Ideas Illustrated has this cool post on visualizing the origin of words in modern English usage, using Douglas Harper's online dictionary of etymology. This is what a passage from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer looks like:
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with — and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had beside the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar — but no dog — the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash .
We couldn't help wondering what a passage from a legal opinion might look like, so we subjected a paragraph from last week's MIchigan Supreme Court opinion, In Re C.I.Morris, Minor. (PDF) to the technique. Here's what happened, using colors matching the Ideas Illustrated post as closely as possible. Impression? More French, more Latin:
While it is impossible to articulate a precise rule that will encompass every possible factual situation, in light of the interests protected by ICWA, the potentially high costs of erroneously concluding that notice need not be sent, and the relatively low burden of erring in favor of requiring notice, we think the standard for triggering the notice requirement of 25 USC 1912(a) must be a cautionary one.Therefore, we hold first that sufficiently reliable information of virtually any criteria on which tribal membership might be based suffices to trigger the notice requirement. We hold also that a parent of an Indian child cannot waive the separate and independent ICWA rights of an Indian child’s tribe and that the trial court must maintain a documentary record including, at minimum, (1) the original or a copy of each notice actual personally served or sent via registered mail pursuant to 25 USC 1912(a) and (2) the original or a legible copy of the return receipt or other proof of service showing delivery of the notice.
- Old English
- Anglo-French
- Old/Middle French
- Latin
- Old Norse
- Dutch
- Scottish
- Greek
- Arabic numerals
