The Reading Room

Once we're all taking quizzes, have any of you seen Time's scientific Hogwarts quiz? time.com/4809884/harry-potter-house-sorting-hat-quiz

...they say it's scientific, but I'm a little wary. I took the quiz, but I actually haven't looked at how scientific it actually is, so...

@Shokhet I'm Hufflepuff.

@BESW Nice.

I was something like 40% Hufflepuff, but 49% Ravenclaw.

1% Gryffindor, and 0% Slytherin. Or something like that. I don't remember the exact numbers.

54% Hufflepuff, 37% Ravenclaw, 8% Griffindor, 0% Slytherin. This is a surprise to no one.

12:14 AM

Although some think that quiz was flawed. Some of the questions were pretty obvious.

@ccstreeter It's flawed in a lot of ways. WAY too many q's about courage (v Gryffindor-centric) & all the Slytherin… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/879755289473335296

Tweeted by hkpmcgregor on June 27, 2017 at 5:36 PM in reply to ccstreeter

@hkpmcgregor @ccstreeter But DO you do murders? Are you sure about them murders? When was the last time you did murders?

Tweeted by Kaarinasaurus on June 27, 2017 at 5:43 PM in reply to hkpmcgregor

(See also this gem from that thread)

@Shokhet "You a rapist?" "Naw." "Murderer?" "Not recently. You?"

I'm more curious if anyone here will get any percentage Slytherin. All of my friends got 0%

@Randal'Thor Exactly. ROFL

@Shokhet (you got the reference?)

@Randal'Thor Er. No? It was funny anyway :p

American Gods | Mad Sweeny scene |

►

12:22 AM

> This video contains content from Lionsgate, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

Sorry about that.

Oh.

Well, if you watch American Gods, you'll see that scene :-)

@Randal'Thor Trying to find it on YouTube, but there are too many scenes with that name. I saw one that I saw from an SFF question, about the Gaelic that the character shouts after a car crash (?)

@Shokhet Yeah, that comes later on.

This scene is in episode 3, if it helps.

@Randal'Thor That scene ends very bloodily. Clearly someone has it out for Sweeney.

@Shokhet To quote Mat Cauthon, "What happened to my bloody luck?"

12:36 AM

@Randal'Thor Haven't read those books, but that line is very apropos to that YouTube clip.

And indeed to Mad Sweeney's quest from that point on.

glances at starboard Btw, is anyone else reading I Am a Cat this month?

Hah, I didn't get last month's book until this month.

Q: Are the location inspirations clear from the text of Swallows & Amazons?

1:04 AM

Swallows and Amazons, the first book of the eponymous series of children's classics, as well as many of the later books in the series, is set in and around a lake in the Lake District of England. I don't remember whether the lake is named in the book, but it's certainly fictional, albeit based on...

2 hours later…

Q: Looking for a poem about the (fictionalized) writing of The Canterbury Tales Prologue

3:15 AM

A friend of mine used to quote a poem that told the fictionalized story of Chaucer writing the first lines of the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales: "Whan that Aprill with his ... ". When he gets to the word for "showers" he paused and had to choose between the French version of the word and "shou...

poetry story-identification geoffrey-chaucer the-canterbury-tales metaliterature

Should that question have the chaucer and canterbury tales tags? Given that it's not actually a question about the canterbury tales? Don't really mind either way

I'd go with 'no'.

I've spent an hour on Google looking for that one and still no luck... :/

@Mithrandir can I get credit for creating the geoffrey-chaucer tag if I remove it from that question?

...I don't think so, but I'm not sure.

jash101

Hello readers

Hello!

jash101

3:29 AM

Has someone read the Autobiography of a Yogi? I'm looking for a credible summary.

@jash101 amazon.com/Autobiography-Yogi-P-Yogananda/dp/8120725247

Have you looked at the Wikipedia page? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi

Q: Should title tags only be used for questions explicitely about a specific work?

@Mithrandir created a meta post about it BTW

I also wrote a Chaucer question, but I'll wait to see if I can get credit for the tag first.

jash101

Looked everywhere but missed out this one. Thanks @Mithrandir

Librarian

4:02 AM

Sorry for all the questions about tagging lately. This question will hopefully be simpler to answer. The story-identification question Looking for a poem about the (fictionalized) writing of The Canterbury Tales Prologue is tagged with the-canterbury-tales and geoffrey-chaucer. The problem is th...

discussion tags

2 hours later…

5:34 AM

I am not sure if "Are you there, god? It's, me, writer," is the proper form for texting one's agent, but it works for me.

Tweeted by UrsulaV on July 12, 2017 at 3:15 AM

2 hours later…

Gallifreyan

7:48 AM

@neilhimself As a humble fan, whose love of comics/storytelling can be traced directly back to Sandman, thank you!… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/884919416860880897

Tweeted by artfulmegalodon on July 11, 2017 at 11:36 PM

5 hours later…

Q: Was there any literary response to Twain's essay 'The Awful German Language'?

1:05 PM

... One describing the pains a german has to go trough to command the English language?

mark-twain german-literature

2 hours later…

geoffrey-chaucer the-canterbury-tales

2:44 PM

Q: What is a "Cristopher"

In the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer describes a character who is a yeoman in service of a knight. It's mentioned on line 115 that the knight has a shiny silver "Cristopher": A Cristopher on his brest of silver sheene. What exactly is a "Cristopher", and what does this t...

Q: How much french does Madame Eglentyne know?

3:04 PM

In the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, we're introduced to Madame Eglentyne, a prioress (a nun). On lines 124-126, there's a confusing passage where we're told that she speaks elegant French, but that she doesn't know the French of Paris: And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, ...

geoffrey-chaucer the-canterbury-tales

b_jonas

About Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, don't you think “The Musgrave Ritual” would be way more awesome if Holmes didn't have the luck to find out so much about the specifics of the trees, and would instead have to work backwards from how there are five steps in the ritual (including opposite directions) rather than just three because the route is constrained by how you have to go around the building and enter the back entrance?

It's such a missed opportunity.

Gallifreyan

3:20 PM

@b_jonas I don't remember that one :(

3 hours later…

Feeds

6:35 PM

What fictional series has the longest release to completion? https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/50/481?stw=2

Tweeted by StackLiterature on July 12, 2017 at 6:15 PM

3 hours later…

9:54 PM

Twitter thread:

Re: This National Review article: Lots of them are female: Ann Leckie. NK Jemisin. Charlie Jane Anders. Jo Walton.… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/884540275175161856

Tweeted by scalzi on July 10, 2017 at 10:30 PM

Feeds

10:14 PM

On #trolls in the #Nordic #myths: https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2971/481

Tweeted by StackLiterature on July 12, 2017 at 9:30 PM

user15026

@Feeds I fully expect the trolls hashtag to not be the same as how it is being used here.