THAT IS GOOD TO KNOW

It's always nice to receive compliments on one's handwriting. And apparently mine is rather decent. In Chinese. This pursuant the question what that smell was in the pipe tobacco he was trying. Caramel (焦糖 'jiu tong'), vanilla (香草 'heung chou'), and probably a minute addition of anethole (茴香脑 'wuiheung nou'; "fennel brains").

[Brains also means types of camphor, and related substances.]

The gentleman of the question collected all the written paper scraps of our conversation, including everything not relevant to the tobacco flavouring, a few of which were in lesser seal script (篆書，小篆 'suen syu', 'siu suen'), which is not quite the same as the stone drum script (石鼓文 'sek gu man'), a datum he then brought up -- even though they resemble each other in several ways there are important differences -- and of which he showed he had sound knowledge. Stone drum script precedes seal script, and many students of calligraphy practice brush-writing it. From one point of view, stone drum style characters are a more interesting version of seal script characters. And more satisfying.


In some ways I am a possessor of useless knowledge; familiarity with ancient Chinese scripts allows me to have fruitful exchanges with one or two people per year.

That's still better than Mediaeval Dutch. Knowing that 'bardenwerper' means the man who flings the battle ax got me a ten minute phone call nearly two decades ago.


It's not all entirely pointless, though. Knowing that if she weighs the same as a duck, then she's made out wood, and, therefore, must be a witch, may come in handy one of these days.

At least it's good information to have.





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