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Feb. 20th, 2009 01:43 pmSo many novels heroicise mankind. When a protagonist is disgruntled at society they take up a sword and undertake a quest or they save their homeland, the world, sometimes the universe. When someone invents a new technology, they use it with great wisdom and insight.
Recently I was reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, who was well-known for both those things: an inventor who opted for change. He also had a printing press. The theory of a printing press in the hands of a major reformer is that he uses it to change the world. Franklin used it to print money, leaflets and, in fact, anything he was paid to print. He had to earn a living from his press, after all.
How about the earliest printers? Surely they only printed texts of the greatest nobility? What is such an invention for, if not to promulgate great ideas?
One of those Jewish women called 'Anonymous' compiled a particularly noble book in the third year of Henry VIII's reign (Australia was not yet known, so they can't have been Australian. I'd argue for them being male and Christian from textual evidence, but that's a different story). Wynkyn de Worde reduced the obscene and scatalogical elements a trifle, thus making it a thing of pure refinement.
Let me pose you some of the questions that Wynkyn de Worde used in his liitle book. You'll have to scroll down for the answers. Since this blog is (mostly) G-rated, this selection was made with great care. It proves that most inventions do not lead to anything other than increasing numbers of bad jokes.
How may a man know or perceive a cow in a flock of sheep?
What thing is it, the less it is the more it is dread?
What thing is that that is most likest unto a horse?
Wherefore set they upon church steeples more a cock than a hen?
Why do men make an oven in the town?
How many calves' tails behoveth to reach from the earth to the sky?
By sight.
A bridge.
That is a mare.
If men should set there a hen. she would lay eggs, and they would fall upon men's heads.
Because they cannot make the town in the oven.
No more but one, and it be long enough.
Recently I was reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, who was well-known for both those things: an inventor who opted for change. He also had a printing press. The theory of a printing press in the hands of a major reformer is that he uses it to change the world. Franklin used it to print money, leaflets and, in fact, anything he was paid to print. He had to earn a living from his press, after all.
How about the earliest printers? Surely they only printed texts of the greatest nobility? What is such an invention for, if not to promulgate great ideas?
One of those Jewish women called 'Anonymous' compiled a particularly noble book in the third year of Henry VIII's reign (Australia was not yet known, so they can't have been Australian. I'd argue for them being male and Christian from textual evidence, but that's a different story). Wynkyn de Worde reduced the obscene and scatalogical elements a trifle, thus making it a thing of pure refinement.
Let me pose you some of the questions that Wynkyn de Worde used in his liitle book. You'll have to scroll down for the answers. Since this blog is (mostly) G-rated, this selection was made with great care. It proves that most inventions do not lead to anything other than increasing numbers of bad jokes.
How may a man know or perceive a cow in a flock of sheep?
What thing is it, the less it is the more it is dread?
What thing is that that is most likest unto a horse?
Wherefore set they upon church steeples more a cock than a hen?
Why do men make an oven in the town?
How many calves' tails behoveth to reach from the earth to the sky?
By sight.
A bridge.
That is a mare.
If men should set there a hen. she would lay eggs, and they would fall upon men's heads.
Because they cannot make the town in the oven.
No more but one, and it be long enough.