Caveat: the the

My intention had been to make a simple blog post of this bit of music I'm listening to, as I often do, these days. Nowadays, approaching 3000 posts, I do a quick search of my posting history before making a new post, because I have some rules: never post the same video or piece of music twice, and never post the same title, twice (though I may have broken that one a few times).

So the piece of music I wanted to post was by the band with the euphonious name of "the the." One of the absolute best band names of all time. So I searched my blog for "the the" – it seemed like a weird enough thing – I'd either posted something by them, or not.

Lo and behold, I never posted anything by that band. Unfortunately, my search for "the the" got 3 pages of google hits. Why? Because apparently in Jared-typo-ese, it's quite common: I like to type the the when I mean the. So then, being the slightly OCD person that I am, I decided I needed to fix all these typos. That took a long time. Fortunately, I had a "The The" soundtrack to accompany me. Heh. Heh.

What I'm listening to right now.

The The, "Giant."

Caveat: 서울에 가야 과거를 급제하지


서울에     가야     과거를                  급제하지

Seoul-TO go-GOAL civil-service-exam-OBJ pass-TAG
[…like] passing the civil service exam in order to go to Seoul.
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“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” This proverb is easy to understand in the conext of the meritocratic system that existed in the pre-modern period, when one of the few avenues of social mobility open to “regular” people was to ace the civil service exam. It was viewed as a way to get ahead. And so, if you want to go to Seoul (i.e. become successful), you have to try to take the exam. You have to try to get somewhere.
The image at right, found online without authorial attribution, is described to have been taken at a “Joseon civil service exam reenactment” – wow, talk about too much excitement.
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