Neanderpundit

“I know of governors of places, and seneschals of castles, and sheriffs of counties, and many like small offices and titles of honor, but him you call the Science of Optics I have not heard of before; peradventure it is a new dignity.”

“Yes, in this country.”
(Hank Morgan to unnamed nobleman,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)

In this country, ‘Optics” has come to mean “Appearances”. While there are some English usages that annoy me no end, like using ‘Decimate’ to mean something other than “To tithe”.

but I kind of like “optics”. It isn’t a misapplied word like “Decimate”, used by people ignorant of it’s real meaning, or a misunderstood phrase like “Out of pocket” which means living on ones own resources instead of “out of touch’ which is the way it is now most commonly used. No, “Optics” is a sort of a twist of the original word, the concept easily recognizeable by anyone who speaks the language well, just like the bard did in do many of his plays. To take a word or part of a word and give it a twist in the way you’re using it so it means something very similar but in a whole new way… that seems very akin to the way Shakespeare used the language to his own purposes, and I think it’s OK.

reminds us all that Jesus loves you regardless.

if he’s towing that train with that little bike he must have leg muscles like cannonballs. Looks like he has sleeping quarters in there, and it sounded like there was a dog- I don’t know if the dog was his or belonged to one of his visitors, he had attracted a crowd of bikers. This was in Lockport, sort of a (Maybe) less nutty Scott Huber.