PSA + pop quiz

[pauraque_bk]

PSA

bowdlerized is someone whom many of you know and love. I am sure none of you would ever want to cause her harm. Therefore, it pains me to report that she is suffering from a brand of persecution I know all too well: Rampant misspelling of her LJ name.

"Bowdlerized" means "expurgated", and is an eponym of Thomas Bowdler, expurgator extraordinaire. The word should not be spelled in any other fashion, as there has never been any such person as Tohmas Bowlder.

To repeat:

B O W D L E R I Z E D

Now none of you has any excuse. Any further offenses will be punishable by spanking. Or withheld spankings, as the case may warrant.

---

Pop Quiz

I'm curious about something. Please fill out this poll with your current impression of what the answers are. DO NOT look up the answers first. That's not the point. I want to know what you THINK is true.

This will be skewed, since there are a lot of academics and linguistics geeks on my flist, but eh.

[Poll #388778]

Comments

[pauraque]

It is neither Linear B, which is deciphered, nor is it Linear A, which is not.

Etruscan is not deciphered (I actually considered it for "the one people are supposed to know hasn't been"). Vinca, don't know.

[jakobaz.livejournal.com]

Etruscan's not deciphered? The language or the alphabet? 'Cause I had a key to the Etruscan alphabet lying around here somewhere...

[pauraque]

I meant the language, and assumed Malsperanza did too, since the alphabet is pretty clearly Greek-related.

[undeadgoat.livejournal.com]

We can read the names on the tombstones, but we don't know what anything else means, basically.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Etruscan is not deciphered (I actually considered it for "the one people are supposed to know hasn't been").

Well, partly, I think.

http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/13766/mcms.html


Vinca, don't know.

Not. From the Danube valley. Really early, & therefore not even known if it's a writing system or not, so I was cheating ;-) but if it is, then it's older than Sumerian.