LL-L "Translation" 2008.04.05 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 05 April 2008 - Volume 01
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Translation" 2008.04.04 (02) [D/E]

heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk> asked:

> I  learnt recently ... that solicitors used to be paid by the line - so it
> was in their interest to be long winded and repetitive and make documents as
> long as possible. || Can anyone confirm this?
>

Well, I JUST today signed my lease ( FULL of shockers, not all of the
linguistic kind!) here in Bombay, and I actually read the entire document
(NOT because I didn't TRUST the guy, but ... well I just figured the
deposits add up to 383 (three-HUNDRED and eighty-three) months' rent).

While not totally incomprehensible, it did require a couple CLOSE readings
to digest (and I am a native English speaker and having a PhD in
linguistics! ... so NOT your average Mumbaikar leasee!). I saw many a word
and expression that leads me to agree that this MUST be the case here in
Bombay at least. And not just the "normal" unnecessarily windy "party of the
first part hereinafter referred to (unless such expression shall be deemed
repugnant and ...) as the Leasee". Also choice of words which leads me to
believe that lawyers / solicitors are paid, not by the word, by the letter
("Vanna, may I buy a vowel please!"). I don't have a photographic memory and
the lease is being franked at this moment so I don't have a copy in front of
me, but as ONE single example: (describing the premises): 'admeasuring' (a
word which I assume is in fact actually in some dictionary but which at the
age of 51 I am seeing today for the first time)  instead of 'measuring' ...
thereby adding 2 letters!

So, I guess that puts lawyers in the same bracket as freelance fiction
writers for literary magazines ... they too get paid by the word. (Poetry
writers, IF they get paid at all, are generally paid by the line NOT by the
word.)

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド

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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Translation" 2008.04.04 (02) [D/E]

Jorge Potter writes:

> The Gospel of John was the last, is a Gnostic document and seems to
> contain little or no historical information up till the final week of Jesus
> life, when it really snaps to life.
>

As a linguist one of course HAS to love the opening lines of John, but my
favorite gnostic line comes NOT from him but from the Nag-Hamadi Gospel of
Thomas:

"Be ye a passer-by!"

(sorry the Coptic "original" is here somewhere on my computer, but not
immediately at hand ... and I am not sure (though i SHOULD be), anyway if
Unicode covers the Coptic script.)

I am not sure what exactly WHAT it means, but SOMETIMES like to interpret it
(conveniently) as "Don't get involved!" (as I did during the anti-North
Indian riots here a month or so ago when I witness a single autorickshaw
driver surrounded by an angry crowd of perhaps 30; I assume he was North
Indian (though he MAY just have been a scab, as the goonda politico -- a
member of the same Thackeray family that has been causing riots hereabouts
for 30 years) who caused the whole ruckus had called a strike) as I KNOW
they were Marathis. I HOPE he got out alive; I decided -- as a fellow
non-Marathi -- that it was wisest (if not most "Christian") to NOT stick
around.)

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Translation

Hi, Mike!

Some Unicode fonts do cover Coptic. Arial Unicode and Code 2000 are among
them.

By the way, that line seems so profound to me that it covers the gamut of
entire philosophies, not so much "Don't get involved" in a "negative" sense
but more in the way of "Remember that you are not permanently earthbound." I
think one knows one is dealing with a good line when it seems to apply
across philosophical and religious boundaries.

Cheerio!
Reinhard/Ron
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