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Verygood, I thought that most would not know about obscure WW1 naval battles! I
I would not call them 'obscure'.
Classic battles, with each a human interest backstory. Craddock had been warned not to engage von Spee's squadron with his obsolete ships. But he followed his orders in a direct way, knowing he would not make a chance. The reason he did, was the way the captains and admirals involved in the failed chase of the Goeben and the Breslau in August 1914, had been put aside for lack of fighting spirit. Craddock did not want that to happen to himself.

Next, Sturdee was sent to the Atlantic to fight von Spee. Not only had Sturdee plenty of fighting spirit, but Lord Fisher, who had been called back from retirement, hated him and wanted him as far away as possible. At the Falklands, he succesfully used his battlecruisers for the task they had been designed for. Later, Sturdee was given a command of a battleship squadron, that was positioned in the middle of the battleline (as it was in Jutland), in order to 'restrain' his fighting spirit and prevent him to take initiative!
 
I heard about this battle a long time ago when I read the book "The Novellas and Anecdotes of Herodotus" (early 1970s). whereas today he would probably be called a Turk, as he was born in Halicarnassus, today Bodrum.
As was Homer, at least that's a widespread opinion (not at all popular in Greece, though!), either somewhere on the west coast of Asia Minor/ Turkey (as was Troy), or on one of the nearby islands (which mostly belong to Greece) But when, where or even whether 'he' was an individual poet rather than a tradition, are unanswerable questions.
 
I would not call them 'obscure'.
Classic battles, with each a human interest backstory. Craddock had been warned not to engage von Spee's squadron with his obsolete ships. But he followed his orders in a direct way, knowing he would not make a chance. The reason he did, was the way the captains and admirals involved in the failed chase of the Goeben and the Breslau in August 1914, had been put aside for lack of fighting spirit. Craddock did not want that to happen to himself.

Next, Sturdee was sent to the Atlantic to fight von Spee. Not only had Sturdee plenty of fighting spirit, but Lord Fisher, who had been called back from retirement, hated him and wanted him as far away as possible. At the Falklands, he succesfully used his battlecruisers for the task they had been designed for. Later, Sturdee was given a command of a battleship squadron, that was positioned in the middle of the battleline (as it was in Jutland), in order to 'restrain' his fighting spirit and prevent him to take initiative!
Yes, it is amazing how personal feeling often get in the way even in wartime!
And, as First Lord, Churchil had the habit of interfering and sending not very well phrased messages to commanders at sea! He continued doing this as PM in WW2!
 
Today is a national holiday in S. Korea to commemorate the invention of the Korean writing system, or Hangeul(한글). It's one of the (very) few things that I feel proud of my own culture, and something I regard to be a work of a genius.

Unlike most other writing systems, the Korean writing system didn't originate naturally and has evolved over a long period. Instead, it was an invention of a king who led a team of scholars to create an alphabet to promote literacy among the common people. They completed the invention on 1443 and published a guidebook two years later, the date of publication of which became the current Korean Alphabet Day.

The scholars who involved in the creation of Hanguel claimed that it is a writing system that "a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days." Surprisingly, it's not an exaggeration in my opinion, and it could possibly be the main reason why adult literacy rate in Korea is 99.00%.

The basic elements of Hangeul consist of only 24 letters, and they follow a few logical rules that make it easy to memorise and understand how they work. They even designed the consonants according to the shape of mouth or tongue when each letter is pronounced. And there are much fewer exceptions in pronunciation rule unlike other languages like English.

So, it usually only takes a few hours until one can become proficient enough to read practically any Korean words they see on the internet, although actually understanding them is quite a different matter.
 
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I forgot to mention an interesting trivia when I wrote the above post. It was a Scottish missionary who first introduced the use of space between words and of western style punctuation marks to the Korean writing system in 1877 when he published a grammar book for that language. He is also known as the first person who translated The Bible in Korean.

I think he did us a great service to make Korean language much easier to read, especially when considering how Japanese and Chinese people still write every letter side-by-side without using any space between them.
 
That's fascinating. It was the 'Scotti' - Irish monks - who introduced spaces between words in Latin texts, in about the 5th century. The Romans used 'scriptio continua' with no spaces, as parchment was expensive and space at premium. But the for Irish monks, although they were pretty good at Latin, it was a foreign language, and to read the texts properly aloud in church they needed to have the words separated. They also began putting marks to show the ends of sentences and smaller grammatical units, the beginning of punctuation in the West.
 

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That's fascinating. It was the 'Scotti' - Irish monks - who introduced spaces between words in Latin texts, in about the 5th century. The Romans used 'scriptio continua' with no spaces, as parchment was expensive and space at premium. But the for Irish monks, although they were pretty good at Latin, it was a foreign language, and to read the texts properly aloud in church they needed to have the words separated. They also began putting marks to show the ends of sentences and smaller grammatical units, the beginning of punctuation in the West.
I think this is quite fascinating too. I was unaware of these things!
 
I think this is quite fascinating too. I was unaware of these things!
The two oldest extant copies of the entire New Testament in the original Greek are the Codex Vaticanus (early 300's CE)
Codex_Vaticanus_B,_2Thess._3,11-18,_Hebr._1,1-2,2.jpg
And the Codex Sinaiticus (350-360 CE)
Sinaiticus_text.jpg
The words run together with no punctuation and ALL CAPS

These are two of the four great uncial codices that are the only remaining uncial codices that contain (or originally contained) the entire text of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament).
 
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The two oldest extant copies of the entire New Testament in the original Greek are the Codex Vaticanus
View attachment 911309
And the Codex Sinaiticus
View attachment 911310
The words run together with no punctuation and ALL CAPS

These are two of the four The great uncial codices that are the only remaining uncial codices that contain (or originally contained) the entire text of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament).

Fascinating!
But, really, it's all Greek to me.
:nusenuse::nusenuse::nusenuse::nusenuse::nusenuse:
 
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