The person that thinks something up, for the first time, must have an amazing brain. Their minds are just nestled into a different plane. Take the humble spork, for example.
Genius! …kind of.
Photo by Perry Merrity II on Unsplash [Forky, of ‘Toy Story 4’ fame is the newest offering of Spork-couture, bringing the humble implement into a period of renaissance and cutlery royalty.]
It may have come from a bolt of inspiration [or insanity… the lines are blurred]. The proverbial lightbulb went off, and after hours of hacking away in the backyard, basement, or garage—or right there on the kitchen floor?—It had been accomplished, there was now one less first-world problem to be solved.
The unification of 3 highly useful implements, to construct one …slightly LESS useful piece of cutlery?
Samuel W. Francis [patron saint of wet weekends & camping gear], was issued a US patent for his hybrid-design utensil… the Swiss Army Knife’s absent-minded little brother—and the spork was born!
It certainly has a measure of DACREABLENESS about it. Something about the fact that with the unification of 3 highly useful implements, to construct one… out came the slightly less useful piece of cutlery?
A round knife? A sharp…ish spoon? A shallow fork? And to what end? From February 3rd, 1874, and beyond, the consumption of tinned meats would reach new heights.
Photo by Hannes Johnson on Unsplash [Legend has it that there was an excess of tin and aluminum on the earth, and so a purpose was found for it: canned meats had entered the game!]
This isn’t purely about the spork though, and it is not about Spam [neither the tinned form nor junk email variety receives kind ratings on the Dacreable Scale].
Today, we’re all in on libraries! Get your totes and library cards out, folks!
I’ve wanted to do a deep-dive into libraries for some time, and ironically [or perhaps appropriately?] I started the draft for this piece, sitting in a library.
They’ve come a long way, libraries. Note, the image below:
By Gary Todd - https://www.flickr.com/photos/101561334@N08/36562516345/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91138912 [do I see an early copy of House&Garden, and a Readers Digest, in there?]
We’re looking at the Library of Ashurbanipal. A collection of items collated from the 7th Century B.C. Yep, a really old library essentially. But, it’s not the oldest—not even by a long shot. And it got me to thinking…
Who invented the first library?
And…
How much time passed between; whoever invented ‘building’, and who came up with the brilliant idea to fill it with books?
Well, funnily enough, we kind of don’t know who specifically, but there were plenty of people interested in keeping books, bits of skin, rocks… anything that had writing engraved on it.
Aristotle (384 BCE), had a beautiful library [he strikes me as the kind of guy that would set up a coffee van nearby] that became the prototype of the library at Alexandria. The library in Alexandria, Egypt came to be part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion—dedicated to the Muses; the nine goddesses of the arts. The Library of Alexandria was devastated by fire in 48 BC.
Consider too, Chinese philosopher Laozi (Lao Tzu). Other than his penchant for philosophical musings, it seems that he was quite good at keeping an eye on any reading material that had become overdue—he may have been the first-ever “official overseer of librarianship,” namely of the Imperial Zhou dynasty. I’d like to think he was the instigator of making libraries QUIET. No talking. Making Shhh, happen.
Curiously, the births|deaths|marriages records, have his birth/death somewhere around the 4th—6th Century. Someone’s recording keeping there was a little sloppy. Hence, the need for librarians!
Etymologists [beautiful people who study the origin of words], trace the contemporary English word ‘house,’ back to the word ‘hus,’ in Old English. But, from there it’s a dive-off into mystery and possibility.
Let me touch on something else of interest at this point. See the term, ‘Proto-’ bandied about: Examples such as Proto-Germanic, Proto-Arabic, etc.
What about it?
Chunks of knowledge and understanding are missing or lost forever, regarding a lot of these totally cool and mysterious, older languages—by looking at the rules of grammar and spelling with Germanic languages, though, a Proto-language can be constructed.
A HYPOTHETICAL language that can be a springboard of sorts, delving ever further into the construction, pronunciation, and usage of the language generally, and words specifically. Like ‘house.’ Or ‘hus.’ Or ‘husan,’ that’s the Proto-Germanic one!
There is even a shared view that the house itself gave rise to the letter ‘B.’ An ancient Proto-Semitic hieroglyphic symbol depicting a small construction, gives rise to this shared assessment—the original share-house?
POP QUIZ TIME: What is the word for ‘house,’ in Arabic? Beit.
That sounds familiar… why?
Oh, no reason, only that the Proto-Semitic hieroglyphs referred to above were pronounced as “bayt”, or “bet,” or something similar [remember we are discussing the PROTO-Semitic languages here… the hypothetical reconstruction]. But, more valuably, this became BETA, the Greek letter, before it was used by the Romans!
By Dcoetzee, F l a n k e r - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=493158
And, of course, looking at it now—the English letter “B,” and the Greek letter “beta,” are almost identical twins in the language family. It has come full circle—it just keeps getting better and beta.
There is still so much to say about the written word, or language in general: the harmony between different languages, the humour, and the brilliance. Enough to fill countless libraries.
Sometimes, like the spork, conglomerations and hybrid terms are often NOT greater than the sum of their parts—but in other instances, it’s all just brilliant. The merging of separate elements creates a whole new thing; not just a room, not just books. A library.
But, just like whoever it was that decided to fill a random room one day, with bits of language scrolled on parchment, or etched into a stone slab, and decided to keep them all in one place—to track history—for the preservation of something as brilliant and as life-altering as written languages; it is all the more amazing that we can look back into history and to try and discover things like this for ourselves.
I encourage you to do so, often! Or at the very least, keep reading Highly Dacreable, and we’ll uncover all the glorious goodness together.
Let’s get to the scorecard!
Spork | Highly Dacreable rating: 3.85 [Individual scores: spoon 4.25, fork 4.30, and knife 4.25]
Libraries | Highly Dacreable rating: 4.75 [Many modern libraries are very well insulated for fire, and also allow for activities and games… which is what outside used to be for]
Outside | Highly Dacreable rating: 4.75 [Outside is basically its own library!]
Librarians | Highly Dacreable rating: 4.85 [Anyone that wants to spend their life keeping books in order, via the Dewey Decimal System, is alright by me]
The Dewey Decimal System | Highly Dacreable rating: 4.85
Proto-languages | Highly Dacreable rating 4.65 [making educated guesses with ancient languages? I’m here for that all day!]
Anything with Proto- on the front | Highly Dacreable rating 4.25 [“Proto” means: the earliest form of, first, or foremost. There is always something uniquely exciting about ‘the first,’ of something. Right?!
Thank you so much for stopping by. Tell me though, what’s your favorite Library-related thing?