Bad Big Wolf

From here: https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/05/25/fire-and-fog/

When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his first story, at age 7, “my mother … pointed out that one could not say ‘a green great dragon,’ but had to say ‘a great green dragon.’ I wondered why, and still do.” It turns out that there’s an unwritten rule in English that governs the order in which we string our adjectives together:

opinion
size
age
shape
color
origin
material
type
purpose

In The Elements of Eloquence, Mark Forsyth writes, “So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.”

Another unwritten rule concerns ablaut reduplication: In terms such as chit-chat or dilly-dally, in which a word is repeated with an altered vowel, the vowels will follow the pattern I-A-O if there are three words and I-A or I-O if there are two. So:

tip-top
clip-clop
King Kong
flip-flop
sing-song
shilly-shally

And so on. Interestingly, these rules about precedence seem to follow a precedence rule of their own: The “royal order of adjectives” would require Red Riding Hood to meet the “Bad Big Wolf” (opinion before size). But the rule of ablaut reduplication apparently trumps this, making him the Big Bad Wolf.

“Why this should be is a subject of endless debate among linguists,” Forsyth writes. “It might be to do with the movement of your tongue or an ancient language of the Caucasus. It doesn’t matter. It’s the law, and, as with the adjectives, you knew it even if you didn’t know you knew it. And the law is so important that you just can’t have a Bad Big Wolf.”

I don’t know how this applies to dragons.

(Thanks, Nick and Armin.)

Review: Islamic Guide To Sexual Relations

Islamic Guide To Sexual Relations by Muhammad Ibn Adam Al-Kawthari
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some non-muslims teased the companions of noble prophet saw. They said, your prophet tells you about how to wipe yourself too.

The companions, not suffering from any inferiority complex, said Indeed he does. And he tells us to do in so and so manner.

Alhamdulillah, Allah has taught us through His messenger about each and every facet of life. And one important aspect of a person's life is sex. Maslow would place it as one of the five most basic human needs. Well above self-actualisation, esteem, love, belonging, intellectual pursuits. In terms of a person's well-being's dependence on it, it's not much different from food itself. As the joke goes. Sex, like Oxygen, only becomes important when you aren't getting any.

Unfortunately, muslim world is too shy to talk about it, or to acknowledge.

May Allah give rise to more scholars in ummat, who are able and willing to talk about the relevant issues with clarity and completeness. This book is by one such scholar.

At the very least, one would learn what how the Prophet, the greatest of men of all time, loved his wives, and treated them.

At the best, it could inspire one to fall in love with Allah and His final prophet once again, for having thought about us, the ummatis to such an extent, and to provide us with a deen so complete in guidance, and so pure in its rule.

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Mumtaz Naseem

Review: The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I cannot say anything about this book that hasn't been said before. But I must say that it is a novella that is both humorous and horror at the same. The character in it is find in a ridiculously pitiable state, yet the reader never sympathises with him, reader only thinks of himself. What if it were to happen to me? Kafka throws some satire and social commentary for additional zest.

This is timeless.

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Review: Pride & Prejudice

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I cannot say anything about it, that hasn't been said before.

I just feel very, very fortunate that I myself am married to a woman such as Lizzy herself.

This is an excellent book, very enjoyable, with subtle lessons, and even subtle commentary.

The characters are all so accurately depicted, one can't help but find one family member reflected in each one of them.

Austen, you live on in your books!

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Review: Jaza Ul Amaal

Jaza Ul Amaal by Ashraf Ali Thanwi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Within fifty pages, Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi shakes you and clears all the confusions and doubts which necessarily arise as a result of living in a society that's the "singing dancing cr*p of the world".

He proves how our actions affect our this life and the next life; and both lives are, to a perfect, ideal extent, in our power.

He finishes by mentioning five high impact good deeds (1. Acquiring Ilm, 2. Namaz, 3. Socialising less, 4. Self-audit, 5. Repentence) and six high impact bad deeds (1. Backbiting, 2. Opression, 3. Inter-gender interaction, 4. Anger, 5. Conceit, 6. Impure Rizq)

A must read for any muslims who finds himself lazy in DOs and persistent in DONTs.

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On Getting Married

From here.

One approach about How to get married is, first date the person and try to get to know him/her before marrying. Because, otherwise you're marrying a complete stranger. And it may not work out...

On closer inspection, we learn that, a lot of those marriages that are breaking, are not breaking because the couple didn't know one another, but because

When to marry?
As soon as you feel mature enough. Even if you're a student, but there's place for you to keep her, and your parents can feed her, then get married.

After marrying, nobody ever says I married too early, everyone says I should have married earlier.

What can we do to prepare for marriage?
Understand the laws of divorce.
Read a _few_ books on marriage.

It's about expectations. Expect that she will talk back.

There are people who are not interested in marriage.
Some guys think all women are bad, some girls think all women are bad.

Anas ra relates:

Whoever Allah provides with a righteous wife, then He has assisted him in half his deen. Then he should just fear in the other half. 

Although it addresses men, because he (saw.) had male audience, it works for women as well.

... to be continued ...