ODDLY ENOUGH, quite a number of readers persist in reading emotion into
factual signs—as in “this door is alarmed” (22 September). Following the
medical tradition that two cases a syndrome make, and that everyone feels much
better when you repeat their symptoms back to them in cod-Greek, we bring you
“semiopathy”. You can translate this as “sign-sensitivity” or “sign-suffering”,
depending on whether you like the experience.
Continuing in the vein of emotional architecture, Colin McLeod reports from
Dundee that church towers occasionally bear the warning “Caution—the bells
are upset”. Apparently a trained campanologist could explain why they…
