{"id":3163,"date":"2017-07-12T11:11:04","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T15:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=3163"},"modified":"2017-07-12T19:44:55","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T23:44:55","slug":"onomastical-exegesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=3163","title":{"rendered":"Onomastical exegesis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the profounder truths\/more ineffable mysteries lurk in how things are named. Why &#8216;toothless&#8217; for this image, asks Bryan:<center><br \/>\n<a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/35428641750\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"toothless 2xadj\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4282\/35428641750_13f48d7de6.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"toothless 2xadj\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/center><br \/>\nPart of the explanation has to do with the momentary flash of inspiration to which I&#8217;ve learned to attend as I&#8217;m processing images, and which I am happy to identify as <i>macchia<\/i> (&#8220;the total compositional and coloristic effect of an image in the split second before the eye begins to parse it for meaning,&#8221; more fully adumbrated in <a href=\"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=1967\"\">a posting from four years agone<\/a>, and thanks to Teju Cole for the word). &#8220;Toothless&#8221; was the <i>macchia<\/i> that breezed through my mind on first glance at the original image (the right-hand side of the composite mirror image above):<br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/35837686106\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"toothless\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4303\/35837686106_8a9becec2c.jpg\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" alt=\"toothless\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/center>I see, or fancy I see, or saw and then couldn&#8217;t un-see an empty eye socket in upper center, and a jagged toothless black mouth on the left side about 2\/3 of the way from the top&#8230; but as always YMMV. The symmetrical expansion of the original image reveals a very different face: the toothless mouth unfolds into a pair of black eyeholes, surmounted by a crown of vertical elements (feathers?), and susmounted by what seems to be a filigreed snout (which, John points out, isn&#8217;t showing any teeth, so still technically toothless). <\/p>\n<p>John also suggested that the image might be flipped:<center><br \/>\n<a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/35709395632\/in\/dateposted-family\/\" title=\"toothless 2x flipped\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4281\/35709395632_615df4d59f.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" alt=\"toothless 2x flipped\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center>An altogether more vulpine visage emerges, not toothless at all, and the former feathery crown transmuted into a rather elegant broad-shouldered cloak.<\/p>\n<p>\nIt&#8217;s an essential component of the <i>Homo narrans<\/i> toolkit that things be given names to celebrate their essence, and perhaps to summon them (or protect against them) at need. But we must always heed Max Nigh&#8217;s Dictum: Just because we&#8217;ve named it doesn&#8217;t mean we know anything about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of the profounder truths\/more ineffable mysteries lurk in how things are named. Why &#8216;toothless&#8217; for this image, asks Bryan: Part of the explanation has to do with the momentary flash of inspiration to which I&#8217;ve learned to attend as I&#8217;m processing images, and which I am happy to identify as macchia (&#8220;the total compositional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-onomastics","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3166,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}