Bango!

I can't believe that after such a long dry spell I hit paydirt twice in two days! And this time it was looking for something I really expected to find.

There's this paper by Brian Mossop that I'm reading to get ready for a conference. It makes reference to some ideas originally discussed by Goffman. Goffman describes the stances of listeners vis à vis speakers. The listener may be the one directly addressed, or indirectly addressed, an accidental overhearer, or an intentional eavesdropper. At least that's what I remember and I haven't read Goffman in a couple of years.

So I check the web for a quick refresher.

Last time I remember looking up "ratified hearer" and getting lots of hits (you can see why I don't trust my memory). A ratified hearer is one who is directly addressed by a speaker, the intended audience. The other category is "unratified hearer" — no, I do not mean unratified heater.

Now Here's Something I Was Surprised Not to Find

Believe me, I've tried to post. I have looked for the most obscure things over the last two months and found every last one of them. Who knew? And now my son's suit coat comes back from the cleaners with little round holes in the shoulder. 'I know how to fix that,' I think. 'This calls for French invisible reweaving!'

You can already see where this is going, can't you? Unlike INVISIBLE REWEAVING (which turns up scads of Shroud of Turin references), FRENCH INVISIBLE REWEAVING turns up a paltry 110 links all referring to The Frenway System of French Reweaving by Fabricon, a perennial eBay favorite. I don't want the book. I want to learn how to invisibly reweave or even learn how to do French invisible reweaving.

Not online, baby!