A Strange Way to Categorize Stones and Metals
Consider the eighth category, which deals with stones. Wilkins divides them into the following classifications: ordinary (flint, gravel, slate); intermediate (marble, amber, coral); precious (pearl, opal); transparent (amethyst, sapphire); and insoluble (coal, clay, and arsenic). The ninth category is almost as alarming as the eighth. It reveals that metals can be imperfect (vermilion, quicksilver); artificial (bronze, brass); recremental (filings, rust); and natural (gold, tin, copper). The whale appears in the sixteenth category: it is a viviparous, oblong fish. These ambiguities, redundances, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
Notes:
Jorge Luis Borges compares the method to an ancient Chinese method of categorizing animals.
Folksonomies: taxonomy categorization
Taxonomies:
/pets/large animals (0.485715)
/law, govt and politics/armed forces/air force (0.369839)
/style and fashion/jewelry/earrings (0.298286)
Keywords:
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Entities:
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Concepts:
Jorge Luis Borges (0.960387): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Copper (0.563192): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Franz Kafka (0.554681): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Brush (0.549086): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Buenos Aires (0.505973): geo | website | dbpedia | freebase | yago
Categorization (0.486667): dbpedia | freebase
Taxonomy (0.479262): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
The Garden of Forking Paths (0.465789): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Other inquisitions, 1937-1952