Preparing to play a game of Variations

On the theme of pulleys

‘Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well.’ Ecclesiastes 12:6–7 (New Living Translation)

When I thought of playing a game on the theme of pulleys, a quite unfamiliar and (many would say) uninviting theme, how did I prepare before the game started? I took careful note of how I went about it, and you can skip to the end for how I now think I could have done it differently and perhaps better. But meanwhile, join me on a journey through information science, linguistics, hermeneutics and jokes, as they relate to pulleys.

Wikipedia’s not a bad place to start with an unfamiliar theme, and for the purpose of the Variations game, it’s not just the main article but also the ‘disambiguation’ section which is of interest, showing ‘pulley’ as a famous US naval photographer, a Shropshire town in the UK, a Scottish household help device, and a Californian punk rock band. Any of them might be of use as links where meaning/use varies while the word itself stays the same. [1] Fully understanding the main Wikipedia article itself will help with finding analogies in other domains. [2]

Then, for more uses and meanings of the same word ‘pulley,’ a glance at the Oxford English Dictionary (a link to knee armour, a torture instrument to stretch like a rack, a change in direction/ increase of power), leading to the Cambridge Dictionary of Etymology (a promising link to ‘pole’ as in ‘pole star’ and the idea of rotation), the online American Heritage Dictionary (and a link via its Appendix of Indo-European roots to ‘going around’), and then Buck’s Dictionary of Indo-European Synonyms and Bomhard’s Nostratic Etymological Index (a link to Proto-Nostratic *kʷʰal meaning ‘to circle’, and from there to ‘Wheel’ in English, and Arabic عجلة ‘agala, Hebrew גַּלְגַּ֖ל galgal, Greek κύκλος kuklos, Sanskrit चक्र chakra, and Mandarin 車 chē (vehicle)). And by now, we’re dealing with different words for concepts which are similar and related to ‘pulley.’ [3]

So by now I’m also feeling quite well prepared with examples where meaning/use stays the same while the word itself varies, [4] and have some good linguistically-based ‘family relationships’ of similar words with similar meanings, [5] as well as a few more utility-based ‘family relationships’ from looking up ‘pulley’ in the Universal Decimal Classification (‘pulleys: in mines; machine elements; materials handling’), which is a good source for connections across different knowledge based disciplines.

Searching online for ‘pulley jokes’ gives me a few more ideas to play with (pulley as ‘centre of a tension’), [6] and Elyse Sommer’s Similes Dictionary and Metaphors Dictionary give a few more ideas, [7] but nothing very inspiring on this occasion (‘His heart seemed to slide like the hook on a released pulley’ – Frank Swinnerton).

An online dream dictionary gives a few pointers on the unconscious meaning of pulleys (‘an attitude enabling results’), [8] and by now I‘ve covered every type of comparison except different forms with different meanings [9] – and in the absence of any known Dictionary of the Absurd or Compendium of Contradictions, the best I can do is be ready to be nimble.

Once you start playing a game of Variations, if you’re playing with ‘internet on’ you can directly search for the theme together with any keywords in the contexts that come up, in whatever information sources you’re lucky enough to have access to. [10]

Anyway, I’m disclosing all this partly so you can do something similar, if you wish, and also to force myself to raise my game and try to do things differently!

And you have your own imagination, experience, wisdom, feelings, and knowledge sources to bring to the game, and that personal distinctiveness is what makes your game yours alone.

And if writing this has taught me anything, it’s that I needn’t (and probably shouldn’t) start with a knowledge based approach. When I played on the theme of Migration with my young son a few nights ago, building on the ‘going around’ meaning of a pulley, I did it from the heart. We talked about our family history, and what migration and ‘going around’ has meant to us personally. I hadn’t even googled Migration until the day after we finished the game, and it was probably a better game for us as a result.

Though having said that, in preparing for the below game I ended up playing on pulleys, I did enjoy getting sidetracked on the linguistics of ‘going around,’ and it was finding the image of the shattered pulley at the well from Ecclesiastes which was the heart-dropping moment for me. As ever, it’s probably balance that’s best.

The Pulley Game

Not all of the above moves were used in the final game, which was based on the following draw of context cards from the Variations deck.

• 1.6 (Medical Sciences) Chakra as pulley/wheel (literal translation in Sanskrit) and included in this context due to its link to medical sciences [11]
• 3.1 (Earth/ Connection) The broken pulley at the well as a metaphor for death in Ecclesiastes 12.6
• 4.1 (Shame/ Humiliation) Why was the pulley embarrassed? It was the centre of a tension
• 1.8 (Language/ Linguistics) ‘Pulley’ from πόλος (axis) in Greek [12]
• 4.5 (Distress/ Anguish) Restlessness in George Herbert’s poem The Pulley [13]
• 3.3 (Fire/ Expansion) Pulley friction steals energy to heat

Footnotes

[1] The Loom of Form and Meaning is a way of classifying connections on a 3x3 matrix, depending on whether a connection is based on identity, similarity or difference in form, and identity, similarity or difference in meaning/use (https://bit.ly/3q0BNw1). Cases where meaning/use varies while the word itself stays the same are on the A1 to C1 axis of the Loom of Form and Meaning.

[2] Analogies in other domains are B3 comparisons on the Loom.

[3] It didn’t happen quite that neatly: after finding the Indo-European etymology, I remembered George Herbert’s poem The Pulley, and it was a commentary on that which led me to the beautiful image of the shattered pulley at the well as a metaphor for death in Ecclesiastes, which I looked up in an online interlinear Hebrew/English bible, setting me off in the direction of the semitic root of the Hebrew galgal and the related Arabic ‘agala, all related to ‘going around,’ and then from there to the Nostratic roots of both, and back to the American Heritage appendix for an Indo-European loan-word from Central Asia that found its way into Mandarin as chē.

[4] Cases where meaning/use stays the same while the word itself varies are on the A1 to A3 axis of the Loom of Form and Meaning.

[5] Linguistically-based ‘family relationships’ of similar words with similar meanings are in the B2 area of the Loom.

[6] In the C2 area of the Loom this time, since it’s a homophonic but heterographic pun, where the phrase sounds the same but the written form is slightly different.

[7] Similes and metaphors in the B1 or B3 areas of the Loom, depending on whether the original word is used as the source or the target of the analogy.

[8] Unconscious meanings, along with other unusual or surprising interpretations, are C1 type comparisons on the Loom.

[9] Different forms with different meanings are in the C3 area of the Loom.

[10] Searching the full internet is usually unsatisfying, searching Google Books is better, and JSTOR is my favourite. I’d routinely search ProQuest/Literature Online (LION) if I had access.

[11] For example, ‘yoga’ is at 613.7 in the Universal Decimal Classification, corresponding to the context card 1.6 in the Variations deck.

[12] UDC reference 1.81`37, corresponding to the context card 1.8 in the Variations deck.

[13] The Pulley by George Herbert

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.
Let the world’s riches, which disperséd lie,
Contract into a span.”

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

“For if I should,” said he,
“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both should losers be.

“Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness.
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.”