Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

* As with all valuable and expensive things, there was a massive underground market for counterfeit and amateur silver bars. At New Cut, one could buy charms to Banish Rodents, to Cure Common Ailments, and to Attract Wealthy Young Gentlemen. Most were composed without a basic understanding of the principles of silver-working, and involved elaborate spells in made-up languages often in imitation of Oriental languages. Yet some were, occasionally, rather incisive applications of folk etymology. For this reason, Professor Playfair conducted an annual survey of contraband silver match-pairs, though the use of this survey was a matter of utmost secrecy.

* In doing so, Babel and Morse greatly upset the inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, whose own telegraph machine had been installed on the Great Western Railway just two years prior. However, Cooke and Wheatstone’s telegraph used moving needles to point to a preset board of symbols, which did not afford nearly the range of communication that Morse’s simpler, click-based telegraph did.

* In an act of incredible academic generosity, they allowed this improved system to also be referred to as the Morse Code.

* A list of offences that Babel undergraduates had got away with in the past included public intoxication, brawling, cockfighting, and intentionally adding vulgarities to a recital of the Latin grace before dinner in hall.

* The character 爆 is composed of two radicals: 火 and 暴.

* Ramy was, though he did not know it, then at the centre of a debate between the Orientalists, including Sir Horace Wilson, who favoured teaching Sanskrit and Arabic to Indian students, and the Anglicists, including Mr Trevelyan, who believed Indian students of promise ought to be taught English.

This debate would come down firmly on the side of the Anglicists, best represented by Lord Thomas Macaulay’s infamous February 1835 ‘Minute on Education’: ‘We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.’

* Wilson’s election to this position had raised something of a controversy. He had been in heated competition with Reverend W.H. Mill for election, and Reverend Mill’s supporters spread the rumour that Wilson had insufficient character for the job, as he had eight illegitimate children. Wilson’s supporters defended him on the grounds that in fact, he had only two.

* ‘Goodbye; may God be your protector.’

* The proliferation of Britain’s railways had happened very quickly after the invention of silver-powered steam engines. The thirty-five-mile Liverpool-to-Manchester line, built in 1830, was the first railway built for general use, and nearly seven thousand miles of track had been laid around England since. The line from Oxford to London would have been built much sooner, but Oxford’s professors delayed it for nearly four years on the grounds that such easy access to the temptations of the capital would wreak moral havoc on the young, naive gentlemen left in their care. And because of the noise.

* Baynes ended up placing a cannon in front of the English Factory to keep the Chinese from seizing his wife, and it was all very exciting for a fortnight until the lady was at last peaceably persuaded to leave.

* This society, founded in November 1834, was created with the goal of inducing the Qing Empire to become more open to Western traders and missionaries through deploying ‘intellectual artillery’. It was inspired by the London Society, which generously elevated the poor and dissuaded political radicalism through the gift of education.

* Reverend Gützlaff indeed often went by the name Ai Han Zhe, which translates as ‘One who loves the Chinese’. This moniker was not ironic; Gützlaff really did see himself as the champion of the Chinese people, whom he referred to in correspondence as kind, friendly, open, and intellectually curious people who unfortunately happened to be under the ‘thralldom of Satan’. That he could reconcile this attitude with his support for the opium trade remains an interesting contradiction.

* 洋貨.

* 晴天, qīngtiān; qīng meaning ‘clear’, tiān meaning ‘the skies or heavens’.

* Guǐ (鬼) can mean ‘ghost’ or ‘demon’; in this context, it is most commonly translated as ‘foreign devil’.

* This was true, though Ramy did so only because he would not have been allowed to matriculate otherwise.