Longest Hungarian word

While cleaning my room this evening, I came across a scrap of paper on which a friend of mine a couple years ago had written the longest word in Hungarian, namely, megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért. As you might imagine, this fact appears on various websites variably translated; according to this one, it means “for your constant mentioning of the fact that [a particular thing] is unprofanable,”  which I gather is correct, or at least more correct than the one I saw at Wikipedia that had something to do with “pretending to be strong”.

Unfortunately, it’s proving to be far more difficult to find out where this word is used in print.  My friend said something about it occurring in some medieval liturgy, which both sounds completely plausible and would account for the paucity of internet references.  Maybe I’ll run across it some day…

Anglican Distress

Given my experience with the Anglican church and the fact that several good friends of mine identify as members, I am particularly saddened by the current difficulties it is going through  and I hope that they can work things out in a fashion amenable to everyone at the upcoming Lambeth Conference.

Unfortunately, I’m not terribly optimistic, especially given the following description of the new discussion format to be applied this year:

Unlike the previous thirteen meetings, this year’s Lambeth conference will not feature large sessions ordered toward producing resolutions. It will instead consist of small discussion groups (called indaba, a Zulu term for “gathering”) aimed toward the eventual production of a communal “Reflections” document.

Some have been skeptical of the intent and effect of the new design. There may well be sound reasons for the change; it can be difficult for all voices to be heard in enormous parliamentary sessions. But some are concerned that the new design will actually have the effect of preventing any outcomes such as the ones at the 1998 meeting, where the numerical strength of Global South bishops led to the passage of resolutions that were unpalatable to Northern liberals.

Perhaps I’m being too uncharitably cynical, but when compared to what I’ve seen in the RC neighborhood regarding innovations (very) allegedly dictated by Vatican II, I’m not surprised to see this kind of thing happen when you let the Lib…er, religious progressives get their foot in the door.

I owe to Instapundit the following link to the book, All Known Metal Bands. Check out the product description:

Product Description

This volume contains the names of over 50,000 metal bands. Presuming that each of these bands had an average of four members, and multipling that by the number of bands, one might figure that at least a quarter of a million humans have pledged allegiance to one of them at some point is his or her lifetime. Never has a genre of music relegated to the underground of a civilization had so many devotees; no radio needs to transmit the power of this music, for it is sought out fiercely and freely by the doomed and the dispossessed, whose ears are never soiled by songs of love and weakness.

These names are invisible tokens to be spoken aloud, each representing a human quest for superhuman spectacle: shaking floorboards and quivering walls, split ears leaking blood, with faces painted and ornaments pointy, voices uttering eternal truths shunned by woman and man alike.

Is it redundant that this book is hardcover?

…and why does that passage remind me of the following:

Theognis is the only writer represented in this volume whose poetry has come down to us by a regular manuscript tradition.  His works are to be found, in whole or in part, in more than forty manuscripts, the oldest and best of which belongs to the early 10th century.  We have almost 1400 lines of elegiacs, which are variously divided to form between 300 and 400 poems, most of them single couples, the longest two poems of 30 lines.  At last, the novice might think, the critic’s task is straightforward: he is dealing with compete poems instead of stray fragments and he can ply his trade in peace.  But alas!  the field of Theognidean studies is battle-scarred, strewn with theories dead or dying, the scene of bitter passions and blind partisanship. Welcker in1826 divided the poems into a small corpus of ‘genuine Theognis’ and a large mass of poetry by other writers, earlier and later.  Separatists of various shades of opinion held the field till 1902, when Harrison published a vigorous defence of the unity of the  corpus, and since then combat has been continuous, except for interruptions due to real wars. (emph. mine)

-D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry. 343-344.

If I did graffiti…

…it would probably look like this.

In other news, I’ve been pretty remiss in updating this, mostly because I haven’t felt like I’ve had anything interesting to say in a while (…as though that dwarf/gnome post a little while ago were exemplary of  my standards for “anything interesting”…but I digress).  But I’ll mark out for myself two points to follow up on before I go off abroad again:

1) A reasoned explanation of why I support John McCain and will vote for him.

2) A few comments on the supremely tragic historical similarities between the Muslim conquest of Spain and the Spanish conquest of Mexico.