Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Let's take this step by step. The given: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall." Then he falls right? But this was no ordinary fall that Humpty fell. As we can see from the rhyme, it was a "great" fall. Obviously, there's no other way to have a great fall (from a wall) than from a great wall - and, we know China's Great Wall is as great a wall can ever get. (I mean, you even can see this stonepile from space!) Chances are, Humpty was in China, and died there.
Next, we know that in Humpty's time, he lived in a monarchy, since there existed a "king" then. Around the time when Humpty Dumpty was born in print, the Qins were ruling over China. This very likely puts Humpty in China, again. (I realize there were other monarchies then, but it just doesn't add up when you consider them as possibilities!)
The proceedings of the nursery staple also happens to concur with a certain Chinese tale of a famous warrior, named, 韩皮蛋屁 (han pi dan pi). Legend has it that during the vicious War of White Lotus, he sat on the Great Wall in anticipation of an invasive attack from the Mongols. What happened thereafter was that the Mogolians launched a sneak attack, sending a fiery sea of burning arrows toward the Great Wall. 韩皮蛋屁 was badly hurt, and fell off the wall. Despite suffering injury from both the fall and the attack, he still fought on at the foot of the wall - aiding the Chinese to victory at that battle. However, he was shredded to pieces in the process. The Chinese then remembered him as the honourable warrior who sacrificed his life for the country even after falling from a great height from the Great Wall.
韩皮蛋屁's valiant glory resounded through history, spreading far and wide; and that is probably how the English came to distort it. Clearly, from the translation, they got the gist of what happened. What they mucked up was that they thought him an egg (since "蛋" so happens to be "egg" in Chinese). If 韩皮蛋屁 is the person behind the Humpty Dumpty we know - as etymological reason unmistakenablely suggests - then Dumpty was almost certainly Sinitic!
So as such, with all this very logical tracing nicely laid out for you, we all should seriously consider revising our mental impressions of dear ol' Humpty who we were brought up to believe a humble egg, and do right by 韩皮蛋屁 by thinking of him as a this bloody pile of glorious, heroic mess in China instead of a runny sunny-side up in England when he died.
14 comments:
You can't see the Great Wall from space. Well, that's what NASA says anyway.
But they say you can see the Great Wall from satellite pictures...
I suppose it depends how far away in space you look at Earth from, but I still think it's plausible for the Wall to be visible from space...
Sure. I might as well say that I can see my house from the Moon. All I would need is a connection to a satellite.
As to seeing the Great Wall from space, you have to define space. Does it start 100 miles above Earth? 50 miles? If it were 50 miles, it might just be plausible.
Come to think of it, 'plausible' is such a lovely word. In fact, it's easy to call something plausible. That way, nobody can prove you wrong, because all you need to prove you right is one instance where someone did see the Wall, as in this case. In short, 'plausible' doesn't prove much.
Yeah. Define space. Or, I could go by your way and say we can't see Earth from space either.
Look, if there existed any point in outer space - even if it is a point just above China and that is barely scraping past our atmosphere - from which you can see the Great Wall, then my statement holds true. (I'm banking on the probability that that is likely to be true.) And if your house can be seen from space too, great for you.
If it happens that the Great Wall can't been seen from space at all, then it doesn't change much either, because you weren't supposed to believe anything in this post.
Either way, there isn't really anything to refute or define. I'm not filming a science documentary, y'know.
does arguing like that give you guys some sense of satisfaction? some immense release??? queer how you guys keep poking each other like that...
just an observation.
:)
Oh gosh! "Immense release"? Hahaha... Well. People-poking is uh, a hobby of mine - much like how yours probably is making anonymous anthropological commentary (without the "immense release", of course).
That's not my way. My way would be to say that you can't see the Great Wall from space with the unaided eye. If you then went to define space as the margin above our atmosphere, I would go further to rework my claim, so as to befit your new definition.
When we make claims (like seeing the Great Wall from space) which have parameters (Like the boundaries of space), we would assign terms to those parameters using our knowledge of conventional references (Like America's definition as 50 miles above Earth's surface), or if we don't know any such references, we would assign our own (Like say, 100 km above the Earth). You don't want to define this parameter, even after I asked you to. You want it to be open-ended, and it shows that you're not familiar with what you're talking about here, even if it is to cover all the bases.
You're right. All this psychobabble about seeing the Great Wall from space doesn't change much. Only your credibility when you make these kind of claims. But from what I gather, you weren't aiming to keep that, were you?
After all, it's not a science documentary, it's your blog. And while it makes your talent in the abstract clear, it shows that your knowledge of the common, the mundane, has, well, room for expansion. Heck, this could almost be just why you feel irrelevant.
If you think there's nothing to refute or define, btw, that's not complete because there is so much to refute or define, despite your intention for an unbelievable post. What you should say is that there is nothing worth refuting or defining. But even that can be argued over til Kingdom come. Don't you agree?
And yeah, anonymous guy, we love poking each other. The same way we love what we do.
*Like iron sharpeneth iron
*sigh*
My point was that you can't really define space. Because there are places in space where you do not see Earth. It was a jest. Ha.
I understand the need for parameters. I went to school like you did. (Surprised?) Clearly, it was not needed in the context of this post. If it were any important for it to be factual, then I would have looked it up. Drop. It.
And maybe you're right. I don't know stuff about this space physics nonsense, but I really couldn't care. You didn't need a long story to get to that point. But to comment on my range of general knowledge? I know the word ketchup comes from the Malay word "kicup", which has nothing to do with tomatoes. Geraral knowlegde. For all your logic's worth, making one false claim in a writing that was practically nonsense is not the premise you wish to look at to conclude about my level of general knowledge. You should look at moments when I actually wish to make true, cogent, logical, sound claims.
Leaving opens ends also does not mean I do not know what I am talking about. I would use it even if I had all the details I wanted. It's about opening possibilites, which can be very useful in many ways.
And I still find this ridiculous since this whole post is about making false claims.
And heck this is not why I feel Irrelevant. If you wanted to add me up, there are other blog posts for you to refer to, so you don't just add up any random two to suit your theory. You wouldn't want to make false claims like "the Great Wall can be seen from space". Bah, I'm not even the aspiring psycologist.
And to make things doubly clear for you: the truth value of this entire post is unsound. Nada. ZERO. So even if I said that "the Great Wall can be seen 20 feet from space", like how you irresistably picked on, it doesn't make my post any more or less untrue. The intended effect is the same. It doesn't change anything. The conlcusion is left unaltered. Nonsense will be nonsense. Which is why I don't care to set parameters "even after [you] told [me] to".
Will you please start looking at things for what it is.
I give. You win.
I'm not sure what you're serious about anymore anyway.
Well, I usually place the frivolous or temperamental/ranting posts under "Babblings", so you don't have to take those seriously.
Haha, Jon, you've finally cracked. Was waiting for it. :p
Ahh well! Imperfection.
well according to edgar allan poe, we estimate space by objects alone. so axnxg, even your parametric space is entirely a matter of perspective and your so called beautiful plausibility.
anyway here's an excerpt from wikipedia:
"Leroy Chiao, a Chinese-American astronaut, took a photograph from the International Space Station that shows the wall. It was so indistinct that the photographer was not certain he had actually captured it. Based on the photograph, the China Daily later reported that the Great Wall can be seen from space with the naked eye, under favorable viewing conditions, if one knows exactly where to look."
btw i do not think jonathan has very little general knowledge. at all. he knows after all that polar bears have black skin. and THAT makes all the difference. hahahaha (:
I'M SO AMUSED. HAHAHAHA. THE OFFICE IS SUPER COLD I'M FREEEZING WOOOOH. BYEEEEEE.
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