Some of us are no longer young.
Some of us are apparently all of 6 years old
and know how to tie our own shoes.
And therefore we have need to make fun of 4 year olds
because they don't know how to tie their shoes yet.
But real adults like Geoffrey don't need to make fun of anybody.
He knows that we need to know why the sky is blue,
but are too shy to ask.
And that if we don't ask,
we never learn.
And although the question is no longer of real urgency to Geoffrey,
he can remember that it once was. And he knows that it still is,
to some of us, if not to others.
And therefore he gives us these elaborate answers.
Hair-brained, medieval, blasphemous answers.
But that's not their point.
Their point is to teach us to think for ourselves.
Because this is what good fathers do!
Children, - I believe the sky is blue
because it's covered with the road-kill of blue-birds.
So what do you think?
We are all Geoffrey's children.
And he gives us quality time.
G-d bless the codger!
--------------------------
However, "scapegoat" is a goat with the sins of
the people laid on its head, and allowed to escape
the city, thus taking the sins of the people away with it.
Dylan, in contradistinction to Geoffrey, knows
his bible well. Well enough to be free
to take liberties with such references.
The young girl, with sensitive instincts, was in fact
constantly scrapped around the floor and walls
and ceiling by the jealousy of others around her.
And they imputed she had a cloven foot, like a goat,
because she was the devil.
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Fljotsdale wrote:lizzytysh wrote:Different pronunciations will vary by the region where one lives and the individual speaking. To have everything pronounced exactly as spelled by everyone who speaks that particular language would end up rather milk toast for me as a listener. The differences in pronunciation can be very charming.
~ Lizzy
Yes, I agree. And so long as you can understand what is said, the exact pronunciation of a word is not particularly important. We automatically mentally 'correct' pronunciation to fit with our own particular dialect/accent, anyway. For example, in a post or a letter, a person cannot hear the Birmingham (UK) accent in my written words, so they 'hear' me in their own accent. With the spoken word a person hears the accent but 'decodes' it to tally with their own - so we all
understand with ease that (eg) 'ornjs' is oranges, and 'perscription' is prescription.
Another example, one drawn from the everyday experience of
speaking, can help us better understand how vocal materiality is lost
behind signification. Whenever someone speaks to us, the strictly
phonic aspect of the utterance tends to disappear behind the meaning
of what is being said. After a completely bilingual person has seen a
film, he may find himself unable to tell you whether he saw the original
or the dubbed version, especially if the question is asked some time
after the screening, after the pure resonance of the language of the
sound track is gone. On the other hand, he will have no trouble
recalling which version he saw if a bad dubbing called attention to the
specifically phonic dimension by failing to replicate the ambient sounds
of the original sound track, or by some other inconsistency that became
apparent as the film unfolded.
A similar phenomenon occurs with accent in language and the
dimension of jouissance that an accent can open up. Why is it that
when a regional accent is heard outside its own region, and so takes on
that slightly foreign ring, it tends to provoke laughter or value judgments
(this charming lilt, that broad drawl, etc.)? Is it that accents
evoke social or ethnic differences and the hierarchical values assigned to
them? Probably. Yet it is also because the accent tends to bring to the
surface vocal materiality, the vocal object as such; it becomes -as we
have seen- an object of jouissance and this intrusion of jouissance into
language subverts the signifying action of the spoken words
-from "The Angel's Cry: Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Opera"
- by Michel Poizat (translated by: Arthur Denner)