in the book he describes a mathematical proof of certain properties of the ...

polish-literature stanislaw-lem his-masters-voice

Q: Identify mystery novel: Past crime uncovered in English village, gossip leading to death(s)

@Bookworm I think I have enough material for four more his-masters-voice questions.

I probably need to ask ten stanislaw-lem questions to get his tag to the front page.

And of course, stanislaw-lem is the only author in the polish-literature tag; he's a great author but I'm sure there are other authors we could ask questions about!

@Hamlet never mind; I only have enough material for three more questions.

@Randal'Thor why do we have an american-literature tag? I thought those tags were supposed to be for the language the work is written in. (Which I infinitely prefer to getting bogged down in the politics of what culture a work belongs to.)

3 hours later…

Bookworm

7:56 AM

I'm trying to remember a book I read sometime within the last ten years, but although I'm able to recall a fair bit of the story I have no idea of the title or author. I believe it's a "modern" mystery (rather than something by Agatha Christie or someone like that), but it's definitely set in Eng...

story-identification

@Bookworm wow, that's got a lot of details

Gallifreyan

8:18 AM

@Bookworm Great question.

9:10 AM

@Hamlet I'm not sure if any of our existing meta consensuses (consensi?) cover this specifically. I think I specifically made a caveat for the English language in the language-vs-culture discussion.

We could either have an english-literature tag (which, realistically, would probably cover the majority of our questions), or several tags like american-literature and australian-literature and so on, or simply not have any language or country tags for books written in English.

Personally I would much prefer the last of those options, but it's something that needs a meta discussion.

Agreed.

@Hamlet I believe @b_jonas is a Lem reader, so pinging him about these questions.

4 hours later…

1:17 PM

@Gallifreyan lol, nope

@Randal'Thor yup, somehow skipped over it

The librarian is slow. As usual.

@Mithrandir well he's also an orangutan

@DForck42 O_O

@Mithrandir wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Librarian

2:25 PM

@Mithrandir I think you mean O_O_K.

Where is @Rincewind, anyway? Hasn't been around for aaaages.

@Randal'Thor lol

@Randal'Thor no idea

Soha Farhin Pine

@Randal'Thor Check the room.

3:13 PM

feverbee.com/customersatisfaction

Q: How should we tag questions about English-language literature?

3:24 PM

For some reason I'm getting the feeling that many of our users are not voting much...

Civic Duty has only been awarded 11 times.

And Electorate, 4.

Just want to remind people that voting - both up and down - is good for the site, and helps ensure our quality remains high.

Librarian

4:21 PM

After a lot of different questions about the issue of tags based on languages and/or countries, we eventually came to the conclusion that tags such as russian-literature are useful even on questions about specific works; furthermore, we also clarified that such tags should refer to languages and ...

discussion tags

Q: Do we need a children's literature tag?

The site currently has a childrens-literature tag. I'm not quite sure what its purpose is. Do we need this tag, and what should it be used for?

discussion tags

4:34 PM

@Mithrandir The site is yet young.

@Shokhet yes, I know. But we are at 172 days, and voting is especially important in beta.

@Mithrandir That's true.

4:56 PM

Really nice new avatar, @Gallifreyan. I hadn't yet seen Morpheus drawn like that (because, obviously, I'm not up to Dream Hunters yet). In other news, my copy of Brief Lives arrived at the library yesterday, and hopefully I'll get a chance to pick it up today.

Gallifreyan

5:09 PM

@Shokhet It can be read out of order, as it isn't connected to the main story (and it happens a long time before 1989).

@Gallifreyan Good to know, thanks. I'll start on Brief Lives first, and then see what comes next.

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet You don't lose anything if you read them in publication (or trade paperback) order, but you won't get any spoilers from The Dream Hunters. Overture - not so much.

In fact, I'm waiting for you to finish to complete my answer about the ruby.

@Gallifreyan Okay. For now, I think I'll just continue reading them in the order printed on the backs of the volumes

@Gallifreyan Okay, I'll try to be fast, then :)

4 hours later…

BESW

8:48 PM

Just in: We @UChicagoPress have your myrmecology interests covered! @VerdantEleanor https://t.co/XAN8uPbIBP

Tweeted by gkiely on July 6, 2017 at 9:36 PM

Q: What is the purpose of the myths tag?

9:22 PM

Pheeeeeeew.

1 hour later…

Librarian

10:42 PM

What is the point of the myths tag? We have tags like poetry, short-stories, song-lyrics, and oral-tradition, where the tag conveys something about the medium, e.g. a song lyric is meant to be sung. But I don't see the point of the myths tag. A myth could be a short story, or oral literature. Cou...

discussion tags

b_jonas

@Hamlet No, we have one question about Sapkowski's Witcher series literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/andrzej-sapkowski , plus much more on Sci Fi SE scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/witcher