could anyone help me with this ?

Dave, you said just a few posts prior,



How is your response in your last post reflective of "using your mind analytically"?

You posted dictionary entries. Did you post them in their entirety or did you selectively pick and choose? If the latter, that's not "using one's mind analytically".

JTT, OMSigDavid is a well known Able2know nut case. It is a waste of time arguing with him.

Then Y did u DO it, Contrex????

YOU challenged me on it. U brought it up.
I was sufficiently polite as not to ignore u.

See Post: # 4,578,049

When your position is disproven,
u r not man enuf to admit it.





David

Well, it is, in the sense that he has me on ignore, but I've never let such a juvenile approach deter me before.

It's actually quite amazing to me just how flimsy most people's feelings are on how well they know their language.

But letting nonsense like Om's persist just because "it's a waste of time" or "I'm not sure enough of my own position to engage" is exactly what has allowed other nonsensical prescriptions about language to last so long.

Feel free to quote my arguments, my points. If Om doesn't want to address them, he really has no standing to make complaints about you not engaging.

And we all know that the ones who use ignore peek anyway, so what's the diff?

I ignore a few people off and on, to give myself a break from irritation. I tend to relent after I've had a rest from them, or more accurately, my own irritation. Because of the tendency of a2kers to quote, one tends to see them anyway. I'm probably on ignore for others. (Even I can see why, at the least, I post too much.)



This is fairly humorous, a typical a2k digression. I'm not complaining, I usually don't mind them unless they take over a thread. (oh, wait...)

In this case, it was a thread with a question I know something about, the dominican Savonarola and his bonfires and subsequent bonfiring.

I liked George's explanation a lot. My minor, very minor, quibble is about the word Signoria. Yes, the piazza della signoria is a major place re all that, but the Signoria was the power structure in town (and more than in Firenze) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signoria

Thanks, ossobuco.
Good info.

Hi, George. You worked out what I hadn't gotten to, to figure out the poem.

Me too, Osso, especially the part where he used 'executed' in a manner that any native speaker with a modicum of common sense would.

Thank you both for the kind words.

Yeah, it's that "modicum of common sense" -- or lack of it -- that gets our
discussions spiraling out of control.

You're right, George.

Actually, I embellished a tad to make a point. Your use of "execution" escaped me completely ,being that it was as natural as rainwater.

I looked long and hard at the painting and it brought to mind many thoughts. One was the casualness of many in the crowd to the fact that a human being was being "cooked" to death. Am I right on this, it was kinda tiny?

Would this same thing occur today if we had public executions? I guess it does, doesn't it?

Also, George, I liked seeing that painting. I might have seen it before, but only in black and white in some book. Years ago, I could identify a lot of the buildings presently in that whole area. Not so as to answer questions about them, but that I had read up on them. This was back before I was internet tuned, or the internet was tuned.

I've alway conjectured, speciously, that Savonola was immolated at about the same place the previous bonfires were set - but I don't really know that. Now I'll have to see if there are any paintings re the bonfires..

I also read (where, don't remember right now, but I probably still have the book), that the vanities bonfires were somewhat celebratory in activity, with various cardinals out there watching.

Always stops me for a pause when I see that Botticelli threw his paintings in too, or so I have read more than once.

What was tiny, the crowd? or the piazza? (piazza is of fair size, especially for then)
I question the crowd from what I read about the bonfires prior to this turn of events, but I don't remember details about the situation with old Girolamo getting his comeuppance. Have read them, just forget. This may make me do some digging in m'books.

I should add, that some of my most interesting info re Florence was by a writer in what I remember as Victorian times, one Mrs. Oliphant.

I've no idea if Mrs. Oliphant was right or wrong, but she was a good writer and probably told the conjectures of her day. One of my cousins gave me that book, from a used bookstore. It's around here in one of my book containing things.

I assumed, Osso, that there was a person on top the tower being gently roasted.

Au contraire (I know no french), I don't think so, the piazza was the place.
On the other hand, I don't know the significance of that.

Geroge, could you pls help explain to me one more paragraph of this poem? Coz I find it difficult to figure out the exact meaning

"Ah, sirs, if God might show some sign,
The very least, to be God's own,
The certainty of bliss with hell beneath,
What man stands here who'd not endure my flame?
Or buy my place in pain with all he hath?
But God being not, not in that sense, I say,
Let this unworthy flesh His proxy stand...."

OK, I'll give it a try.

I assume Savaronola is continuing his speech.

He says that if God would show even the smallest sign
-- and we could be sure that the sign was from God --
that one would go to heaven after being put to death
by burning, then anyone would be willing to go through it.
In fact, people would pay all their money to go through it.
But that is not God's way, so Savaronola says he will
go through with it to stand in the place of a sign from God.

Let me know whether what I've said is clear.

You don't have to know French, Osso, you spoke in English.

If there's no person at the top of the ladder, on top of the platform, what's the fire for, roasting marshmellows?

Thank you, George. Your explanation indeed helps me a lot. But I am still a little bit confused about the last sentence of the poem. Maybe I should check more background info about this poem.
You're great. Thank you for helping me !