Nothing says 'I love you' like...

The eth (ð) is one of the letters for the /th/ sound (the thorn (þ) being the other one) that the Romans adopted from the runic alphabet when they began writing down Old English, because of course they used the Laitn alphabet, as we still do, and it has no letter for that sound, since Latin has no such sound (which is probably why speakers of Romance languages often have trouble with it). English has two such sounds, actually. Kind of. That's why there are two letters, ð was for the sound at the beginning of 'thy' and þ was for the sound at the beginning of 'thigh.' Though by the time the language was written down at all, the distinction had been lost and they were used interchangably. These now-unusual characters were almost totally gone by the time of Middle English. But thorns and eths can still be seen in modern Icelandic; the runes seem to have hung on in Norse culture. mllesarah and I learned about all of this in our grammar & language class last year.

Sarah went to London for spring break, and went through Iceland to get there and back. Whens he saw a sign with an eth on it, she took a picture of it for me. I saw lots of her pictures from England a couple of days ago, and indeed there was one with an eth. She gave me a copy.

Someone thinks of me when she sees a runic letter!

Mmmm, music

Today was rock music day in my intro to music class.

I started writing things down, because they were all so fun.

"Also, there was Elvis Presley, who some people say..." I'm waiting for her to say "the best rock-'n'-roll singer ever," or something, but no. "...has left the building. But some people think he's still alive. They're crazy."

She did a James Brown yell and it made me jump. (Little did I know she'd be yelling a lot today.)

I was the only person who said that Bill Haley and the Comets did "Rock Around the Clock."

She told us Mick Jagger is 175 years old, has big lips, is ugly, and is sexy. I think she got most of it right.

I wonder why she's talking about Bob Dylan in the past tense.

She's so excited, yelling about soul and Motown. It's hilarious.

Anyone who uses "modicum" in a sentence is cool.

She called him John Revolta. Excellent.

Yes, I know Dolly Parton did "I Will Always Love You" before Whitney Houston.

Yeah, I love Sting, too. But that's why I don't love the Police; that stuff's not as good. And really, of all things, why mention "Don't Stand So Close to Me"?

"If it seems like I'm hopped up on drugs," she said, "I'm not. I haven't taken a single amphetamine for years!" I laughed. So did the guy next to me. I have no idea if she was kidding or not, but I do understand how music can make somebody at least as excited as any drug.

About grunge, she said, "I tend to like melodies, probably because I'm a singer. And when I can't find them, I tend to get upset."

For Friday, she told us to bring in our favorite rock song ("rock" in this sense covering pretty much all popular music from the last 50 years; that's what we talked about today: punk, disco, folk, country, rap, reggae, metal, everything). I don't even know where to begin!