Welcome to the school system
RheumatoidArthritis 130 points a month ago
southsamurai 9 points a month ago
No, it isn't.
Most people will not retain the name of an animal that doesn't speak. The horse has zero impact on the story, and only serves as a piece of Quixote' personality signifiers
absGeekNZ 10 points a month ago
I would say Rocinante helps early in the story, with understanding the depth of Quixote's delusion.
Whilst in reality Rocinante is an old workhorse; in the delusion of Don Quixote, Rocinante is a grand charger fit for a knight of the highest order.
Helping to illustrate the core of the story; Don Quixote is applying a veneer of importance and significance over the top of reality. Rocinante is a reflection of the Don himself.
southsamurai 13 points a month ago
I agree with the role Rocinante plays for sure.
I just don't think that makes the name of the horse a good question. It's like asking the name of John Wick's dog. The whole movie hinges on the dog, but what name it has is irrelevant.
The point of reading something like Don Quixote isn't the names. Even Pancho's name is barely important. Hell, I'd even argue that the fact we're talking about Don Quixote rather than Alonso Quixano even illustrates that names aren't exactly the prime bit of information that matters.
Now, it is hard to discuss the story without factoring in name changes. Aldonza/Dulcinea in specific is maybe the biggest symbol of what the Don is experiencing, and the underlying theme of the story. But the specific names? It's just a bad question for a high school English teacher to ask a student.
My reasoning is that, no matter what else is retained, names only serve as a point of reference in damn near all literature. When an early exposure to old school, classical literature is happening, the student is going to already be learning three or four things at once, and memorizing the name of a non dialogue character doesn't serve do achieve that learning, or even test how much that student retained.
You've got them trying to learn how to read critically, how to read archaic styles, how to retain important factors, and how to express what they've picked up. The name of an animal that's essentially stage dressing akin to the sword or armor? That's entirely the wrong question.
What would be a good one is, "what does Quixote's horse symbolize?" Or even, "what do you think about his horse?". Both would get the student thinking rather than trying to just pull up a word that's arbitrary.
Lushed_Lungfish 115 points a month ago
Rocinante and the only reason I know is because of The Expanse.
TheDarkestShark 18 points a month ago
One of my favorite fan theories is that the authors did not name the ship after the horse from don quixote directly. There is a Rush song called Cygnus X-1 that's basically a space opera and the ship in that song is called the Rocinate, and one of the authors of The Expanse is a huge rush fan. So in my mind that is where the ships name comes from.
Dultas 3 points a month ago
Wasn't the expanse loosely based on a play by post RPG game the author was running? Maybe the name came from that? Isn't that also why Shed was killed off, the player couldn't play anymore.
bridgeenjoyer 2 points a month ago
I also learned it from Rush, hell yeah!
sanzky 8 points a month ago
I love that the guys say something like "it means war horse". Rocinante is a word play with "Rocin antes". Rocin being an old weak horse unfit for serious work and. 'antes' is the spanish word for 'before'.
crapwittyname 2 points a month ago
So it translates to "Prenag"? I love it.
TubularTittyFrog -13 points a month ago
americans wrote it. it has to be 'bad ass'.
americans can't understand irony. too dumb.
rabidhamster 8 points a month ago
From the book:
Holden punched the comm system on the wall. âWell, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter Rocinante.â
âWhat does that name even mean?â Naomi said after he let go of the comm button.
âIt means we need to go find some windmills,â Holden said over his shoulder as he headed to the lift.
James Holden is a very Don Quixote-like character. Try harder.
TubularTittyFrog -7 points a month ago
they are talking about the TV show.
try harder.
the book sucked balls anyway. I read it. TV show cut out all the whiny young adult self-reflect bullshit that filled like 40% of the pages and was far superior. sci-fi doesn't need anymore whiny protagonists, save that for anime.
agamemnonymous 14 points a month ago
What a talented horse
AnUnusualRelic 3 points a month ago
Shame! (bling)
monotremata 1 point a month ago
For me it's "An Animated Description of Mr. Maps" by The Books.
rockerface 28 points a month ago
Beltalowda!
synapse1278 53 points a month ago
That's one badass horse right there 
SaharaMaleikuhm 8 points a month ago
The guy from One Piece?
TropicalDingdong 3 points a month ago
On pizza?
Catoblepas 15 points a month ago
But if you pronounce it like the show, every Spanish speaker has the right to whoop your ass just once
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 8 points a month ago
when i moved to austin and everyone was pronouncing guadalupe "guadaloop" and looking at me funny for pronouncing it guadalupe, i got murder eyes for like a month.
WeirdGoesPro 2 points a month ago
Iâm going to need reports on how you say Koenig and Mueller too. As you are quite aware, moving to Austin requires multi-factor identification. /s
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 2 points a month ago
the german way unless it's an american name, in which case i gotta get damn verification
wonderingwanderer 1 point a month ago
Kernig and Myooler. Isn't that how everyone pronounces those?
sober_monk 7 points a month ago
laughs in Baaathelona
rtxn -3 points a month ago
If that principle applied throughout history, anglophones would have evolved either an armored ass or no ass at all. I believe they are pathologically incapable of grasping the phonology of foreign languages. Just ask any native English speaker the name of the Soviet Union's general secretary that succeeded Stalin and preceded Brezhnev... realistically, nine out of ten will have no idea, and the remaining one will say he was some "cruise chef".
wonderingwanderer 7 points a month ago
As a linguaphile, I've always tried to pronounce words from other languages as correctly as possible. People tend to think that makes me weird.
Xenophobes think I'm being a snob, and "inclusive" people think I'm mocking the language or making some offensive joke or something. Literally the only people who don't get upset about it are the ones who speak whatever language it is.
Alcoholicorn 2 points a month ago
Literally the only people who donât get upset about it are the ones who speak whatever language it is.
It depends on the exact word and context, like if you go to Japan and say Hay mmmburrrgurrrr ăăăă ăăăă§ă, it sounds so bad.
TubularTittyFrog 1 point a month ago
i'm an anglophone that has studied 6 languages.
we're arrogant idiots who think foreign languages don't exist, and shouldn't exist if they are hard to pronounce. we'd rather make fun of them for being 'weird' than actually... learn and appreciate them.
but i at the same time most every country phonetized foreign names to make them pronounceable in the native language. Russians change the pronunciation/spelling of many foreign words to russify them.
WeirdGoesPro 0 points a month ago
Step 1: Seek to prove that anglophones canât pronounce foreign words.
Step 2: Ask a history question that has less to do with pronunciation than it does with an awareness of political events that happened on the other side of the globe, likely before the respondent was born.
Step 3: Ignore that even the people who were alive in that time were likely only getting their pronunciation from whoever was anchoring the news and may be blameless for only hearing an incorrect pronunciation.
Step 4: Feel smug, I guess.
Randelung 33 points a month ago
Same experience with a really old German book. He wanted to know the color of the hat one of the side characters was wearing. I had no clue, after investing so much time into trying to understand it. That kinda made me give up - why try to participate when the outcome is the same as if I didn't?
TubularTittyFrog -5 points a month ago
this entire thread is full of dumb takes but this is one of the dumbest
kolmaskommentoija 2 points a month ago
Someone gets cynical and disillusioned of the school system, after their efforts amount to nothing, because of a bad teacher. How is that a dumb take?
TubularTittyFrog -2 points a month ago
because if one bad teacher ruined your entire education, you're the idiot. likely a vastly emotionally immature one at that.
everyone has bad teachers dude. we also have good ones, and mediocre ones. smart and mature human beings... let it go. miserable stupid ones sit there and stew and are still angry 20 years later about that one embarrass moment... and also blame all their current 'failures' on it. 'oh if only mr handface had not asked me that question in 10th grade English 20 years ago, i'd be a successful music producer!' yeah... right.
but this is peak american entitlement. 'one teacher was mean to me once and i hate school forever and ever' like... i mean that's who the american president is... so yeah peak american. we're a culture of entitled whiny cunts who appreciate nothing an whine about everything and are so egotistical we can't admit that maybe we were a bad student.
ironically... the teachers i liked best were the ones everyone else HATED. why... because they actaully wanted students to learn. The popular teachers people liked were the 'fun' ones who gave everyone As and never actually taught you anything... almost like children want their education to be junk food because it tastes better than broccoli.
kolmaskommentoija 2 points a month ago
if one bad teacher ruined your entire education, youâre the idiot
I sort of agree with this (with the exception of a teacher bullying someone), but I would not call a kid idiot, for that. Even a lot of adults cannot do that sort of self-reflection, it is unreasonable to expect it from an immature child. That is one reason, why teachers bear such huge responsibility, as to a kid even a minor thing can be world-shattering. They do not yet have the life experience, to know or understand better, and that is not them being idiots, but being children.
Also, that was not really what the original comment even said. It sounds very reasonable, to feel like giving up, after a bad experience like that. But they make no claims, that it had ruined their whole education.
(About the USA's school system or cultural things around that, I cannot comment, since as someone from the other side of the ocean, I have no fucking clue how it really is.)
Corngood 32 points a month ago
I read the book about a year ago and I recently I was trying to remember the name of the horse for some reason. I also completely blanked on it, and it took me a few minutes.
I'm pretty terrible at remembering details like that. My brain just stores things relatively, like 'the main character's brother', even after reading his name a hundred times.
Anon should have just told his teacher that the horse (rocinante) is nothing compared to Sancho's she-ass.
hawgietonight 11 points a month ago
Everyone knows him as Cervantes, even though his full name is Miguel de Cervantes. I live in Castilla-La Mancha and everywhere is Quijote.. I even know a lady called Dulcinea.. not a common name btw.
Edit. Just read this and sorry might have come across overly pedantic. I just got up and my brain is still toast.
rumschlumpel 6 points a month ago
Well there's probably not a lot of other well-know people with the last name "(de) Cervantes". Same in Germany, no one ever uses "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe", it's always just "Goethe".
Funkt4st1c 15 points a month ago
I have a strong case of the "My eyes were moving correctly but i was thinking about lunch for the last 3 paragraphs"es
TubularTittyFrog 3 points a month ago
finally, an honest bloke appears.
TubularTittyFrog 2 points a month ago
if you are like Anon it's because you read too fast. slow the fuck down and maybe you'd remember relevant details.
DarrinBrunner 24 points a month ago
For me, the problem with "Rocinante" is I don't know how to pronounce it. So, while reading, I'd skip past it, recognizing that it's the horse, but not parsing it as a word.
If asked that question, I'd need to explain that, but I'd stumble over the word.
If a book has too many oddly (to me) spelled names, I'll skip it for this reason. Apostrophes in the middle and no vowels, and I'm not going to read your book.
NewSocialWhoDis 1 point a month ago
The weird 'th' handling of 'c' isn't just a Catalan thing? Is that all of Spain? I know I'm biased as a North American, but preference for Mexican Spanish.
Crozekiel 2 points a month ago
I have no idea about 'c' becoming 'th'. I was referring to the 't' at the end that the above comment made 'the' when breaking it down, which they have mentioned in a reply was an auto-correct error.
The Spanish I know is not generally NA influenced.
Moxie_empathizer 0 points a month ago
Barthelona.
leftzero 1 point a month ago
Hm... Ro as in Ross..? The rest is the correct pronunciation, yes.
Maybe, I don't know... an as in anvil and te as in tenant..? English, being several unrelated languages in a trenchcoat, can be a bit weird, and pronunciation varies excessively with dialects...
The vowels in Castilian (aka Spanish outside of Spain and other Castilian speaking countries) are very simple, five vowels, five sounds, pronounced more or less as they would have been in Latin.
C is pronounced like a k or a hard z, never as an s (except in some dialects).
Rocinante. From rocĂn and antes, for he was a rocĂn (old horse) before being Quijote's steed (also during, but the old man wasn't all there).
TubularTittyFrog -10 points a month ago
it's not hard, they are just american.
AnUnusualRelic 2 points a month ago
For me, the problem with âRocinanteâ is I donât know how to pronounce it.
If you're using a European language, you're pronouncing it correctly, or close enough.
If your only contact with English is the written word, I guess it depends on what languages you're familiar with. If you're using AI / translation software, just ask it to read it to you. Maybe it'll get it right. Or not. Who can tell with those things.
whatstatersprecious 1 point a month ago
Spanish is incredibly easy to pronounce though? There are only a couple things different than English and none of those differences are relevant for Rocinante. Itâs also consistent in pronunciation, unlike English.
TubularTittyFrog -5 points a month ago
what's it like being a stubborn dumbass?
tigeruppercut 17 points a month ago
The names of the 3 musketeers regularly come up in crosswords and no matter how many times I see it I can't remember one of the 4. There's Porthos, Athos, and I believe D'Artagnan was the one who joined later. Doesn't help that their names sound vaguely like the 3 fates: Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis.
idiomaddict 16 points a month ago
Aramis is the one youâre missing, and heâs also the one I always forget. I can remember porthos and athos because they sound similar, and dâartagnan was the name of the company my old job used for some supplies, but Aramis is too easy a name to forget.
brown567 16 points a month ago
Wasn't it a donkey? I think it was named Rocinante? Idk, I read it like 16 years ago.
Edit post-Wikipedia: it was a workhorse, not a donkey, but I nailed the name. I've wondered in the past if Geralt's horse Roach in The Witcher was a nod to Rocinante
Alaknar 3 points a month ago
Kind of, maybe? But probably not.
In the original, Geralt's horse's name is "PĆotka" - has technically the same meaning as Roach (a small, cheap kind of fish), but the term is also sometimes used for easy, inconsequential and irrelevant things.
affenlehrer 8 points a month ago
Have fun with "War and Peace". Sooo many characters and everyone is some kind of Count or Lord with partly similar family names. Many of them also have a Russian and a French name and switch between them depending on context. I listened to the whole thing as audiobook and it basically took me the whole first book (of 4) to get a vague understanding of the characters. Listening helped a little bit because the reader had a slightly different intonation depending on which character was speaking.
FinjaminPoach 4 points a month ago path: 0 25701775 25702066 25703453, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
cerebralhawks 3 points a month ago
I read that book. I don't remember a single thing about it.
I still recommend it, albeit begrudgingly, to people who might like it. I think it was better than I received it. Maybe I shouldn't have just listened to the audiobook, but rather, read it at my own pace and re-read certain paragraphs, rather than having them read to me one after the other. Because there was something more in that text. Some books are better in audio, and some are better in text. I can't imagine an audiobook exists of House of Leaves, but it wouldn't surprise me. So, maybe one day I'll go back and actually read This is How You Lose the Time War, because it probably deserved more attention paid to it, and it probably deserves a second look.
FinjaminPoach 14 points a month ago path: 0 25703445, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 0
NotASharkInAManSuit 8 points a month ago
Rocinante! Canât believe I remembered that. That book is a hoot.
ThatWeirdGuy1001 6 points a month ago
Is this not a trick question?
Maybe I'm mistaken but didn't he ride a donkey not a horse?
Goodlucksil 15 points a month ago
Rocinante is, as his name states, a rocĂn (an old horse)
ThatWeirdGuy1001 0 points a month ago
I never actually read the book I just remember his whole thing was riding a donkey instead of a horse so I was confused
FlyingCircus 11 points a month ago
Sancho Panza (his servant) rides the donkey.
ThatWeirdGuy1001 4 points a month ago
Ay that's it. I was mistaken. His sidekick rode the donkey not Don himself
Jankatarch 4 points a month ago
I watched an entire movie once where they didn't give protagonist a name. Realized about a week later in shower and had to look up to confirm.
blimthepixie 2 points a month ago
I read that as house and was confused by the comments for a while
Paradachshund 1 point a month ago
Is it Juan Quixote?
thermal_shock 1 point a month ago
Juan Robinson
TubularTittyFrog -16 points a month ago
if you read don quixote in two days you're a definitely a retard.
like going to France and ordering McDonalds.
fucking Americans.
Psythik 5 points a month ago
The very first thing I'd do after stepping in a foreign country is try the fast food there. It's fun to see different countries' takes on American junk food. There will be plenty of time to try the local cuisine, but first, I want to see what it's like to eat a McSpaghetti, or a Whopper with five patties and a bun made out of mozzarella sticks!
nednobbins 4 points a month ago
My wife and I went to India with a mission to try as much different food as possible.
For the most part, India delivered but one day we decided to try a place that "Lonely Planet" recommended as the hot dining option for young people in the area. It turned out to be a Tex-Mex diner.
You know how people complain about American's screwing up foreign (including Indian) food? India can give as good as it gets. We asked to get their most popular items and they were all huge misses. The quesadilla tasted like the chef had once seen a picture of a quesadilla and rolled with it.
TubularTittyFrog 0 points a month ago
yeah but the locals wouldn't know the difference.
nednobbins 3 points a month ago
Most of them. I assume they also have some well-traveled food snobs that make fun of it when their friends suggest it.
"Man that Texmex joint sucks. You can only get authentic tortillas in Tijuana. "
LemmyUser0909 2 points a month ago
Did that in S China. McD's servers a "Cup of Corn" (nibblets) as a side like french fries. Its wildly popular. Also they had Pineapple snack pies but they called them "Pine Pies"
TubularTittyFrog 0 points a month ago
sounds like a hobby.
AnUnusualRelic -2 points a month ago
Technically, if you do that you'll be doing the same as a lot of locals. People love their "Mac Do" (for some reason).
Immerse yourself in the local culture (and have a beer at the local Mc D, assuming that's still a thing, I'm not really sure).
TubularTittyFrog -6 points a month ago
Again, american. French people eat there sometimes, doens't mean they eat there all the time.
The point is americans go to another country to 'expereince the culture' and then systematically avoid doing so at all costs.
Just like anon tries to 'read' a 800 page novel by not actually reading it, and then gets called out by their teacher who knows anon is a tryhard who didn't even know what the horse is called. sort of like saying you ran a marathon by running mile 1 and mile 25 and you road a car from mile 2 to mile 24. it's totally the same thing as running 26 miles! right!
at least the lit teacher didn't ask anon to blow him. if i'd been his teacher i would have, seen that anon is a useless idiot and that's all he'd be good for in my class and i suppose the lit teacher only likes him because he's pretty. maybe has a whole Death in Venice thing going for him.
fake: anon's lit teacher liked him because he was a smarty
gay: anon's teacher liked him because he was submissive dumb 'lil bitch
AnUnusualRelic 3 points a month ago
americans go to another country to âexpereince the cultureâ
Eeeehhhh... More or less.
Anyway you can't experience that much in the few days most US people have available. Remember that they have to go to London, Paris and possibly the Riviera, Rome, some place in Germany, and maybe two or three other places, all in the one or two weeks that they can spend in Europe before their boss requires their presence back behind their keyboard. It's a vacation of sorts, but it's also a game of tag.
Faced with so many changing vistas, they are bound to give up and enter a Mc D at some point. You would do the same, except that when you go abroad, you can just stay somewhere for a month and actually see a country if you like (assuming you can afford to, but then, visiting Belgium is fine too). So anyway, what I mean is that you have to account for the culture shock, which exists for them, although I'm not sure visiting a foreign Mc D will attenuate that. Because they are probably way more foreign than they'll likely expect.
TubularTittyFrog -2 points a month ago
No they don't? What are you talking about?
SwissArmyKazoo -3 points a month ago
Classy, I figure you can read the whole of Ulysses in total of 17 minutes?
Douche!
TubularTittyFrog -3 points a month ago
No dickwattles. 17 days. Reading should take time.
Idiots all over here being 'hrr i cannon rememburrs the bookz i readz' yeah, because you don't actaully read, you just skim.
reading takes effort, and i understand most of you are unwilling to make an effort in anything other than calling shit fake and gay.
Anon feels like a dumbass because anon is a dumbass, and like every dumbass is butthurt someone pointed out how dumb they were. Rather than being like 'hey maybe I should ahve paid attention to this book I read instead of being a retard'.
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This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
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greentext
@sh.itjust.works
8840
2065
4789
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
go to feed...
That's a shitty question though. Totally irrelevant to the meat of the story, and definitely not a proof someone read the whole thing and thought about it.
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