Login
You're viewing the mastodon.coffee public feed.
  • highly praised and little readhannah@posts.rat.pictures
    Aug 13, 2026, 2:49 PM

    I’m not saying that people have gotten dumber over the last 50 years but if you tried to open a pulp detective novel like this in 2026 your publisher would laugh in your face

    Thus was Adonis murdered, by Sarah caudwell
    Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but Truth. It is not for the sake of material reward that she (Scholarship) pursues her (Truth) through the undergrowth of Ignorance, shining on Obscurity the bright torch of Reason and clearing aside the tangled thorns of Error with the keen secateurs of Intellect. Nor is it for the sake of public glory and the applause of the multitude: the scholar is indifferent to vulgar acclaim. Nor is it even in the hope that those few intimate friends who have observed at first hand the labour of the chase will mark with a word or two of discerning congratulation its eventual achievement. Which is very fortunate, because they don't. etc
    💬 7🔄 7⭐ 0

Replies

  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Log 🪵log@mastodon.sdf.org
    Aug 13, 2026, 3:14 PM

    @hannah In this age of adrenaline-saturated introductions to action-adventure feature films, I think a florid and sesquipedalian description of a punch to the face would be more apropos. The crunch of unpadded knuckle upon sellion could go either way--cartilage or phalange--in a pugilistic gamble that only the patron spirits of violence can surely win. They favored my bet this day, and fist prevailed, but not without its tithe of blood, a trickle of sanguine liquid tickling my digits.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Conny Naschconnynasch@mastodon.social
    Aug 13, 2026, 3:34 PM

    @hannah One word: delicious 😊 I was so enthralled in the superb choice of expression that could only have been tongue in cheek...

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Danny Garsideda5nsy@social.coop
    Aug 13, 2026, 3:47 PM

    @hannah
    How much of that do you think is linguistic drift, and how much to do think is due to a changing market? (Or a third option?)

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Cyber Yukiyuki2501@masto.hackers.town
    Aug 13, 2026, 5:55 PM

    @hannah It feels a bit old, but the meaning can be translated to modern language.

    Ah, scholarships! Think of a thin guy with glasses, so hyper-focused in his studies that he missed lunch time. Surviving on a bag of chips and a can of coke, his neurons munch away the walls of text in his computer like termites, seeking one single prize: Truth.

    He seeks Truth, not to aura-farm for the applause of anonymous spectators across the globe, no! He is a true scholar; his goal is Truth itself.

    💬 1🔄 2⭐ 2
  • 💬 0🔄 1⭐ 1