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Phillosoph

The Origin of Boxing.

The other day I mentioned how difficult it was to write about hitting with the hand without implying a closed fist punch. Punching and hand-striking are effectively synonymous in common English. This morning I was reflecting on the term “boxing”. Generally when we talk about boxing we mean the western combat sport, but terms such as “boxer” or “boxing” are used for Chinese martial arts, for example. Why do we call fighting with our fists “Boxing”? Wiktionary says:
Middle English boxen (“to box, beat”) and box (“a blow, a hit”), of unknown origin but apparently akin to Middle Dutch boke (“a blow, a hit”), Middle High German buc (“a blow”), Danishbask (“a blow”). See also Ancient Greek πύξ (pux), πυγμή (pugmē) (fist, pugilism).
That a similar word exists in a number of European languages suggests it may have a very ancient root. It is also possible that the word has an onomatopoeic origin. Many more words in English have an onomatopoeic origin than you might suspect. Ever thought about why a device that makes a “tock” is a “clock”?
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Phillosoph

Ninja Should Be Grey

Decades ago, when I was first on the internet I wrote a piece of conjecture called “Ninja Should Be Grey”. I may have referred to it before on this blog. That article and the website it was on have long since vanished. A friend of mine and regular reader of this blog has often expressed the wish that he could have read that article. Since the article could be considered as covering urban self-defence and survival I am going to recreate that article and include couple of updated ideas.
Ninja Should Be Grey.
Many historians of ninjitsu have claimed that what we now call a “ninja outfit” is actually derived from the costumes of Japanese stage hands. By convention the hooded and dark-clad stage hands were treated as being “invisible” by the audience. When ninja and other invisible characters began to appear in plays they were given costumes similar to the stage hands to convey that other characters in the play could not see them.
Real ninja would often wear disguises that allowed them to move about the country without arousing suspicion. Often they would be disguised as wandering priests, monks, entertainers or pedlars. If they did need to wear low-visibility clothing it probably would not be pure black. One reason for this was with the dyes available at that time creating a deep black was difficult. Another reason was that even on a dark night a pure black object would tend to stand out. Night gear was more commonly a dark shade of blue, green, red or grey. Interestingly Special Forces in Vietnam would dye their uniforms black knowing that after a few washes it would fade to a more useful charcoal-grey colour. Back in my youth I dyed a green M65 jacket black and it turned a very useful dark drab-green.
Grey itself is a quite interesting colour. The pedantic will claim that it is not a colour at all! Grey is a neutral shade and as such combines well with a variety of colours and backgrounds. We all know that the World War Two German Army wore grey uniforms. Originally “Feldgrau” seems to have had a greenish tinge or been a green-grey. As the war progressed greyer cloths became more common and some historians class some items as actually being “mouse grey”. Many animals are grey and as many of us can attest, this can often make them hard to see. The England football team once wore a grey away-strip and claimed that their poor performance was that the strip made it difficult for players to see each other. That this should also make them harder for the opposing team to see was not mentioned!
Let us think about a “modern ninja”. By “ninja” we mean someone who for any number of reasons wants to avoid attention. Dressing in black pyjamas and a hood with a sword across his back is not going to do this. Nor, for that matter, is dressing him in grey pyjamas!

Suppose instead we give our “ninja” some street clothes consisting of a grey jacket and faded blue jeans. Faded denim is effectively a light grey with a hint of blue. Our ninja looks rather dull and unremarkable. There are probably a thousand other men walking the streets in similar outfits. And this is the point entirely. Not only is he grey in colouration, but also in aspect.
Against the greys and browns of a typical city the dull greys and blues of the ninja make him fade into the background, be it night or day. People that see him tend to overlook him. Many security cameras are low resolution and often only see in black and white. Our grey ninja is also sometimes overlooked by such cameras. There is little distinctive detail about him to recall.
Let us refine this outfit a little more. A hat of some kind helps conceal the colour and the style of his hair. If the cap has a peak it is at the front, helping conceal his features from cameras and keeping the sun out of his eyes. A knitted hat may be warmer and less likely to be lost under certain conditions. Such a hat may actually be a ski-mask. If the ninja is wearing a hoodie he can wear the hood up to help conceal his hair and features. Be aware, however, that hoods can reduce your situational awareness and can be grabbed during a fight. Wearing your hoodie with hood up can also draw attention to you in some situations, so is counter-productive. A scarf or neck gaiter is a useful addition to the outfit since it can be used to conceal the features when necessary. Such an item should be of a shade/ colour that does not contrast with your skin tone so that at a distance it will not be obvious you are masked. Footwear must be something functional such as sneakers. Like the rest of the clothing items these must be unremarkable rather than distinctive. Logos, graphics and brand names on clothing are best avoided. If this cannot be achieved they should be as unremarkable and as generic as possible for the area. A “Yankees” cap will be noticed more in LA than in NY. Clothing needs to fit well while allowing freedom of movement. Excessively tight or baggy clothing will draw attention and is not desirable, despite what the fashion industry tells you. You do not want jeans hung so low and loose that they slip around your ankles as soon as you have to move fast.
There are a few more tricks our modern ninja might employ. Streetwear is often worn in layers, such as a bomber jacket over a hoodie. Swapping these over can produce a quick change of appearance. If you are wearing a baseball cap and have a watch cap or bandanna in your pocket changing headgear can also change your appearance. Reversible garments are a staple of old spy movies but this is a practical option for some hats and jackets.
Context is important in “being grey”. If you are in Hawaii an obnoxiously loud shirt may be your best camouflage. Anyone seeing you will just regard you as “just another jerk-off tourist” and immediately overlook you and forget you. If you are in an office building the streetwear described above will make you stick out like a sore thumb. In such an environment “grey” would mean an unremarkable suit and a boring tie. Something that is neither poorly fitting nor snappy.
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Phillosoph

Of Punching and Power Lines

When I started my exercise program a few years back, I was amazed at how quickly I began to see results.
If I had known how easily I could have improved my muscle tone for relatively little effort, I would have started years ago.
If I had known in my teens what I know now my life would have been very, very different and considerably better I suspect.
A friend of mine is in his teens, and very like I was back then, so I have encouraged him to try my exercise routine and see what results he gets.
He started a couple of days back, lifting heavy books and on his own initiative, hitting a punchbag.
Today’s blog post is dedicated to Gabriel and wishes him success and perseverance in his endeavours.
In the movie “Little Big Man”, there is a scene where a young Indian boy attempts to manhandle the young protagonist. The youth defends himself and punches his assailant, bloodying his nose. This amazes all the young Indians and the narration tells us that fist fighting was unknown to Indians.
My recent reading of the Pellucidar novels reminded me of this scene.
In these books, several of the protagonists are familiar with “outer crust” fighting styles such as boxing and jiu-jitsu, and they use them to good effect against the violet but less sophisticated attacks of cavemen.
I don’t know how much truth there was in the movie’s statement that Indians did not know boxing, nor if there are any cultures that this is true of.
When I was writing my book, it became apparent to me how deeply ingrained into our culture the idea of punching with a closed fist is.
I had to consciously stop myself using the term “punch” for hand strikes and any alternate term I did use did not look right.
If you hit someone, you were punching, and punching seemed to imply a closed fist.
A correctly applied punch can be devastating. On the other hand, (pun intended) striking with the fist requires conditioning, practice and good technique.
Hands are sensitive and their bones are small.
Mike Tyson is by no means the only experienced boxer to break a hand punching someone without a glove.
One of the books I recommend to my readers is Jack Dempsey’s “Championship Fighting”, which can be found at various locations on the internet.
In one section the famous boxer talks about “The Power Line”. In his own words:
THE POWER LINE RUNS FROM EITHER SHOULDER-STRAIGHT DOWN THE LENGTH OF THE ARM TO THE FIST KNUCKLE OF THE LITTLE FINGER, when the fist is doubled. Remember: The power line ends in the fist knuckle of the little finger on either hand. Gaze upon your "pinky" with new respect. You might call that pinky knuckle the exit of your power line- the muzzle of your cannon…. …..Unfortunately, however, the hand-bone behind the little knuckle is the most fragile of the five backbones. It can be broken the most easily. You must not attempt to land first with the little knuckle. Instead you must try to land first with the knuckle next to your pinky (the ring finger). We'll call that the 2nd knuckle. Aiming with the 2nd knuckle usually brings about a three-knuckle landing. Those three-knuckles are: middle, second (ring) and pinky. If you aim with the second knuckle, those three knuckles usually will land together because the average fist slopes slightly from the middle knuckle to the pinky. Such a three-knuckle landing not only prevents the hand-bone behind any one knuckle from bearing all the punch-shock, but it also permits punching almost exactly along the power line. Rarely will one of those knuckles make a solo landing. But if you aim with the little knuckle, you risk a dangerous solo landing on forehead or blocking elbow.”
An oddity is that Dempsey considers the little finger as the “first finger” when many of us would consider the first finger to be the index finger.
What Dempsey is telling us is that if you hit with the lower knuckles, the force of impact will pass in a direct line to the larger bones of the arm.
Interestingly, we see the same knowledge in other martial arts too. Many Chinese styles such as wing chun and tai chi hit with the lower knuckles of a vertical closed fist.
Those of you that are more familiar with karate or tae kwon do may now be objecting that you have been trained to strike with the first two knuckles!
Turn your fist from vertical to horizontal and you will see the alignment of the hand bones changes.
The little finger knuckle is no longer on a line with the larger bones, the index and middle finger knuckles are.
Experiment with this and you will find this changes for different hand positions and punching techniques.
Hooks, Shovel Hooks and Uppercuts tend to line up the last two knuckles.
The quick advice I usually offer for punching with the closed fist is to save it for the soft parts.
Use closed fist punching for targets below the lower ribs. The solar plexus, the kidney region and the genitals.
For most other targets, you must untrain yourself from punching with the closed fist and learn to use palm heel and knife-hand strikes.
Knife-hand (aka “Karate Chop!”) has defensive applications too. Parrying attacks with the edge of the hand or the edge of the forearm can numb or injure an opponent’s attacking limb and a swinging strike with the edge of the hand is sometimes quicker to execute than a punch.
For a more in depth discussion of this topic and related issues please purchase my book
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Phillosoph

Bows in North America and Pellucidar

Reading through my file collection the other day I came across an old (1930’s?) article on how the North American Indians made their bows. I have some knowledge of English and Asian bows but this was a field I was less familiar with. One of the reasons that this article so interested me was that I am currently reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar series. Many of the characters in these books use bows and there are frequent references to them constructing new weapons after escaping from capture. The Indians tended to favour flatbow designs and I have heard it suggested that such a bow is easier to construct under field conditions than the D-section English Longbow.
I will not bother to reproduce the entire article since there are some excellent websites on the topic available on the internet. Some interesting points from the original article were:
    • The best time to cut wood to make bows was February since the sap had not yet risen into the wood. This was defined in the article as “when the geese return”.
    • The wood of choice was Osage Orange. Where this was not available a number of other woods were used including ash, hickory and yew.
    • Like the English Longbow, the bowstave needed a considerable period of seasoning before any carving could be done. Bowstaves were hung high up in the tepee above the fire to gently season in the heat. Arrowshafts and other items were seasoned in the same way. The bark side of the stave was used for the "back" of the bow: the part that faces away from you.
    • Bow length varied with tribe, intended use and probably the individual. Bows of six foot or longer were known, as were bows of only a few feet. A suggested measure for a bow was the distance from the left hip to the right hand when the hand was held out horizontally to the side. This is about four feet. Some readers will recognize this as illustrated in Lofty Wiseman’s “The SAS Survival Guide” and doubtless this book and the article drew from a similar source. The bow illustrated in that publication is a flatbow.
    • Arrows were often marked with three lightning bolt carvings. Practical purpose of these may have been to reduce the tendency of the arrow to warp. It was also suggested in the article that the grooves might have encouraged blood loss.
    • Arrowheads were bound into the end of the arrowshaft. Some war arrowheads were constructed so that impact with the target would cut the bindings, leaving the head in the target even if the shaft was pulled out.
    • Hard sinew (from the neck of a buffalo) was sometimes used as an arrowhead. The stated advantage of this was that such heads had a tendency to deflect from the ribs of an animal and slip between them while flint or iron heads would stick, shatter or bend.
ERB does not give us any description of the type of bows his characters use, although David Innes in “Land of Terror” does tell us:
“A species of the genus Taxus is more or less widely distributed throughout Pellucidar; and I had discovered that its wood made the best bows. For arrows I used a straight, hollow reed that becomes very hard when dry. The tips which I inserted in the end of the reeds were of wood, fire-hardened.
A modern archer of the civilized outer world would doubtless laugh at the crude bow I made then at the edge of the Valley of the Jukans. If he uses a yew bow, the wood for it was allowed to season for three years before it was made into a bow, and then the bow was probably not used for two more years; but I could not wait five years before eating; and so I hacked the limb I had selected from the tree with my stone knife and took the bark from it and tapered it crudely from the center toward each end. I prefer a six foot, eighty pound bow for a three-foot arrow, because of the great size and formidability of some of the beasts one meets here; but of course my bow did not attain this strength immediately. Every time we had a fire, I would dry it out a little more, so that it gradually attained its full efficiency. The strings for my bows I can make from several long-fibered plants; but even the best of them do not last long, and I am constantly having to renew them.”

In “Return to Pellucidar” in the anthology book “Savage Pellucidar”:
“Fruit and nuts grew in abundance on the trees and shrubs of the little canyon; but fighting men require meat; and one must have weapons to have meat. These two had not even a stone knife between them, but the first men had no weapons originally. They had to make them.
Innes and Hodon went into the little stream and hunted around until they found a large mussel. They pried it open with a sharp stone, and each took a half shell. With these they cut two pieces of bamboo-like arborescent grass to form the hafts of two spears. Searching again they collected a number of stones: soft stones, hard stones, flat stones, stones with sharp edges; and with some of these they chipped and scraped at others until they had fashioned two spear heads and a couple of crude knives. While Hodon was finding the toughest fibers with which to bind the spear heads to the hafts, Innes made a bow and some arrows, for this was one of his favorite weapons.”
Since Pellucidar was constantly under an unmoving noon-day sun it presumably had no seasons and the trees would have always been filled with sap. Perhaps that was why the bow was so rare on Pellucidar!
The Boy Scout Handbook (1911) has a nice section on archery.
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Phillosoph

Umbrella Fighting : Part 4

Latest version of this article is available here.
In the final part of our discussion of the umbrella as a defensive weapon it is time to consider the counter offensive capabilities of the device.
The use of the umbrella in the two-handed “swagger stick” grip has already been covered in an earlier blog, as have the defensive moves, so today we will concentrate on the one-handed “rapier style” offensive techniques. Some of the techniques we will discuss will appear familiar from sport fencing but in certain details there will be differences, as will become apparent.
To make learning the basic principles easier we’ll start off with a ready stance. If used for self-defence you will probably need to go straight into an attack when threatened. The sword stance below is a training aid. Against an actual enemy you are better advised to use the rear overhead stance shown immediately below or the low guard positions shown in the pair of photos after. Note position of the free arm. All of these positions reduce the chances of the umbrella being grabbed. From this you can step back into a two-handed or sword-style stance as the enemy advances.
 
To learn the thrust adopt a posture with your strong side advanced. Your feet will be between 18" and 24" apart. In his book on Broadsword Sir Richard Burton defines the width of the stance as “two foot-lengths”, which gives us a convenient measure by which to proportion this to smaller or larger individuals. Your knees should be slightly bent and your weight evenly distributed. You will be higher and more erect in posture than a sporting fencer. Your strong hand, holding the brolly, should adopt the position of Tierce. The point will be about level with your weak-side eye and your strong hand level with the chest on the strong-side. Your elbow should be down and in-line with your hip rather than sticking out. It should be comfortably bent and about a fist width from your torso. Your weak-hand will be positioned over your chest ready to defend as Harvey Keitel is kind enough to demonstrate for us.
Next we learn the lunge. Step your lead/strong-side foot forward so there is four foot-lengths distance between your feet and your rear leg is straightened. At the same time extend and straighten your lead arm to thrust. This action may raise your hand a fraction higher than the point and rotate your palm outward if made from Tierce. (For a thrust from Quarte the palm may become turned outward.)
In sport fencing combat stops when one player lands a lunge. In self-defence this will not happen so regardless of if you hit your target or not a lunge must be followed by an immediate withdrawal. This is why the lunge we are learning is shorter ranged than that of the sporting fencer. If you are adept at fencing moves such as the lunge or flèche use them, but be wary of overreaching yourself or compromising your ability to withdraw quickly. The withdrawal is made by bending your rear knee and springing back off your lead foot. Your weapon should move back into a guard position. It is recommended that you gain proficiency by practicing the lunge and other footwork without the arm actions.
As well as lunging you also need to be able to move about. The basic movement is the sliding step. Move the foot closest to the direction you want to go, place it down and then adjust the other foot. Longer ranged movements are made with the passing step. Step forward or outward with the rear leg then bring the other leg forward to resume the lead. These actions are detailed in my book so I will not cover them further here. Sporting fencing is linear and performed on a narrow strip of floor. Self-defence will involve more lateral movement so utilize the Pa Kua and Ginga footwork detailed in my book to circle a foe or avoid attacks. The Inquartata, Volte, Demi-Volte or Passata Sotto moves described in my book in the knife-fighting section are also applicable to umbrella fencing.
The tip of a typical umbrella is not sharp. Usually it is a narrow but blunt-ended tip and this is quite interesting from a martial point of view. In modern sporting foil the torso is the only legitimate target area. When rapiers and smallswords were used as weapons the chest area was actually a target area to be avoided if possible. There was too great a possibility of a penetrating blade becoming stuck. This is not a problem with the tip of an umbrella, however. It can apply considerable force with little danger of deep penetration, making it highly effective against the ribs, sternum or the intercostal muscles. The tip also has a considerable effect against softer areas, but is best applied at the more sensitive areas.

Our illustration above shows just some of the potential target areas. The points marked on the legs are the femoral nerves and arteries. Psychologically a hit to this area has a similar effect to one directed at the genitals but it is easier to inflict a solid hit here. If you can get behind the attacker the kidney region is a good target but a similar effect can be achieved by hitting the side of the torso as marked. The targets on the neck and head are more dangerous and should be attacked only if your life is in danger.
So far in this article we have considered the point of the umbrella. The handle in your hand can be used to strike should your attacker get within the range of your point. Switching to the two handed moves detailed in a previous blog is another option if range decreases.
A number of other techniques can be used with an umbrella.
The umbrella can be used as a single handed club, striking with the handle. This may be done if the umbrella is being gripped near its middle and there is insufficient time to adopt the fencing or two-handed holds. How effective this will be will depend on the weight, shape and construction of the handle.
Many umbrellas have a hooked or crook handle and this can possibly be used to hook a neck or ankle and pull an attacker off balance. A one-handed grip provides reach but a two handed grip gives more power and permits a quicker follow-up move.
Another move that can get a foe off-balance is to thrust the length of the brolly between their legs and move it to trip them.
Umbrellas can also be opened, providing a screen or shield. In 1838, the Baron Charles de Berenger advocated opening an umbrella to distract and hinder an attacker while a handgun was brought into play. We also find references to umbrellas being carried by the bodyguards of the presidents of France and the Philippines. A company even offers examples made with Kevlar fabric. While these will not stop bullets they can defend against lesser missiles such as bricks, acid and eggs. An opened umbrella may also deter an aggressive animal such as a dog.
Part One Fencing Parries with an Umbrella.
Part One and a Bit An Interlude.
Part Two Swagger Stick Techniques.
Part Three Commanding the Blade or Brolly.
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Phillosoph

Chariots: Celts Ride Smoother!

If you are looking for something to read, L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Ancient Engineers” is worth considering. One of the things I learnt from this book was that four-wheeled transport was relatively rare for a considerable period of man’s early history. This was because it was some time before the king pin was invented. The king pin is the pivot point for the front wheels of a cart. Before this invention four-wheeled vehicles were difficult and slow to turn. This is the reason why many ancient peoples favoured two-wheeled transport such as chariots.

The book has some interesting information on Roman chariots. Apparently a young man’s chariot was boarded from the rear and driven while standing. This is the sort of chariot familiar to us from movies such as Ben Hur. Older men, however, favoured chariots they could board from the front and drive seated. This seems a metaphor for “youth and energy” versus “age and wisdom”. The young man would travel between towns standing and probably tired and aching when he reached his destination. The older man rode seated and probably in comfort with a blanket across his legs. If we look at horse-drawn transport in later centuries it becomes apparent that the older man’s chariot remained in use under a number of other names. Look at the horse-drawn gig, cabriolet and racing buggy and we see chariots for seated drivers.

Chariots are something that interests me for a variety of reasons. Chariots were used by a variety of ancient peoples but if we want to find the most developed designs we do not have to look far from home. Below are some illustrations of Celtic chariots.

The open back would allow the chariot to be rapidly boarded or dismounted on the battlefield. As you can see, these can be boarded from behind but are also open at the front so the driver can be seated if he desires. Ancient accounts describe how Celtic heroes would run along the pole between the horses to slash at enemies before the chariot. This athletic accomplishment gives us another hint about the capabilities of chariots on the battlefield. This feat suggests that the chariot had slowed or stopped before the infantry. If the chariot was moving at speed there would be little point in slashing at foes before it, they would simply be run down. Many modern historians and re-enactors have discovered that they cannot get horses to charge through an unbroken line of infantry. Horses may not be the brightest of creatures but they will not run into an apparently solid wall! Accounts of chariots smashing through shield walls need to be taken with reservation. The integrity of the formation would have had to have been disrupted first.

One illustration shows a detachable canopy could be fitted to a chariot to keep off the rain or provide shade. Possibly this could be used as a shelter when the chariot driver was camped. A plank for the driver to sit on is also shown. Other seating arrangements might have included a storage trunk. A hammock style camp stool would also be a possibility to provide some cushioning against the bumps in the road

The most interesting feature, in my opinion, and that which marks the Celtic chariots as most advanced technically is that they incorporated a suspension system. Many illustrations show two arched structures on each side of the chariot. Sometimes these are concealed by a side wall that provided protection on the battlefield. Illustrations show a Y-shaped structure within each arch and this has been assumed to be wooden. Excavations of Celtic chariots reveal these Y-shaped structures were not wood. The photos here and on this site show that these were Y-shaped straps from which the floor of the chariot was suspended. The floor here is made from a lattice of straps but it is possible that in actual use this was covered by a rug, fur or wicker. Experiments with reproductions of Celtic chariots show this floating/suspended floor structure gives the chariot riders a much smoother ride, even when moving at speed.

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Phillosoph

Gender Neutral Pronouns.

For a long time I have had a fascination with the English language. My girlfriend is Brazilian and taught herself English in just a couple of years, yet her mastery is better than that of many native English speakers I regularly encounter. I know university lecturers that have no concept of how to use an apostrophe, which is just embarrassing. My girlfriend will often come up with a well chosen phrase that is not “correct” English but has me scratching my head as to why we do not use that particular phrase.
If anything, my interest in language has deepened and diversified during the last year. I came across the SaypYu project for a more easily learnt phonetic system which has made me appreciate just how many English words are not spelt as they are pronounced. I also came across Ogden’s Basic English system which has many interesting ideas.
Some languages, such as French, assign a gender to nouns, to the frustration and bafflement of the English-speaking student. English is thankfully devoid of most noun genders so it is perhaps surprising that the English language lacks a gender-neutral pronoun for singular individuals. To some people this is a big political issue representative of all sorts of things. There is, however a real need for a workable pronoun that can refer to an individual when the gender is unknown, indeterminate or not relevant. US Field Manuals, for example,  find it necessary to begin with a statement that “Unless this publication states otherwise, masculine nouns and pronouns do not refer exclusively to men.”
As one might expect, many invented pronouns have been proposed over the years. This article gives a good account of the practicability of some of these.
Ze/ Hir and derivatives apparently see some use in the homosexual and transgender communities. That will probably mean it is highly unlikely to find much favour with institutions such as the military who are also in need of a useful gender-neutral term. On a practical note “hir” would seem to be pronounced “hɘr”, which is the same pronounciation as “her” so the distinction is graphic rather than also being phonetic.
The best candidate seems to be Ne/ Nir. The variations are listed as Ne/ Nem/ Nir/ Nirs/ Nemself. This seems an unnecessary number of variations and I always favour simplification over unnecessary complication. The Feminine Singular pronoun makes do with She/ Her/ Hers/ Herself so I propose a similar format be followed for Ne.
“Ne” would actually be pronounced “ni” in the same way that “he” and “she” are in fact pronounced “hi” and “shi”. The last thing that English needs is more non-phonetic words. Use of the spelling “Ni” will help distinguish it from other pronouns. Implementing these ideas we have the gender-neutral singular pronoun of :
Ni/ Nir/ Nirs/ Nirself
This is used grammatically in exactly the same way that one would use She/ Her/ Hers/ Herself.
Another potentially useful but seldom used innovation is “Mx.” as a gender-neutral honorific for when you do not know if someone is a Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms. I suspect that this is more useful for correspondence than everyday speech.
If in future blogs you come across “ni” or “nir” do not be frightened. It is just an example of language evolving in a practical direction. Feel free to use it yourself and spread the word(s)!

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Phillosoph

Cardloss Hotline Numbers and IMEIs

The other week I wrote about keeping a record of some important numbers. Chances are many of you have not yet got around to doing this yet. Some of you will have overlooked my post since it was apparently about Handbag theft and you don’t carry one.
While you are sat at the computer I want you to look up the hotline numbers for cardloss for your bank(s). Enter these numbers into the contacts of your phone and do not forget the international hotlines. If your partner uses a different bank, note the numbers for them too. If you are using your own computer save these numbers in a document file.
While you still have those numbers handy, write them down on a piece of paper. Write down your account number(s) and sort code as well. Also copy that information into your computer file
Now I want you to take your phone and enter *#06# into the keypad. The number that comes up will be you IMEI. Copy that down on your piece of paper and also into your computer file. If no number comes up then check on-line on how to get the IMEI number for your particular model of phone.
Take your piece of paper and fold it up so the writing is protected. This gives me the excuse to post a way to fold an envelope from your piece of paper. Tuck the note into your wallet or another safe place on your person. Make a duplicate(s) and place in your bag or car as you wish.
If your phone is lost or stolen you have the information you need with you. If your cards get lost but you still have your wallet, bag or phone you have the numbers you need ready to use as soon as possible.
This is a simple but very useful precaution.
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Phillosoph

Travel Journals and NuScript

Today I will try something a little different.
The past few days I have been working on some ideas about handwriting in the modern world. Since this blog is about survival and martial arts that may not seem really that relevant.
Travelling is a relevant topic on this blog, and one of the major times that I use handwriting is when I am travelling. so I thought it might be entertaining to post some of my thoughts on this handwritten.

If you are interested in the article on handwriting, it can be found here.
NuScript : Clearer Handwriting for the 21st Century
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Phillosoph

Friday 13th December

Friday 13th December : Last Chopping day before Christmas!