``These ambiguities, redundances, and deficiencies recall those
attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia
called the Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge.
In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into
- (a) those that belong to the emperor;
- (b) embalmed ones;
- (c) those that are trained;
- (d) suckling pigs;
- (e) mermaids;
- (f) fabulous ones;
- (g) stray dogs;
- (h) those that are included in this classification;
- (i) those that tremble as if they were mad;
- (j) innumerable ones;
- (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush;
- (l) etcetera;
- (m) those that have just broken the flower vase;
- (n) those that from a long way off look like flies.''
---Borges, John Wilkins' Analytical Language
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Curtis T McMullen