This is as days pass by, by Stuart Langridge

I’ve just finally realised where I recognised Mark Pilgrim’s categories from. (Well, the “those that…” categories.) It’s been tickling at the back of my head for ages, and, there I was, reading Borges (_The Library of Babel_) on the bog again, and it dawned on me. _The Analytical Language of John Wilkins_ includes the categorisations of the animals, according to an ancient Chinese encyclopaedia:

• belonging to the Emperor
• embalmed
• trained
• pigs
• sirens
• fabulous
• stray dogs
• included in this classification
• trembling like crazy
• innumerable
• drawn with a very fine camelhair brush
• et cetera
• just broke the vase
• from a distance look like flies

I think I prefer a few of Mark’s translations (“those that tremble as if they were mad“) and one wonders which of the blogosphere’s multitudes are drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, but that’s a tiny, tiny mystery solved. Now just the Riddle of the Sphinx and the question of where wasps come from to do, and then I can rest eternal.