Read the three excerpts (A, B, and C) below and answer the questions after each one. In your answers, use only active voice.
Katlina
Three Classification Systems: Two Flawed Systems . . . and a Better One
This assignment will start you thinking about your first major p a p e r's topic, classification and division.
This first major p.a.p.e.r is due on Wednesday, July 8.
Read the three excerpts (A, B, and C) below and answer the questions after each one. In your answers, use only active voice.
A) A story by Jorge Luis Borges quotes a fictional “certain Chinese encyclopedia” in which it is written that “animals are divided into a) belonging to the Emperor, b) embalmed, c) tame, d) suckling pigs, e) sirens, f) fabulous, g) stray dogs, h) included in the present classification, i) frenzied, j) innumerable, k) drawn with a very fine camel-hair brush, l) et cetera, m) just having broken the water pitcher, n) that from a long way off look like flies.”
What possible problem(s) might come up using this classification system? Use only active voice only.
B) All invitations must proceed from heaven, perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to initiate their own unity, they do but widen the gulf between them by the attempt. So at all events thought old Mr. Graysford and young Mr. Sorley, the devoted missionaries who lived out beyond the slaughterhouses, always traveled third on the railways, and never came up to the Club. In our Father’s house are many mansions, they taught, and there alone will the incompatible multitudes of mankind be welcomed and soothed. No one shall be turned away by the servants on that verandah, be he black or white, not one shall be kept standing who approaches with a loving heart. And why should divine hospitality cease here? Consider, with all reverence, the monkeys. May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also? Old Mr. Graysford said No, but young Mr. Sorley, who was advanced, said Yes; he saw no reason why monkeys should not have their collateral share of bliss, and he had sympathetic discussions about them with his Hindu friends. And the jackals? Jackals were indeed less to Mr. Sorley’s mind, but he admitted that the mercy of God, being infinite, may well embrace all mammals. And the wasps? He became uneasy during the descent to wasps and was apt to change the conversation. And oranges, cactuses, crystals, and mud? And the bacteria inside Mr. Sorley? No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude something from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing.
--E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
What possible problem(s) might come up using this classification system? Use only active voice only.
C) 11 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. 3 Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat.
[ . . . ]
9 “These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat. 10 But anything in the seas or the rivers that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you. 11 You shall regard them as detestable; you shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall detest their carcasses. 12 Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you.
20 “All winged insects that go on all fours are detestable to you. 21 Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to hop on the ground.
- From the 11th chapter of Leviticus
Classify the animals below as permissible to eat or not based on the Biblical classifications above.
- catfish
- shrimp
- ladybug
- goat
- whale
- clam
- trout
- horse
- sheep
- javelina
- salmon
- rattlesnake
- locust
- pig
- kangaroo
- squid
- cow
- rabbit
Does this third system work better or worse than the first two we looked at? Why? (The question refers to the fictional Chinese encyclopedia from Borges and the missionary example from Forster). Use only active voice in your response.
3 months ago
25
