Grantville Gazette VI Read online

  Tracy looked over at Ted. "Do you have anything to say?"

  Ted shrugged his shoulders, a guilty grin on his face. "Do you know which one he laughed at? There was 'That Old Black Magic' by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, and 'Stormy Weather' by Carmen Cavallaro. I'm quite proud of the Spike Jones one. Given how Spike used to use expedient materials as instruments. Somewhere, we should have a recording where he used a selection of carefully tuned revolvers. And for a static generator, I thought 'Stormy Weather' was a good pick. But I wouldn't think Dr. Gribbleflotz would take offense at a harmless joke like that."

  Leota sighed. "If only that was all. Apparently Derrick made a few innocent comments about how he had done things just like all of Dr. Gribbleflotz's demonstrations while he was at school. John and Ken took Father Gus with them to help translate. He thinks the guy understands more English than he lets on. Anyway, Dr. Gribbleflotz took offense, and that was that. Which reminds me, why do you call him Doctor? My understanding is that he doesn't have a doctorate."

  Ted and Tracy grinned at each other. "Oh, he has a doctorate all right. Not from one of the best institutions, of course." Tracy gave her husband a harmless slap when he started to laugh and turned to give Leota a "what can you do with the man" look.

  "But Dr. Rolfinck was absolutely sure that Dr. Gribbleflotz wasn't entitled to the title," John said.

  A smile lit Ted's eyes. "If this Dr. Rolfinck is so sure Dr. Gribbleflotz is not entitled to be called Doctor, why doesn't he do something about it?"

  "Because Dr. Gribbleflotz can apparently afford a good lawyer . . . Oh." Wide eyed, John turn to stare at Ted and Tracy. "'Not one of the best institutions?' You don't mean a diploma mill? An honest to goodness Mail Order Diploma?"

  Straight faced, Tracy spoke, "Dr. Gribbleflotz is a prima facie Doctor of Philosophy. I have seen the diploma. Real sheepskin, with a fancy embossed seal."

  "Wow." John shook his head, then found himself a seat. "Are you sure? The scholars at Jena could contest the diploma. Will it stand up in court?"

  "Our lawyers have the utmost confidence in the stature of the issuing institution."

  John licked his dry lips. "I'll take your word for it. But that doesn't help me. What will help is getting some of the doctor's lightning crystals. Do you know what it is?"

  Ted and Tracy exchanged a glance. Ted gave a slight nod of his head. Tracy turned back to John and Leota. "Rochelle salt."

  "Oh," A light started to dawn for Leota. "Gribbleflotz Vin Sal Aer Fixus," she pronounced. Seeing the question in her husband's eyes, she elaborated. "Dr. Gribbleflotz is making baking powder. Baking soda and cream of tartar are needed for baking powder. You can also make Rochelle salts from the same ingredients."

  John tried to suppress his excitement. "Is this right? Your Dr. Gribbleflotz is making Rochelle salts?"

  "Gribbleflotz Amazing Lightning Crystals, please." Ted held up his hand to silence John. "Just a moment. I have something you should see." Ted turned to the door and called. "Richelle, could you bring in one of the GribbleZippos please?"

  Ted grinned. "This you have to see."

  A teenage schoolgirl with a baby in her arms walked into the study and passed a small object over to Ted. She passed curious eyes over the guests. Then, she gave a gentle wave before leaving. "That was Richelle, our adopted daughter," Ted said. "Anyway, John, have a look at this lighter."

  John took the lighter in his hands. It was shaped like an oversized up-time Zippo. He opened it and looked at the mechanism. Instead of a flick wheel, there was a simple lever. John pushed the lever. There was a spark and the wick lit.

  John looked from the lit lighter to Ted and Tracy, then back at the lighter. He gave it a closer examination. "A piezoelectric lighter? You're making piezoelectric lighters?" At Ted's nod, John smiled. "Do you have a supply of Rochelle—" Seeing Ted's reaction, John hastily changed what he was saying, "a supply of Gribbleflotz Amazing Lightning Crystal?"

  Ted nodded. John let out a long sigh of relief. "I don't suppose you could sell me a pound or so?"

  "Sure. Not all at once, though. But if you can afford to wait, I have a few ounces to spare, and I can ask Dr. Gribbleflotz to make some more. There'll be a price though."

  "Hell, at the moment I'm prepared to pay just about anything. How much?"

  "I wasn't thinking about money, John. Dr. Gribbleflotz is doing quite well as it is. The few dollars for a few ounces of his Amazing Lightning Crystal is neither here nor there. What he will really want is something more than money."

  * * *

  Jena, an Inn

  Dr. Werner Rolfinck, Dean of the Jena Medical College, was quietly seething. Beside him, Doctors Conrad "Kunz" Herbers and Wilhelm "Willi" Hofacker, both lecturers in iatrochemistry, were also suppressing their anger. There, in pride of place in one of the best inns in Jena, that charlatan Dr. Gribbleflotz was describing his philosophies to an enthralled audience.

  "This up-time 'chemic,'" Dr. Gribbleflotz was saying, "is fine for technicians, cooks, and industrial processes. It certainly allows unlettered peasants to tend my caldrons and alembics and produce their powders and potions, but it completely ignores the spiritual component of alchemy." Phillip looked over his attentive audience. "Did you know that the up-timers produced Sal Vin Betula pills which were white?" At his audience's collective shaking of heads, Phillip nodded. "Yes, it is true. White. For a pill that is supposed to reduce pain and reduce fever. When every competent alchemist knows blue is a soothing color that reduces pain and a cool color that reduces fever. They are such children in the Great Art. As my Great Grandfather Paracelsus—whose namesake I am—said: it isn't enough to treat the body, one must treat the spirit. Which is why my amazing headache pills are superior to what the up-timers have, for my Sal Vin Betula pills are pale blue. Yes, Dr. Gribbleflotz's Little Blue Pill is your friend."

  Phillip paused for breath. He looked up, made eye contact with Doctors Rolfinck, Herbers, and Hofacker. He raised a hand in silent greeting before continuing his discourse.

  "The nerve of the man. Did you see that? He waved to us as if we were his colleagues," muttered Dr. Rolfinck. "We are going to have to do something about the man. His conceit is beyond words. We have to do something about him."

  Dr. Hofacker shook his head. "Our hands are tied, Dr. Rolfinck. The radio people passed on the news that Dr. Gribbleflotz holds a doctorate from an institution of some stature. It is best we ignore him."

  While the doctors drank to drown their sorrows, on the other side of the common room Phillip continued to talk to his audience. He was getting into his stride talking about the topic dearest to him. Dr. Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz.

  "Of course there are some up-timers that have a clue. I have been pursuing references in their library's collection about pyramids, and crystal power. While much of it is obviously in conflict with well-established systems, some of their points are most amazing." Phillip removed his spectacles and drew a special up-time cleaning cloth from a pocket in his up-time style jacket. He exhaled onto the lenses and wiped them. After he slid the spectacles on, he smiled at his audience. "I am particularly interested in the combination of gems with the new metal, aluminum. My careful calculations, corroborated by a most interesting tome in the Grantville Public Library, suggests that a pyramid composed of aluminum members with the appropriate colors and cuts of gems at the strategic points, especially these new faceted gems, could result in the invigoration of the Quinta Essentia of the Human Humors. I am most anxious to pursue it. But as always, funding is problematic. Perhaps the new Aeolian Crystals will assist in it."

  Phillip looked over his audience again. He had them in the palm of his hand. Tonight's crowd would be happy to go home and spread the words of Dr. Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the Worlds Greatest Alchemist.

  "You have heard of the Gribbleflotz Aeolian Crystals I am supplying the up-time radio technicians?" It was a rhetorical question. Aeolian Crystals were too new for any of the audience to have h
eard of them yet. "They allow the conversion of the Essences of Lightning the technicians have captured in their singing wires to be converted into sensible sounds. The crystals themselves sing. The up-timers insist on referring to them as "Rochelle salts," but I can assure you that they have no parallel in Rochelle, or any other part of France. No, the singing Aeolian Crystals are a purely German product of German alchemy and up-time technology." Dr. Gribbleflotz paused dramatically. "We are calling the 'earphones' Gribbleflotz' Aeolian Transformers. They are much better than those simplistic mechanical earphones produced by the jewelers' guild. Wire and bits of Iron! Ha! Cold Iron can never compete for the spirits of Sound with Salts of Sound Itself!!"

  NON-FICTION

  Exegesis and Interpretation

  of

  Up-timer Printed Matter

  by Francis Turner

  Derived from my Hobson's Choice story, this article is about a subject that I think people frequently think is simpler than it actually is. It is my belief that down-timers who get their hands on purloined up-time books will generally have a hard time figuring out what is being talked about. Of course, in Grantville this is not too much of a problem since there are plenty of people who can interpret and/or answer questions. But a copy of a copy that makes its way to Spain (say) is going to be a whole different kettle of fish.

  Some things to consider when examining a modern magazine from the point of view of a down-timer are:

  1. linguistic changes including new words from foreign tongues (kamikaze, thug, gringo), chaynges inn spelinge, slang . . .

  2. hidden assumptions of technology or science (e.g. electricity)

  3. geographic changes (names of countries, regions, cities etc.)

  4. advertisements

  What Is Exegesis?

  Exegesis is defined in the dictionary as "Exposition; explanation; especially, a critical explanation of a text or portion of Scripture." It is the sort of thing that monks, theologians and other literate people of the seventeenth century did all the time and is a word they would understand even if it is somewhat less well known today. Interpretation of a text is effectively just a translation; exegesis attempts to put the translation into context. Exegesis is the piecing together of clues from a variety of sources to arrive at the "correct" meaning for an obscure piece of text.

  When the King James Bible was translated it involved a large amount of exegesis. The translators attempted (with only indifferent success) to locate Greek, Aramaic and Latin versions of the bible and then compare the different versions to try to determine what the original text was that should then be rendered into seventeenth-century English.

  One thing that exegesis tries to solve is the case where there is a choice of meanings because a word has mutated over time or is a homonym. A good example of this is the seventy-two virgins that some interpretations of the Koran believe is the reward awaiting martyrs in heaven. Because of the way the Koran was written down originally there is considerable dispute about whether the relevant word really means virgins; it could apparently mean a lot of things, including a sort of white grape.

  How Long Will This Be A Problem?

  For historians in the 1632 universe, it will always be a problem because English will not develop in the same way as it did in this universe. For the majority of people, though, it is likely to be a shorter duration problem because eventually all the useful up-time literature will be translated into down-timer German and probably Latin and possibly English and French. Moreover, there will also be produced basic primers of up-timer English and culture that will assist those who need the knowledge in much the same way that we use phrasebooks and dictionaries when traveling today. But, of course, anyone who stumbles across an up-timer newspaper hidden in an attic in 1793 will need to go and find a professional historian to help translate or dig up his primer of up-timer English.

  Undoubtedly, in Grantville and surrounding/allied territories such primers will be quickly available, however although they can help with problems 1 and 3 above (and explain the concept of 4), problem 2 is going to remain a problem for people who haven't been exposed to the relevant technology. Without knowledge of what an automobile is, for example, expressions such as "when the rubber hits the road," or "putting your foot to the floor," or "coming to a screeching halt" can be translated but the translation will lack much of the subtlety of the original and may therefore contribute to a cascading series of misinterpretations like the virgin/grape confusion mentioned above. However, such primers will never be able to list all concepts and phrases and will never be universally distributed so problems will remain. Scholars who are not allied with Grantville and lack direct access will undoubtedly study obscure up-timer texts for quite a few years and they will need the techniques of exegesis to do so successfully.

  The Challenges of Up-timer English

  The greatest challenge is undoubtedly that the up-timer documents are in English. Thus the first requirement for a down-timer who has gotten his hands on some Grantville printed matter is to locate someone who can read English well, which is not as simple as one might think. Although Tudor and early Stuart England (and Scotland) had produced many works that today are universally recognized as classics, in the 1630's their fame had yet to escape the British Isles. English was, quite simply, not a language much learned in the 1630's by foreigners. The international language of scholarship was Latin and works not written in Latin were generally shunned. Thus most people would learn their own native tongue and Latin during their education. Further languages learned would generally be the ones of the major continental powers, that is to say, German, French and Spanish. Indeed this remained generally true for a considerable period. An ancestor of mine who traveled central and southern Europe in the mid 1800's had a number of useful conversations with academics and clerics in Latin since he did not speak either Italian or German and some of his conversants could not speak French (his other modern language). Merchants and traders would, of course, learn other tongues; thus countries with trade with England, such as Holland and France, might have significant numbers of English speakers, especially in cities and ports, but other lands would typically have extremely limited numbers of them.

  The second related challenge is the malleability of English and the lack of reference materials. To understand this it helps to look at works published in English at the time. Consider, for example, Hakluyt's Voyages, which was produced near the end of Elizabeth's reign, or the various versions of the Book of Common Prayer. One is immediately struck with the lack of the letter J and the mixing up of U and V not to mention the usage of Y as the (Icelandic) thorn (þ = th sound) and the frequent abbreviation of common words. Today we have different idiosyncrasies, such as the acronym, which would appear just as peculiar to a seventeenth century reader. Spelling was quite radically different (and inconsistent) and although there was an English dictionary (Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, first printed in 1604) it only contained about three thousand words, many of which are not used (or used differently) today.

  The third related challenge is the changes in handwriting. This will not, of course, apply to people who manage to get original books or photocopies, but those unfortunates who end up with handwritten copies or stolen notes will discover problems. Again this sort of thing is easy enough to figure out when you have someone to ask but it is a lot harder if you are stuck on your own without anyone to help.

  When Interpretation Is Easy

  Sometimes, of course, it is reasonable for down-timers to find it easy to understand up-timer literature. Exegesis is easy when the book is intended to teach. Encyclopediae are easy and school textbooks are generally easy because they will proceed in a logical fashion and will have diagrams and sidebars explaining things. In addition, the context of the words are easy to grasp and, generally speaking, refer back to things discussed earlier. Of course book 3 of high school physics (for example) may refer back to things in book 2, but in my experience there will be a short reminder sectio
n before anything that is complex and important. Even in the event of excerpts (such as a particular entry in an encyclopedia), the text will normally be simple and not require additional data. Consider a random article in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica for example:

  http://1911encyclopedia.org/I%5CIN%5CINDIAN_OCEAN.htm

  INDIAN OCEAN, the ocean bounded N. by India and Persia; W. by Arabia and Africa, and the meridian passing southwards from Cape Aguihas; and E. by Farther India, the Sunda Islands, West and South Australia, and the meridian passing through South Cape in Tasmania. As in the case of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the southern boundary is taken at either 40 5., the line of separation from the great Southern Ocean, or, if the belt of this ocean between the two meridians named be included, at the Antarctic Circle. It attains its greatest breadth, more than 6000 m. between the south points of Africa and Australia, and becomes steadily narrower towards the north, until it is divided by the Indian peninsula into two arms, the Arabian Sea on the west and the Bay of Bengal on the east. Both branches meet the coast of Asia almost exactly on the Tropic of Cancer, but the Arabian Sea communicates with the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf by the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and Ormuz respectively. Both of these, again, extend in a north-westerly direction to 30 N. Murray gives the total area, reckoning to 40 S. and including the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, as 17,320,550 English square miles, equivalent to 13,042,000 geographical square miles. Karstens gives the area as 48,182,413 square kilometres, or 14,001,000 geographical square miles; of these 10,842,000 square kilometres, or 3,150,000 geographical square miles, about 22% of the whole, lie north of the equator. For the area from 40 S. to the Antarctic Circle, Murray gives 9,372,600 English square miles, equivalent to 7,057,568 geographical square miles, and Karstens 24,718,000 square kilometres, equivalent to 7,182,474 geographical square miles. The Indian Ocean receives few large rivers, the chief being the Zambezi, the Shat-el-Arab, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Irawadi. Murray estimates the total land area draining to the Indian Ocean at 5,o5o,ooo geographical square miles, almost the same as that draining to the Pacific. The annual rainfall draining from this area is estimated at 4380 cubic miles. . . .