Language – Page 3 – The Answer Wall

February 1, 2018March 1, 2018

How many languages do you speak? | Also why do u choose this font?

There are speakers of at least 26 languages from Akan to Vietnamese willing to help me out, but if a question comes in in a language that is not one of these, I am shameless in reaching out for help beyond the library! And the font? It made me nostalgic for my old typewriter.

January 31, 2018February 1, 2018

(in Greek): [redacted], no one is my name

[redacted] οΰτις έμοι γ’όνομα ([redacted], no one is my name) — [redacted]
οΰτις έμοι
γ’όνομα ([redacted], no one is my name)

You’ve gotta watch out for falling rocks when you try that approach. (Odyssey 9.480). bit.ly/bc-odyssey. (p.s. The Wall can’t decide if it’s missing something, but our no-names policy also applies in Ancient Greek. Even if one also claims to have no name)

January 31, 2018January 31, 2018

Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse, qui tot scriptorium taedia sustineas

Non nobis solum nati sumus. (Cicero, De Officiis 1.22) bit.ly/bc-cicero

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.