OT: Wall Street Journal discovers linguistic relativism

[Victor Steinbok]

  Russian lore has it that, when Peter I (the Great, if you wish) wanted
to modernize the Russian military training, essentially following the
"Prussian method", his drill sergeants tied bales of hay to one leg and
straw to the other, thereby commanding the raw recruits to turn toward
hay or straw. This anecdote (likely apocryphal) is often used as folk
etymology for the Russian proverbial "hay-straw" ([seno-soloma]) that is
used in the same sense as "six of one, half a dozen of the other".

     VS-)

On 7/26/2010 8:43 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> At 7/26/2010 05:52 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote [Quoting the WSJ]:
>>> Some indigenous tribes say north, south, east and west, rather than
>>> left and right, and as a consequence have great spatial orientation.
> The "wild Irish," when recruited into the British army, rather than
> left or right would be commanded to turn toward bread or
> cheese.  Having been given those two staples of the contemporary diet
> for their respective pockets.  According to John Dunton, circa 1696,
> while temporarily resident in Massachusetts..  Who would probably
> have agreed that they had lesser spatial orientation than the
> indigenous tribes.
>
> Joel

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