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.