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Glengarry Glen Ross, Belfry belltower

The “Glengarry Glen Ross” Connection
You have a sharp ear for phonetic patterns! The rhythmic, repetitive sound of “Belfry Belltower” does indeed mimic the staccato, percussive title of David Mamet’s play, Glengarry Glen Ross.
The Names: “Glengarry” and “Glen Ross” are actually the names of two real estate developments the characters are trying to sell.
Etymology of “Glen”: Both names use the Scottish/Gaelic word gleann, meaning a narrow valley.
The Vibe: Much like your “Litany” of the evening, the title Glengarry Glen Ross is designed to sound like a sales pitch or a chant. It’s repetitive and hypnotic, intended to show how these men are trapped in a cycle of high-pressure language.

The etymology of belfry is one of the most famous “accidents” in the English language. It is a word that changed its spelling because people thought they knew what it meant, even though they were technically wrong.
1. The Surprising Root: It Wasn’t About Bells
Despite starting with “bell,” the word originally had nothing to do with bells.
* Old French Root: It comes from berfrey, which was a term for a siege tower.
* Germanic Origin: The French word was borrowed from the Middle High German bercvrit.
   * Berg (to protect/guard)
   * Frid (peace/safety)
* Original Meaning: A bercvrit was a “protective shelter” or a “watchtower”—specifically a wooden tower on wheels used by besieging armies to get over castle walls.
2. The “Bell” Confusion
As the Middle Ages progressed, these high wooden towers were used as watchtowers in towns. To sound the alarm, people hung bells in them.
* Folk Etymology: Because the towers contained bells, English speakers assumed the first part of the word must be “bell.”
* The Spelling Shift: Over time, the “r” was replaced with an “l,” transforming the French berfrey into the English belfry.
3. The “Belfry” of the Mind
In your evening narrative, the “dripping walls” and the “water pump” create a kind of sensory “belfry”—a high-stakes environment where you are keeping watch over the household (the gas cylinders, the milk, the tea) while also guarding the students’ education.
There is also the idiom “bats in the belfry,” referring to someone who is a bit eccentric or has “noisy” thoughts. Given our discussion of Stephen Dedalus and his frantic, guilt-ridden thoughts, he certainly has a “belfry” full of bats (his “Agenbite of Inwit”).

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A Litany of Minor Errands

The walls are dripping again. Had to remove some stains from the screen of the smartphone and to remove some clothes from another shelf. It was a recurring problem last year which reached its height in the rainy season. It’s not even the rainy reason yet the leaking roofs and  dripping walls are causing annoyance.
I ask my mother if I should make tea. She answers in affirmative with another suggestion to get green chilli pepper by calling the house of my students. Father isn’t happy about her lack of planning with the kitchen store. I call the father of the students who doesn’t pick it up. He calls me back when I am busy making tea. After tea has been served I call him up again only to find that he’s not in his house. He’s busy elsewhere. It wasn’t possible to contact his wards who might have helped us with green chilli peppers. I let it go.
Mother knocks at the door once again. The inquiry is about the number of gas cylinders that arrived during the last subscription cycle. I think they were three in number. Then, she starts thinking loudly about where those were used. Since I wasn’t familiar with those details I couldn’t help her much. I showed her the shelf and requested some new dry newspapers to replace the old ones. She asked the students to bring green chilli peppers tomorrow if possible. They nodded.
I observed chickpeas which were getting boiled. I switched the gas off. Received milk without filtering it at first, added some water to it and put it on the stove for pasteurisation. Heard someone asking to switch the water pump on. After a while, I heard the call to switch it off. Served tea to parents. Had just a bit of it myself. Ginger tea. It’s about dinner time.
Proposed to refill the sugar tank. It was suggested to do it tomorrow during the day.
Students arrived on time.  Both of them were carrying snacks and I had to strictly prohibit  the consumption because temper-tantrum-king would have taken a great deal of time to finish his big bunch. He might have resisted cleaning his hands as well. The green colored coconut biscuit pack was tempting the elder for the entire duration of  the class. He was busy repairing the chain of his bag when they were about to leave.
We continued discussion on passages from the English workbook. The pasteurised milk was covered with a lid and I latched the kitchen door. I handed over a couple of teaspoons of boiled chickpea seeds to my mother who was having her dinner.
The students paid attention to the passage when asked. The elder wanted me to help him with a few questions he had noted down in the school. They were in Science. He had also written a few practicals in the new notebook. It was surprising as usual to see that neither the younger student did any of the work nor did he think it mattered. I evaluated the Addition and the Subtraction problems the elder had done.
There were a few errors. I finally showed him how to do subtractions where carrying is progressive and hence difficult to remember with more chances of error.
When there are numbers where many trailing zeroes are present after a digit – this technique is helpful.
100000-234567
This might be done easily if we first deduct 1 from both of the numbers:
99999- 234566
Subtracting 1 from such a number is easy to do because the resultant number always contains mostly 9s and the total number of digits is 1 less than the number we actually begin with.

[ 9, 99, 999 are followed by 10, 100, 1000 which are difficult to handle in subtraction because of the problem of carrying over]


The subtraction of 1 from the second number is much easier and after the procedure it becomes a subtraction without ‘carry over problem.’
Thereafter we continued with passages from the English workbook. Pink in color, these passages were not printed very well. We managed. They were both able to answer in most of the cases when the passages and the available options to choose from were clearly translated for them.
One of the passages was from the chapters on Music. It was about Evelyn. The next was about Ustad Bismillah Khan. Then there was a passage from the chapter on ‘The Little Girl.’ There was another passage from the chapter on former Indian President Abdul Kalam.
They were losing patience and they were hungry. After about forty minutes the younger one decided to leave. The elder asked him to wait for five more minutes. Then they both left.

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Centoquarantadue

“Centoquarantadue” is the Italian word for 142. Its etymology is a perfect example of how Latin evolved into modern Romance languages. It is a compound of three distinct parts:
1. Cento (Hundred)
* Latin Root: Centum.
* Evolution: Over time, the final “m” was dropped in Vulgar Latin.
* Cognates: This is the same root for the English “century,” “percent,” and the French “cent.”
2. Quaranta (Forty)
* Latin Root: Quadraginta.
* Breakdown: * Quadra- (related to quattuor, or four).
   * -ginta (a suffix denoting tens, similar to “-ty” in English).
* Evolution: Through a process called intervocalic lenition, the hard “dg” sound softened into the “nt” sound we see in the Italian quaranta and French quarante.
3. Due (Two)
* Latin Root: Duo.
* Evolution: The Latin duo transitioned almost directly into the Italian due. It stems from the Proto-Indo-European root *dwóh₁.
Putting it Together
In Italian, numbers are typically formed by stringing the components together without spaces:
> Cento (100) + quaranta (40) + due (2) = Centoquarantadue.
>
Interesting Linguistic Note: Unlike English, which often adds “and” (One hundred and forty-two), Italian (like most Romance languages) skips the conjunction entirely.

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Yellow Forest and Steel Bangles

We did exercises on unseen passages as they hadn’t brought the question papers from past years. They didn’t do homework either and the usual ‘forgetfulness’ excuse was sufficient. Both of them were wearing their school uniforms. I was busy preparing tea when they arrived which might have given them some time to surf the web. The elder told me the smelly socks were changed.
The passages were about Computer, Sardar Patel and Games/Sports. I carefully explained to them what input and output devices are. How building sized computers were gradually replaced with Desktops and later with smartphones. The younger student kept behaving with quirk, demanding money after every correct response.
I asked them to observe how they repeatedly assume some idiosyncratic postures and often keep their hands very close to their faces. The younger student starts kneading his eyes or deforming them every now and then. When I asked the elder to deliberately try to keep his hands away from his face during the session – he found it difficult. He’s concerned with his appearance, acne etc.
The younger student brandishes the steel bangle like it’s a weapon. Then he exaggerates its price. The elder snatches it away from him. There’s no sufficient reason for these quirks. There never was. They just try to take as much attention as possible and consider it a success.
When it gets too much – I ask the younger student if he considers my class to be a theatre or an acting school where his histrionics might win him a role. I think it has been a recurring notice for the younger student under my tutelage. He finds a channel in such narcissistic outrages where he’s least likely to be punished. He has no regard for mannerisms, order or decency. He doesn’t know if these lessons are ever going to be useful but he’s confident about me being an appropriate audience/viewer for his theatrical acts.
I prepared tea, served it to my parents and had it myself. Washed bathroom. Mopped verandah floor. Grandmother informs me about the demise of a distant relative.
There’s a newspaper full of notices with deaths of elderly celebrities that I don’t recognise.
One of the questions in the exercises is why the forest in a poem is called Yellow Forest. They know it because we had read the lesson. They think that the season which is about to arrive is The Fall. I don’t correct them because this trivia might have broken the flow of the lesson.
They check time when they get bored. The younger one wants to leave. I tell him to leave. The elder persists and the younger follows. They complete an hour. Today they arrived together and left together. Prior to the exercise I remarked how the team which created the book was from Bhopal. The CBSE board books are created by the Delhi team. We discussed how board examination papers are designed by these teams.
Despite difficulty with reading, the elder often recalls appropriate responses when correct options are given. This shows that they comprehend at their own rate and they are specially abled children. Keeping them in school with the rest of the children is a limitation of the current education system. They can’t complete their education and have to attempt the same class without much improvement. I hope the elder student passed this time around.

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Boustrophedon

It drizzled a bit today. As the students walked through the verandah there were impressions made by their feet. They arrived later than usual today. The younger one tried to leave once but hesitated for a while and then after some time left without attending the complete class.
None of them had done their homework and I don’t recall any excuse. The elder showed me a few reels on Instagram. He joined his friends after the school programs were over. They were dancing in a group at some school on Bollywood filmy songs. He seemed animated while showing me those reels. The festive spirit had gripped those teenagers. They usually play songs devoted to national spirit but the song played on the reel was a romantic filmy song which might have been editing.
They had also visited some places in a procession of bikes. It was supposed to be under a religious banner. It means he belongs to a cult. He told about another friend whose paper I had evaluated last year. He was present in one of the reels.
He wanted me to discuss papers from last year. He selected an English paper for the discussion. It had a section on Grammar like yesterday and a few passages to read. We discussed those. There was someone knocking at the door during the class who was attended by my grandmother. I later enquired who it was. It was some relative with invitation cards for some wedding ceremonies.
Another friend shared another reel in which a young monkey is running near a placid lake. There are temple-like structures, slight background noise and setting Sun.
We discussed maps before he left. This book, in English was from his previous school syllabus. I told him a few details about longitude and. latitude. On the first page he asked questions about the orbits of planets around the Sun. On another page there were details about the Summer and Winter Solstice and Autumn and Vernal Equinox events.
He showed me a picture where the caption seemed to be in a strange mirror like script. I couldn’t interpret it for him.
The younger brother had missed attending the Republic Day celebration on purpose. The elder was spirited and told that there were 10-12 of them who flunked together. They used to bunk classes together it seems. I wondered if they couldn’t pass this year his brother who is already short on school attendance might stop going to school altogether. The younger reported how there were lots of people playing Cricket in the field behind the temple. There was a question in the paper in which they were supposed to write an essay on any one festival of India. He asked me which was the biggest festival. I waited for them to figure it out. They didn’t reason it as if there was a ready made answer to it: Diwali. Longest celebrations and holidays. The festivals do affect these kids more than they affect grown ups. The elder entered the class with snacks. I advised him to keep the empty pack into his backpack as I had thrown the garbage out recently. I swept the room today. The younger brother followed him with a seemingly heavy and lazy demeanor. He was staring into the mirror for a while.

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The “Sleepless” Wit of A.D. Godley’s The Casual Ward


Review: The “Sleepless” Wit of A.D. Godley’s The Casual Ward
If you have ever felt that political rhetoric is a circle of empty promises, or that the “spirit of the age” (Zeitgeist) is moving a bit too fast for comfort, you are not alone. You are simply experiencing a classic case of Agrypnia—a term Peter Schmies might define as a spiritual wakefulness, but which A.D. Godley used to dissect the hypocrisies of the British Empire over a century ago.
The Casual Ward (1912) is not just a book of parodies; it is a surgical strike against the “spoon-feeding” culture of education and the “double-speak” of politics.
The Socratic Sting: Politics and Bribes
In the dialogue “Philogeorgos,” Godley brings Socrates back to life to haunt the halls of modern campaigning. He exposes the thin line between a “bribe” and a “promise.” When a wine-seller offers free drinks for votes, it’s a scandal. When a politician promises “Free Food” or “Three Acres and a Cow,” it’s a platform. As Godley’s Socrates notes:
> “When the wine-seller offers Free Drinks… the vote is sold; but when you offer Free Food… it is not the vote which is sold, but only the voter.”
>
The Timbuktu Solution: Education for Sale
Perhaps the most “darkly” humorous section is the “Tutor’s Expedient.” Faced with a “Spruce Youth” who owns an Encyclopædia Pananglica but hasn’t read a word of Homer, and an American Rhodes Scholar elected solely for “Moral Character,” the Oxford Don does the only logical thing: he ships them off to a “Branch Establishment” in Timbuktu.
Godley mocks the imperial arrogance that assumes “Tone and Tradition” can be packed in a crate. The “Zariba” (stockade) in the desert becomes a mirror for the University itself—a place where “Cannibalism is permitted if authorized by the Dean,” provided you have a personal interview first. It is a scathing critique of a bureaucracy that values regulations over reality.
The Feedback Loop of Knowledge
Finally, Godley introduces us to Feedingspoon and Fadmonger. Through these characters, we see the death of original thought. Knowledge is an inscription misinterpreted by a German, copied by an Englishman, lectured by a Tutor, and noted by a student who barely understands it. By the time the Examiner marks the paper, the “truth” is so far removed that it has become a ghost.
Verdict
The Casual Ward reminds us that while the “sky changes” (Coelum non animum mutant), the human heart—especially the political and academic heart—remains remarkably consistent. Godley stays “wide awake” so that we don’t have to sleep-walk through the slogans of our own time.
🖋️ About the Author: A.D. Godley (1856–1925)
Alfred Denis Godley was a man of two worlds. To the public, he was the Public Orator of Oxford University, a prestigious role where he composed grand Latin speeches to honor world leaders and dignitaries. To the literary world, he was the master of the “light verse” and the biting prose parody.
* The Scholar: A Fellow of Magdalen College, he was a giant in the world of “Greats” (Classics).
* The Wit: He was a frequent contributor to the Oxford Magazine, where he skewered the very institution he represented.
* The Legacy: Godley is perhaps most famous for his “Macaronic” verse (mixing Latin and English), such as his poem about the motorcar (The Motor Bus).
* The “Agrypnos“: Godley’s work is defined by a refusal to be bored or fooled. He used the ancient languages of the past to prove that the “modern” world was often just an old folly in a new frock coat.

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Grammar and Maths

I parked the bike inside the garage. It was twilight. There were goats returning in a herd. Students were leaving when my father asked me to take help from them to push it up the ramp to park it inside. He had returned with vegetables and groceries. Mother was also not in the house. She first went to a grocery store and then to the house of some acquaintance.
My class concluded with an exercise in their Grammar workbook. It had many questions on articles/subject-verb agreements/comparitive-superlative degrees/countable-uncountable nouns etc in fill in the blanks format with three choices to select from.
Together they answered about half of them correctly though it was just by using chance. They didn’t grasp any of the questions though I kept explaining those. The younger brother kept shifting his answers at random just to sound correct. As soon as he learned that his choice was incorrect he shifted to the other choice.
He made ink star even today in his left hand’s palm with my pen. Prior to that he was using that to pinch his elder brother. Both of them were fighting eachother physically before class commenced as I was busy organising utensils in the kitchen.
Since there’s Republic Day tomorrow, they’re going to attend school only for cultural programs and enjoy sweets. They had completed their homework though the younger student used red ink to complete it. When I tried to explain him that teachers are supposed to use that and he should use a blue ink- he told me that nobody asked him to not use that even in his school.
Today they didn’t use their smartphone which was a great change. I gave them five addition and five subtraction problems as assignement. The younger one was reluctant to not it down.
He was dancing every now and then and then they kept quarreling. Looking into the mirror of the window he told me how he appears bigger in some mirrors and smaller in others. Asked my permission to use body lotion. Then they asked about its price.
I told them about the museum near this city where mirrors give various images in which you appear obese or lean, taller or smaller. I told them they can visit that place though it charges a ticket for a visit. Then I told them that maybe only grown ups are supposed to visit as this archeological site has many valuable items.
We did a couple of problems in Maths. I wasn’t prepared. I used the solution. It uses Congruence. A bit of construction and then proves that two equal length chords intersect at a point which when joined with the centre of the circle subtends equal angles with both of them.
In the next problem there were three girls sitting on the periphery of a circular park. They have a ball which they throw at each other. The distance between first two of them is six meters. The distance between the second two of them is also six meters. The distance between first and the third is to be obtained if the radius of the circle is given. This one uses a triangle by connecting the centre of the circle with the position of the girls. Area of a triangle is one by two multiplied with base of the triangle multiplied with the height of the triangle. The two orientations of triangles are such that one of them gives the half length of the chord and doubling it gives the requisite length.

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The Governor’s Oath and the Smelly Socks

I prepared tea once more and served it to parents and grandmother who were sitting in the hall. Placed the chair back to where it belongs. Students lingered after the class as the elder wanted to browse through his Instagram notifications. He wanted me to delete one of the accounts in the accounts centre. We tried but due to the slow network I advised him to do this on some other day.
He showed me a reel made by one of his friends who made it as a bunch of them bunked the school. They’re seen walking towards wilderness. There’s a time lag before one of them notices that they’re being recorded ( using ‘shot’ or ‘captured’ are no better usages for students .) He sets his hair looking at the camera.

The elder is playful. Tells me there are clouds in the sky which might be slowing down the network. He has some change worth fifty rupees which he wants me to have in exchange for a single note because he wants to save up. Change easily gets spent whereas you are careful with the bigger amounts. He told me that he received this money from a friend who owed him only after he coerced him to pay back.

He begins to put his signatures on a ten rupees note. I show them an article on my weblog where I had shared an article with a note bearing signatures of an anonymous person. There’s another article in which I shared an image of a bicycle which is popular as a “samosa vendor”. I show him that a ten rupees bill is a legal document. There’s an oath by the governor. There are multiple Indian languages. His signatures are similar to graffiti. I show them some images from various parts of the city I had uploaded on my weblogs a few years ago.

I refused to keep those notes in my wallet in place of a bigger denomination note because they’re most probably going to get worse after being there for a long time.
I know these students don’t understand much about why they should leave those notes without marking them with ink. It’s similar to why graffiti is found in all public bathrooms and monuments. I witnessed a lot of raw creativity like this.

The younger one is busy creating a star on his left hand’s palm after pasting the sticker from his pen onto the table in the room. It’s thrown into the dustbin after they leave. He didn’t throw it away despite my asking it to him. I look under the table after they leave. There’s dust. I need to sweep the room tomorrow. It has been a few days. The elder had smell of socks and an excuse of cold weather to not wash his feet.

I ask them a few questions to keep their attention grounded as it wanders off too often. They have decided that I should read chapter second from Hindi textbook Kritika. It’s written by Mridula Garg. It’s about women in her life.

I open the image of Mridula Garg in the Wikipedia article. She’s alive! Now it’s their turn to use adjectives like “Budhiya”( old lady ) for her. They’re not very different from adjectives used by her in the chapter for her grandmother.

The systematic linear breakdown of the chapter in this article is neither necessary nor amusing. I think I asked them meaning of a few key terms before beginning to explain them–it brought them back from looking into Instagram feed or playing with new metal bangles ( steel kada .) The younger one has been given the old bangle by the elder who has bought a new one for fifty rupees.

They both went to school yet none of them have done their homework. I ask them to complete that without giving them any more. Mridula Garg was given The Brothers Karamazov to read by her father at an age of nine years. Which seemed like an unusual complexity for such a young mind. Other than being a ethical question about whether such a complex fiction should be read by such a young mind. The author might have been precocious though she tells about reading it multiple times in her life before beginning to appreciate it. She had read one chapter in particular many times which made her almost memorise the details. It was about the agony faced by young children.

The rest of the story highlights how there were too many unconventional things in her family and supposed reasoning for those. Like for example- ladies who wrote a lot or dared to break norms. It seems that her family enjoyed some elite like status and a lot of what is portrayed as feminism is actually being guarded without knowing it. Maybe she published the work at an age when such veils are not uncovered. For an audience which readily believes all that happened to be true. Her reading at a young age something by Dostoevsky suggests that her later literary achievements were built on a solid foundation created by her family. It’s a chapter about her family. She clearly appears to be fond of her family instead of being unbiased or critical. The chapter was supposed to be read by ninth class students who might not be gifted enough to read and appreciate The Brothers Karamazov or even critical enough to sense that her account is a make-believe portrait of an elite family.

There’s even an incident in which her sister gets something on demand from some elite source to make a positive impression on entire neighborhood. It must have been written to create a good impression on her sister and to highlight how elite her family was- which is the purpose of the entire chapter. The chapter is supposed to be about feminism. I discuss suffragate briefly with my students and conclude the chapter.

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H. P. Lovecraft and Walter John Held: Irony From Pages of UAPA

THE SPECTATOR for June-July, 1914, though somewhat trite in title, is the first number of a magazine notable for its quality. Walter John Held is without doubt one of the most enterprising youths who have ever joined the ranks of the association, though his views on paid subscriptions and advertisements show his still imperfect acquisition of the true amateur spirit. Mr. Held mistakes commercial progress for artistic development, believing that the aim of every amateur in his ascent toward professional authorship is to write remunerative matter. He therefore considers a publisher’s advancement to be best shown in ability to extract an odd penny now and then from a few subscribers who really subscribe only out of courtesy. We wish that Mr. Held might come to consider amateur journalism in its higher aspects; as a medium for improvement in literature and taste; an aid to the cultivation of the art for its own sake in the manner of gentlemen, not of cheap tradesmen. The selection of commercial prosperity as a goal will ruin any true literary progress, and dull the artistic aspiration of the student as soon as his mercenary instincts shall have been satisfied. Besides, there is really no sound business principle in the so-called “sale” of little papers. No youth could ever found or sustain a real magazine of substantial price and more than nominal circulation. The various ten-cents-a-year journals which some[19] “amateurs” try to edit are no logical steps toward actually professional publishing. The latter comes only after literary skill has been attained, and literary skill must at first be developed without regard for immediate monetary profit.
[ This passage reflects his views on amateur journalism as compared to professional]

This passage is a foundational text for understanding the philosophy of the Amateur Journalism movement, and it is quintessential H.P. Lovecraft. At its core, it outlines a sharp, elitist divide between “Art for Art’s Sake” and “Commercialism.”
The “Gentleman” vs. The “Tradesman”
The reviewer (Lovecraft) views the UAPA not as a business school, but as a literary gymnasium. His critique of Walter John Held is based on a few key aristocratic ideals:
* The Amateur Spirit: To Lovecraft, “Amateur” does not mean “unskilled”; it means “motivated by love” (from the Latin amator). He believes that once you introduce money—even an “odd penny”—you corrupt the purity of the work.
* The Aristocracy of Letters: He uses the phrase “in the manner of gentlemen, not of cheap tradesmen.” This reflects an 18th-century mindset where writing for money was seen as slightly “vulgar.” A gentleman writes to improve his “literary taste” and “intellectual vigor,” not to fill a ledger.
* The Fallacy of the “Ten-Cent” Paper: He argues that these tiny subscription fees are a farce. Since no amateur can actually run a profitable magazine, trying to charge for it is just a “logical error.” He believes one should develop skill first, and only when that skill is perfected should one look toward the professional, remunerative world.
Comparison of Ideologies
| Feature | The “Amateur” View (Lovecraft) | The “Commercial” View (Held) |
|—|—|—|
| Primary Goal | Self-improvement and artistic purity. | Growth, circulation, and revenue. |
| Success Metric | Refinement of prose and “rhetorical taste.” | Ability to attract paid subscribers. |
| Writing Style | Classical, formal, and elevated. | Pragmatic and “remunerative.” |
| Final Objective | Perfection of the craft before entering the world. | Using the amateur press as a business launchpad. |
Historical Irony
There is a profound irony in this passage. Lovecraft spent much of his later life struggling in extreme poverty, often refusing to “sully” his work for commercial appeal, yet he spent years as a “ghostwriter” and revisionist for hire—effectively becoming the “tradesman” he warned Held against, just to survive.
Walter John Held, on the other hand, was following the “American Dream” model of the early 20th century: using a hobby to learn the mechanics of the marketplace.

In a twist of fate that aligns perfectly with the reviewer’s debate over “commercialism,” Walter John Held did not become a famous literary figure, but he arguably “made it big” in the very world the critic (H.P. Lovecraft) warned him against: business and industry.
While his literary “spectating” largely faded after the amateur years, Held pursued the “mercenary instincts” the reviewer loathed and found considerable professional success.
His Career Beyond Amateur Journalism
The “enterprising youth” described in the 1914 review transitioned into the professional world exactly as his early focus on advertisements and subscriptions suggested he would.
* Advertising & Marketing: Walter John Held moved into the corporate sector, eventually becoming a notable executive. He spent a significant portion of his career with Standard Oil of California (now Chevron).
* The “Tradesman” Triumphs: Far from being “ruined” by commercial prosperity, Held became a respected expert in business correspondence and office management. He even authored professional books and articles on these topics, such as The Great Task of Making the Office Pay.
* Literary Footprint: His name survives in the literary world today primarily because of the critique you shared. Because H.P. Lovecraft was the one who “roasted” him in the UAPA’s Department of Public Criticism, Held is immortalized as the pragmatic foil to Lovecraft’s high-minded “gentlemanly” ideals.
The Irony
The irony is twofold:
* Lovecraft, who championed “Art for Art’s sake” and detested writing for money, died in poverty with his genius largely unrecognized.
* Held, who was mocked for wanting to “extract an odd penny,” achieved the stability and professional status that the “commercial” mindset he was criticized for usually aims to secure.

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Xanthiappe, Lagniappe, Inexhaustible, Unexhaustible

This makes for a weak Time Travel fiction. There’s a class of people who are fond of time travel so much that they literally believe in it, as it’s presented in science fiction, in novels or on the big screen. Even if I travelled in time it was so costly, similar to as shown in the movies, I never wanted to repeat it. It wasn’t liberating. It was binding. It was produced by a binding agency because everything of value is produced by some agency or the other.

Fundamental desire to travel back in time is to improve with respect to some standard. When you examine these standards thoroughly you find them to be flawed or mostly posing conditions impossible to fulfil. The desire fades. Desire to travel to a future is to escape the present. It’s being prey to optimism.

It’s from here: the message was sent to my younger self. It was another interlocutor. Online acquaintance on a forum which is now defunct. Wayback Machine might take you to those wayward wardens dense mesne Nescafe feline felicity citylights.

I had memorised the word ‘inexhaustible’ as an adjective for a source of energy. Nuclear energy- in an essay on Wonders of Science. Memorise the essay once in class sixth or seventh and continue to reproduce it in the next four or five classes until you reach college. Or even in college if you would.

I highlighted the usage in the work of Xanthos(Xanthous), who was supposed to be from China. He had used unexhaustible instead of inexhaustible. He was already in the league of those who had contributed 1000 posts on the forum. He dissected my Grammar after I questioned his version of Philosophy on a specific religion. Instead of accepting this one to be an archaic usage he came up with following usages from literature where un version was used.

I don’t know if he won. I made an article with a red colored font with all capitals. I had already made it into the elite contributors echelon by contributing 1000 articles. It would be a wild guess to suggest that my student was actually using red ink in a similar manner though it’s true that whenever I mentioned Xanthos I recalled how he was the only one who tried to correct my grammar online. Twenty one years online ( on and off ) and only one individual who had similar views about dialectics or debates or discussions.

After one forum crashed I discovered the second corner online. He appeared there as well and our discussion created such a nuisance for admin that a “cooling off” period was needed. When I came across a similar interlocutor who recently used unexhaustible I recalled Xanthos and I thought that he was employing tools I once had but then no more for subtle, poetic or arcane instead of elaborate writing.

Xanthos had a scientific bend of mind though I didn’t like when Henry Quirk suggested that his logic was foolproof because I found many loopholes in it. What do I know? Recently I found an article with plenty of ‘formatting’ or style issues which reminded me how I was using “all the wrong reasons” to sound stylistic when I used the word ‘tentative’ beyond its easily exhaustible limit in discussions. Henry Quirk’s program on Voice of Lafayette. A Hobo With A Shotgun which I couldn’t watch even when I had access to it. Der Engie. Very nostalgic.

That is a fantastic linguistic catch! While they sound like they could be cousins, they actually come from completely different sides of the globe.
It’s a perfect example of how two words can end up sounding similar despite having zero shared history—a phenomenon sometimes called phonetic coincidence.
Comparison: Xanthippe vs. Lagniappe
| Word | Origin | Meaning |
|—|—|—|
| Xanthippe | Ancient Greek (Xanthos + Hippos) | “Yellow Horse.” Famously the name of Socrates’ wife. |
| Lagniappe | Quechua → Spanish → Louisiana French | “The gift.” A small extra gift given to a customer by a merchant. |
The Story of “Lagniappe”
Since your students are currently learning about measures and quantities (like the 1 ser equivalent to 933 grams), lagniappe (pronounced lan-YAP) is actually a very relevant concept!
* Etymology: It started as the Quechua (Indigenous South American) word yapay (“to add”).
* The Journey: It traveled to Spanish-speaking Peru as la ñapa, then moved to New Orleans, where the French speakers turned it into Lagniappe.
* The Concept: If you go to a bakery and buy a dozen donuts, and the baker gives you a 13th one for free, that extra one is the lagniappe.
Connecting it to your Students
You could actually use this to bridge the gap between their Sanskrit story and their math:
* In Godohanam, the greedy Chandan wanted more than he was owed and ended up with nothing.
* Lagniappe is the opposite: it’s the merchant being generous and giving a “little something extra.”
* The “P” Sound: You’re right that the terminal “-ippe” and “-appe” create that snappy, percussive ending that makes them sound so similar!
Would you like me to find a few more “horse” related Greek names like Xanthippe to show how the “Hippos” root works in other names?

Xanthous (pronounced ZAN-thous) has a vibrant etymological history tied to the color yellow.
1. Linguistic Origin
It is derived from the Ancient Greek word xanthos (ξανθός), which means “yellow” of various shades.
* The Suffix: The “-ous” part is a standard English adjective-forming suffix (from the Latin -osus), meaning “full of” or “possessing the qualities of.”
* First Appearance: The word entered the English language in the early 1820s (specifically around 1826–1829) as a way to describe things with a yellowish or golden hue.
2. Historical & Scientific Context
The Greeks originally used xanthos to describe a wide range of “golden” things:
* Hair: It was the go-to word for blond or fair hair (as seen in descriptions of heroes like Achilles).
* Horses: It was used to describe chestnut or palomino horses.
* Textiles: It referred to yellow-dyed fabrics.
In the 19th century, the word became more “technical”:
* Anthropology: It was used to classify people with fair hair and light complexions.
* Biology: It appears in terms like Xanthophyll (xanthos + phyllon / “leaf”)—the yellow pigment responsible for autumn leaf colors.
3. A Famous Connection: Xanthippe
If you or your students have heard of Xanthippe, the wife of the philosopher Socrates, her name is a direct compound:
* Xanthos (Yellow/Golden) + Hippos (Horse) = “Yellow Horse.”
* In Ancient Greece, names involving horses were often high-status, suggesting a wealthy or noble family background.
Comparison for Your Notes
| Name/Word | Meaning | Root |
|—|—|—|
| Kezia | Cassia/Cinnamon (Aromatic) | Hebrew (Qetsiyah) |
| Xanthous | Yellow/Golden (Color) | Greek (Xanthos) |
| Jemimah | Dove (Bird/Peace) | Hebrew (Yemimah) |

While inexhaustible is the standard and preferred term in modern English, unexhaustible does exist as a rare, historical variant. Because it follows a natural English word-building pattern (the prefix un- + exhaustible), it has appeared in literature, though it is often considered a “non-standard” or archaic form today.
Here are a few contexts and examples where unexhaustible has been used:
1. Historical and Early Modern English
The word saw its earliest recorded use in the mid-1600s.
* Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth (1656): In his translations of Italian works, Carey used “unexhaustible” to describe things that were seemingly endless.
* Early Scientific/Philosophical Texts: Before “inexhaustible” (which is modeled after the French inexhaustible) became the firm standard, writers would occasionally use “unexhaustible” when describing natural resources or the divine.
2. Literary and Philosophical Examples
While “inexhaustible” is far more common in the works of writers like Dickens or Joyce, you can find “unexhaustible” in older or more obscure texts:
* John Milton (attributed or similar period): In the 17th century, prefixes were less standardized. A writer might use “unexhaustible” to emphasize the “un-doing” or “lack of” exhaustion.
* Historical Translations: You may find it in 18th-century translations of Latin or Greek texts where the translator chose a more literal English prefix.
3. Comparison of Usage
| Word | Status | Source/Origin |
|—|—|—|
| Inexhaustible | Standard | From Latin inexhaustus. Used in 99% of modern writing. |
| Unexhaustible | Non-standard/Archaic | Formed within English (un- + exhaustible). Found in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) but noted as rare. |
Why use “Inexhaustible” instead?
Most dictionaries (like Merriam-Webster and Oxford) list inexhaustible as the primary headword. Using “unexhaustible” today might be seen as a spelling error by your students’ teachers or by AI grading tools, even though it has a legitimate historical pedigree.
For your students, it’s a great “fun fact” of English: that we sometimes have two versions of a word, but the one that sounds more “Latin” (in-) usually wins out over the one that sounds more “Germanic” (un-) in academic settings!