> Sadly, the chap presiding over the ceremony obviously didn't
> understand the Latin he was reciting. I did: I know that I
> got blessed in the name of the Father and the Daughter and
> the Holy Spirit :)
That's one step up on the Dark Age priests, condemned by a Carolingian missionary for blessing in the name of the Fatherland, the Daughter, and the Holy Spirit...
... which is to say, it sounds rather sophisticated for Cambridge! :-)
> Now, there's an idea! Would your Sog City mob do ceremonies in a
> language they didn't understand, with mistakes having rather more
> significant results?
Oh, certainly! Staff at the University of Sog City conduct all their teaching in the ancient Brithini language (because that's the only language spoken by the ancient Brithini teachers who populate its senior -- and I *mean* Senior -- common-rooms). This is *not* the everyday tongue of its students.
(I use mediaeval Latin as an analogy; persistent sinophiles perennially attempt to persuade me that the Chinese ideographic script is as much fun, or even more, but without the slightest success).
>From my Cultural Exchange transcript in the RQCon2 Compendium:
SECURE ACADEMIC TENURE AT SOG CITY UNIVERSITY Brithini who make contact with the "Outside World" are probably in mortal danger of transgressing their restrictions and aging and dying. In "How the West was One," we had a bit of satire. At Sog City University, all the real top nobs (the professors, the Chancellor, the University officials, the Deans) are Brithini sorcerers, zzaburi. They are all that is left after the rest of the Brithini in Sog City (*ahem*, "the City of Brass") are killed, for whatever reason, over time. Now, if you're a Brithini sorcerer, you've got a few problems. You can't put on your own clothes in the morning, because that's peasants' work. You have servants for that. You can't make yourself a meal. You can't open doors.
We are taking an extreme line on this, but remember that these guys want to live forever. Turning a door handle and exerting yourself to open the door is a breach of caste. Over the millennia, these things add up. So, Sog University has in fact become a life-support system for these zzaburi. All the flunkies, the porters, the students, and everyone are there in order to keep these guys alive, in order to keep things running the way the sorcerers *expect* them to run.
Students go to the lectures, which are the traditional/scriptural Brithini sorcery lectures. The Brithini would be teaching other sorcerers, lecturing students, demonstrating stuff. But this means the academic year is completely out of kilter with reality (as I'm sure pretty much everyone here has experienced). It means there are meaningless University rituals (I went to Oxford. I've seen all these). It means that the real power of the University is wielded by the Vice-Chancellor and the Junior Dean, and all the "second-step" officials, because all the ones up top are figure-heads who *can't* get involved in anything that is interesting, new or different.
Anyway, that shows why I don't believe that those Brithini sorcerers in Sog City are plotting to take over the world...
Cheers, Nick
:::: <mailto:nick_at_...>
Nick
:::: <http://www.etyries.com>
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