tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post2167733271182710638..comments2024-03-23T00:59:24.057-04:00Comments on Sapping Attention: How badly is Google Books search broken, and why?Benhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-46348631093493811882019-02-17T09:07:12.417-05:002019-02-17T09:07:12.417-05:00I have written a lot on Google Books in German (I ...I have written a lot on Google Books in German (I recommend Deeply as automatic translation tool), see e.g.<br /><br />https://archivalia.hypotheses.org/91823<br />https://de.wikiversity.org/wiki/Benutzer:Histo/GBS_Digital_Humanitieskghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10175613438967407983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-5259133842082880042019-02-13T09:56:33.510-05:002019-02-13T09:56:33.510-05:00These are good points, and I hadn't recalled t...These are good points, and I hadn't recalled the New Testament verse.<br /><br />But I want to distinguish between the origin and the process. I often three stages in these sorts of transformations:<br /><br />1. First literal use of a phrase--who cares?<br />2. First metaphorical use of a phrase. Metaphors are very often independently invented, especially when there's a shared cultural context like Paul's epistle.<br />3. Widespread idiomatic use, in which the original metaphor becomes all but dead. This I think we understand the least, because it's fundamentally a quantitative question, not an interpretive one.<br /><br />One of the things that's interesting about set in stone is that although various other forms circulate for decades, almost all (cast in stone,fixed in stone,etched in stone,written in stone,set in stone,writ in stone) become 10-20 more popular around the mid-1980s. "carved in stone" was the only version in widespread use before then; it remains the most popular in ngrams, and its usage is up ~70% as well.<br /><br />So although I think I'm more persuaded that there's some biblical bedrock on which this metaphor rests, the question of its spread through various uses--and especially the use "set"--in the 1980s is much more unclear to me, and interesting. I saw some allusions online to "set" being an improper metaphor for stone, in any case; 'carved,' 'written,' or 'etched' much better captures what Moses did. "Set," on the other hand, may pull a little bit from a set of metaphors around clay or--more likely, given the 1980s--concrete. And so the rise after 1980s could indicate a slight disentangling of the metaphor from writing.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04856020368342677253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-52681390560641759522019-02-12T12:20:52.180-05:002019-02-12T12:20:52.180-05:00This is all true and worth saying. Google Books i...This is all true and worth saying. Google Books is not a reliable research resource. I've also noticed that its results can sometimes change from one day to another. <br /><br />There's also the question of how to study a fixed idiom like "set in stone." Presumably there is a first time that string appears in the written record. But there's also the question of when it appears *as an idiom*, rather than as a description of something actually being inscribed in stone, and with which idiomatic meaning.<br /><br />That raises a second point: idioms can often undergo a period of variability before arriving at their "set" form. Using CQP web you can search EEBO for [VERB] in stone, which returns a range of verbs: written, engraved, graved, wrought, embossed, figured, dug, cut, enchassed, and more (with various inflections) - many of them used with idiomatic and non-compositional use. I think "carved in stone" and "written in stone" are still current idioms, but probably without the frequency of "set in stone" (I'm just guessing). Then it's a question when "set" became the standard verb: not before 1700, so far as I can tell with a quick search. <br /><br />One precursor in particular stands out for many of these variations and thus probably for our "set in stone": St. Paul, as in 2 Corinthians 3:7 in the KJV: <br /><br />"But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away."<br /><br />Paul often uses the metaphor whereby the old law is dead stone (it was written in the stone tablets of the ten commandments), whereas the new dispensation of life and spirit is written in the flesh or heart. <br /><br />We use "set in stone" as an invariant idiom to mean merely fixed or invariant. I wonder if, following Paul, it had an earlier (pejorative) idiomatic meaning: lacking in vitality or spirit, dead rather than living. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00342517673996060931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8929346053949579231.post-7256862304371657742019-02-11T13:09:50.617-05:002019-02-11T13:09:50.617-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com