I wouldn't say that all of the show really explores or demonstrates philosophical concepts, although some episodes do, and give some background on various philosophical ideas through Chidi.
BUT they do make a lot of references to philosophers and things.
Since it ſeemeth we are juſte poſtinge random Bible lulz here, I'm going to Throwe in this paßage from Gaiman and the dearly mißed Pratchett that hath probably made me Laughe at leaſte as muche as anythinge elſe in Literature. I'm ſure many uſers of this Meßage Boarde have ſeen it before, but it deſerveth a Repoſte regardleße.
Quote:
The book was commonly known as the Buggre Alle This Bible. The lengthy compositor’s error, if such it may be called, occurs in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 48, verse five:
2. And bye the border of Dan, fromme the east side to the west side, a portion for Aſher.
3. And bye the border of Aſher, fromme the east side even untoe the west side, a portion for Naphtali.
4. And bye the border of Naphtali, from the east side untoe the west side, a portion for Manaſſeh.
5. Buggre Alle this for a Larke. I amme sick to mye Hart of typeſettinge. Master Biltonn iſ no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbeſticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike thiſ Ennywone with half an oz. of Sense should bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong daie inn thiſ mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workeſhoppe. @ *"Æ@;!*
6 And bye the border of Ephraim, from the east ſide even untoe the west ſide, a portion for Reuben.
[The Buggre Alle This Bible was also noteworthy for having twenty seven verses in the third chapter of Genesis, instead of the more usual twenty four.
They followed verse 24, which in the King James version reads:
“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life,” and read:
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.
27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
It appears that these verses were inserted during the proof stage. In those days it was common practice for printers to hang proof sheets to the wooden beams outside their shops, for the edification of the populace and some free proofreading, and since the whole print run was subsequently burned anyway, no one bothered to take up this matter with the nice Mr. A. Ziraphale, who ran the bookshop two doors along and was always so helpful with the translations, and whose handwriting was instantly recognizable.]
Honeſtly, I didn't get the footnote until the ſecond time I read the book, becauſe I ſomehow managed to ſkip the prologue before the Dramatis Personae the firſt time. I don't know how that happened. The footnote is not as funny without the context, but the main text ſhould be funny to anyone.
Alſo, Engliſh kind of looks cooler with the long s, and while I'm overall grateful for Johnſon and Webſter's orthography reform in the 18th-19th centuries, I find myſelf wiſhing that part of Early Modern Engliſh hadn't been abandoned. It's a pain to input on my phone, though.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
It's a pain to input on my phone, though.[/spoiler]
That iſ what ſhe hath ſaid.
My inner pedant feeleth compelled to butt in here. For what it is worth, it ſeemeth the ſtandard practiſe was not to use the long s at the ends of words. It also was not common practiſe to use two long ſ's in a row, ſo you would get Meſsage inſtead of Meſſage. This resulted in the creation of the ß ligature, which is ſtill in common uſage in German but hath been abandoned in Engliſh. (It can also be a ligature for ſz, which is why German ſpeakers refer to the character as an Eſzet. However, even in German it uſually appeareth to be uſed to replace ſs.)
A few other ligatures were common in Early Modern Engliſh typeſetting, ſuch as ſt, ſi, and ſl. There actually is a Unicode character for ſt (ſt), which I ſimply did not uſe in my poſt above becauſe many people's phones probably do not have it inſtalled, and it alſo is not even included in Verdana, the font uſed on this meſsage board, ſo it ſtandeth out from the reſt of the text on the meſsage board and maketh the ſpacing ugly, as well as looking ſlightly ſtupid as a reſult.
Pratchett and Gaiman were not actually completely conſiſtent with Early Modern Engliſh uſage in their placement of the ſ character, but in this caſe I think ſome of this may have been part of the joke, as the character reſponſible for the ſo-called "compoſitor's error" maketh ſeveral other ſpelling and grammar miſtakes, even bearing in mind the lax ſpelling ſtandards of Early Modern Engliſh (again, as alluded to above, Samuel Johnſon was reſponſible for much of Modern Engliſh orthography as the creator of the firſt major Engliſh dictionary, and then Noah Webſter truly codified it). On the other hand, Agnes Nutter, whoſe uſage is leſs queſtionable by Early Modern Engliſh ſtandards, also useth the ſ character at the ends of words.
In any caſe, the appropriate reſponſe ſhould actually be "That is what ſhe hath ſaid."
Alſo, if the Buggre Alle This Bible paſsage had uſed ſ in keeping with ſtandard Early Modern Engliſh uſage, the paſsage would be:
Quote:
2. And bye the border of Dan, fromme the eaſt ſide to the weſt ſide, a portion for Aſher.
3. And bye the border of Aſher, fromme the eaſt ſide even untoe the weſt ſide, a portion for Naphtali.
4. And bye the border of Naphtali, from the eaſt ſide untoe the weſt ſide, a portion for Manaßeh.
5. Buggre Alle this for a Larke. I amme ſick to mye Hart of typeſettinge. Master Biltonn is no Gentelmann, and Maſter Scagges noe more than a tighte fiſted Southwarke Knobbeſticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike this Ennywone with half an oz. of Senſe ſhould bee oute in the Sunneſhain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong daie inn this mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workeſhoppe. @ *"Æ@;!*
6 And bye the border of Ephraim, from the eaſt ſide even untoe the weſt ſide, a portion for Reuben.
For whatever that is worth (probably leſs than a farthing).
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
I can't help but read long-s as if it has a lisping quality to it. It's like the orthographical equivalent of a lisp.
Personally, I'm glad we got rid of it. I'd also be cool with getting rid of most of the idiosyncratic complications of English spelling. At a minimum I see no reason to prefer "orthography" to "orthografy" (Spanish does just fine with ortografía)... there are plenty of simplifications which wouldn't upend the entire system (simplifications to consonants would be much easier than fixing the vowels for a number of reasons).
I think a large part of the reaſon I like ſ is becauſe it conſerves ſpace (and for that matter, probably ink). I'm a big fan of conſerving thoſe things. I alſo find the archaiſm charming. I ſuſpect a large part of the reaſon it went away is that it can be eaſy to confuſe with f at a glance, though.
I wouldn't mind ſpelling reform overall, but I ſuſpect it would confuſe people even more than they already are. I like Spaniſh orthography, as there iſn't nearly as much there to confuſe people (although ſomehow, even native ſpeakers ſtill make a ſurpriſing number of ſpelling miſtakes, as I ſee all the time at my work, but it's moſtly juſt confuſing c with s or leaving out/adding ſilent h's). Engliſh orthography as it is is a complete meſs, with ſpellings that don't match at all. The old 'ghoti' being pronounced as 'fiſh' thing comes to mind.
But if we tried to ſtraighten it all out, that would carry with it its own problems. People are bad enough at ſpelling as it is. They would have a ſeriouſly difficult time training themſelves to get uſed to the new ſpellings. Seeing "orthografy" inſtead of "orthography" wouldn't be that big a deal - even ſeeing, ſay, "orthografi" would be manageable. But I'd never be able to train myſelf to get uſed to ſome other words. "Enuf", even though it would be a much more ſenſible ſpelling than "enough", would juſt look wrong to me even if it were declared the new official ſpelling. Since Engliſh ſpelling is ſuch a meſs that (if I had to eſtimate) at leaſt half its words would probably end up undergoing reform, it would eſsentially mean people would have to retrain themſelves to read the language, and in a country where many people are already functionally illiterate, that's no mean taſk.
The other major obſtacle is that there's no body that regulates the Engliſh language, as there is with other languages that have undergone orthography reform (German is the example that comes moſt readily to mind, but I'm ſure there are plenty of otherſ). Even if ſpecific countries could ſomehow reform their ſpellings, I don't ſee how you could poſsibly hope to come to an agreement on univerſal ſpelling reform. As a reſult, you'd probably get a vaſtly larger number of different ſpellings between countries than you currently have (as it ſtands, the number of differently ſpelled words is pretty ſmall, and the ſpelling differences are inſubſtantial enough to render them mutually comprehenſible, but after an orthography reform, this would no longer neceſsarily ſtill be true). This in turn would probably haſten the decline of Engliſh as the worldwide lingua franca, ſince it would become vaſtly leſs comprehenſible. (At this rate we'll probably all be ſpeaking Mandarin in 30 years anyway, but I'd ſtill like to ſpend as long as poſsible with an alphabet that has fewer than 300 characters to memoriſe.)
I mean, ſmall alterations to Engliſh wouldn't be a big deal. I ſuſpect no one had a difficult time reading this poſt deſpite all the ſs in it. But large ſpelling reformſ? I'm going to dinner for now, but at ſome point I'll try altering a whole paragraph to phonetic ſpelling to demonſtrate how much longer it'll probably take people to read.
Ultimately, ſpelling reform ſeems a bit like the Dvorak keyboard or Eſperanto to me. A nice idea in theory, but people have the current ſpellings ſo ingrained in their mind, and they're ſuch a meſs, that changing over would probably require more effort than it's worth.
edit: OK, trying to ſpell my ſecond paragraph with conſiſtent phonetic ſpelling and ſee how it comes out. I'm uſing an acute accent to represent long vowel ſounds (I was tempted to use macrons, as is done in Hepburn romaniſation of Japaneſe, but they're a pain in the aſs to input), and I'm alſo adding the ſchwa to the Engliſh alphabet because otherwiſe I can't come up with a conſiſtent orthography. Even then, I doubt the vowel ſounds are all that conſiſtent.
Í wudnət mínd ſpeling réform ovəral, but Í ſuſpect it wud kənfúz pépəl évən mor than thá alradé ær. Í líke Spaniſh orthografé, az ther izənt nérlé as much ther tó kənfúz pépəl (althó ſumhow, évən nátiv ſpékərz ſtil mák á ſurprízéng numbər ov speléng mistáks, az Í sé al thə tíme at mí wərk, bət its móstlí just kənfúzéng c with s or lévéng out/adéng sílent h's). Ínglish orthografé az it iz iz ə kəmpléte mes, with speléngz that dónt match at al. Thé old 'ghoti' bééng prónouncəd as 'fish' thíng kəmz tó mínd.
Like I ſaid, I doubt I was anywhere near conſiſtent in there, and I don't want to look at it ever again, even now that I'm ſeeing it without the red ſpelling error marks. Granted, you ſuggested leaving out vowels from the reform, but even if I juſt 'corrected' the consonants to make them conſiſtent, it would ſtill be an eyeſore. (I'm tempted to do another verſion that uses IPA throughout to ſee what a completely conſiſtent verſion would have to look like. Maybe later.)
I mean, all that ſaid, Engliſh ſpelling is an eyeſore anyway. But it's our eyeſore, and we're all already uſed to it. Becauſe of that, it has its charm. Plus, it's the Engliſh of Orwell and Churchill. A rather large part of me would flinch to ſee Orwell rewritten in ſpelling that looks an awful lot like actual Newspeak.
Edit 2: All right, IPA now. Using Received Pronunciation where poſsible, moſtly becauſe American accents are ſo diverſe that I doubt the liſts I find would conſiſtently uſe the ſame accent. Alſo, I muſt concede that, in caſe you hadn't noticed, I have ſomething of a ſoft ſpot for moſt things Britiſh.
...that actually iſn't as much of an eyeſore as I expected, but it looks even more like a foreign language than my paragraph above did. I think that might actually be why it's leſs of an eyeſore to me. It's definitely leſs immediately comprehenſible to me than the Greek or Cyrillic alphabets are; I know the conſonants of thoſe and have vague ideas of their vowel ſounds, but I have to think hard to figure out what nearly any of thoſe words above is meant to repreſent, apart from the really ſhort ones. I probably ſhould actually ſtudy IPA at ſome point given my intereſt in languages.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Possession with Intent, the charge for which my eldest offspring is in federal prison for. She has high hopes for rehabilitation, so I am hopeful also.
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Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields