Sandscript-eggcorn?

[Wilson Gray]

It's hard to believe that anyone could even conceive of the idea that
_Sanskrit_ is derived from English "sand script," let alone that he
could actually believe it!

OTOH, in my students days, I was well aware, when writing a paper
that, if you picked an aspect of the topic with which the prof was not
intimate, you could throw in any kind of bullshit and get away with
it. I got my come-uppannce when a prof was so blown away by a paper of
mine that he wanted to submit it for publication in a refereed
journal. Persuading him not to present me with this obvious honor that
the average undergraduate would kill for was one of the most painful
thing that I've ever had to do. But having a paper rejected  as
unworthy is far superior to having one rejected for plagiarism.

The paper had to do with Nabokov's translation of Lolita, originally
written in a, for him, foreign language, into his native language.
Though the part having to do with the actual act of translation was
original - it had to be, since, AFAIK, nobody has done this to this
very day - again, I leaving the researching of this claim as a project
for the reader - the intro concerning the theory and practice of
translation was by no means original and didn't contain proper
attribution of its concepts. I ripped off Roman Jakobson, knowing that
the prof was too unhip to catch this. But I couldn't assume that the
same would be true of the editors of a journal of Russian literature.

No doubt, some are thinking, "You asshole! Why did you do that?! You
could have tossed in the cites and been home-free with a publication!"
Well, as the guy said, when the doctor asked why he had stripped
himself naked and then jumped into a cactus patch, "I don't know. It
seemed like a good idea, at the time."

"Old too soon, smart too late," to coin a phrase.

-Wilson

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Sandscript-eggcorn?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jan 8, 2010, at 6:46 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: Sandscript-eggcorn?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 1/8/2010 01:25 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>>> I ran across "Sand Script" today in an artist's statement, clearly
>>> referring to Sanskrit. This is in the eggcorn database, but I also found this:
>>>
>>> Some Sanskrit (Sand script) texts talk of coriander's cultivation in
>>> ancient India nearly 7,000 years ago although there are but a few
>>> plant fossils exist to back up the literature.
>>> (http://savitharajsspiceland.blogspot.com/)
>>>
>>> Surely there is no basis for this, is there?
>>
>> Which assertion -- that coriander was cultivated 7,000 years ago, or
>> that there exist a few plant fossils from then, or that Sanskrit
>> texts exist from 7,000 years ago, or that they talk about coriander
>> cultivation, or that Sanskrit was written in sand?  :-)
>
> LOL. Thank you for helping me to pull my head from the, er, sand.
>
> Is there any reason for someone to claim that "Sand script" is valid. Here's someone that clearly knows that the language is Sanskrit, but kindly shows us that it is a sand form of writing as well.
>
> BB
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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