If you don’t love languages, hear me out: my telugu friend had been affectionately calling me, a hindi speaker, “gundi” for 7 months. We didn’t realize until recently that the word has two completely different meanings in Telugu and Hindi, and that we both had completely different interpretations of her affection.
In Telugu, “gundi” means “smol/button/round/cute”.
christianity: the lord is my shepherd and i am a lamb whom He will guide to safety
judaism: we call ourselves “the god-punchers”, bc we like to remind Him of that time He lost a fight against our great-great-great-granddad
god: *does a thing in the bible*
christianity: i may not understand this but it must have something to do with how the lord wants me to act. I will ask my religious leader because he has a special connection with the lord. he will give me a concise and useful answer.
judaism: what the fuck judaism: *2000 years of arguing later* judaism: why the fuck
it seems like nowadays debunking historical myths is mostly a question of dealing with popular, false ideas perpetuated to dispel earlier romantic notions
except you can avoid romanticizing the past without being wildly inaccurate
people in the Middle Ages didn’t have a legal loophole about beating your wife with a sufficiently narrow stick (“the width of the husband’s thumb” is the most common variant) but they still disrespected women in a variety of ways
courtiers at Versailles didn’t go around defecating in hallways and making the servants clean it up, but many of them still had a fine disregard for the struggles of ordinary people
Victorians didn’t stink all the time or intentionally drink polluted water, but they still died left, right, and center from diseases that are now preventable or curable
the past doesn’t have to be either a total rancid dung heap or a shining golden age. it was a time like any other, with good things, bad things, and just plain weird things. full of people who weren’t so different from us today
and I’m sure in 100 years, they’ll be claiming that everyone in 2018 saw accusations of sexual assault as proof that a man was a good leader
sky's stuff 