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A Pack of Lies!
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simont asked "In what order would you naturally list the four suits of a pack of cards?"
My first answer, SCHD, was the order taught me by my nice Christian Dad - and turns out (rather spookily) to be the order of the equivalent Tarot suits.
On reflection I felt a more "natural" order might be DHSC, i.e. arranging them in order of number of re-entrant angles (bits which point inwards). ♦ ♥ ♠ ♣ (may not display correctly on all systems)
But I notice a glaring omission:
0 Diamonds
1 Hearts
2 Spades
3
4 Clubs
There is a suit missing! The suit with three re-entrant angles! What should be there?
A bit of research brought me to The Mammals of Texas, and Item 32 on their Key to the Rodents of Texas which identifies animals based on their tooth shapes.
Enamel pattern of third upper molar with three closed triangles or, if with only two closed triangles, then with three inner re-entrant angles: Microtus mexicanus (Mexican vole).
And there we have our answer. Nestling between the spades and clubs, is the Secret Suit of Voles.
simont asked "In what order would you naturally list the four suits of a pack of cards?"My first answer, SCHD, was the order taught me by my nice Christian Dad - and turns out (rather spookily) to be the order of the equivalent Tarot suits.
On reflection I felt a more "natural" order might be DHSC, i.e. arranging them in order of number of re-entrant angles (bits which point inwards). ♦ ♥ ♠ ♣ (may not display correctly on all systems)
But I notice a glaring omission:
0 Diamonds
1 Hearts
2 Spades
3
4 Clubs
There is a suit missing! The suit with three re-entrant angles! What should be there?
A bit of research brought me to The Mammals of Texas, and Item 32 on their Key to the Rodents of Texas which identifies animals based on their tooth shapes.
Enamel pattern of third upper molar with three closed triangles or, if with only two closed triangles, then with three inner re-entrant angles: Microtus mexicanus (Mexican vole).
And there we have our answer. Nestling between the spades and clubs, is the Secret Suit of Voles.
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What is the 'Christian' relevance of your order?
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Only in English, I suspect.
What is the 'Christian' relevance of your order?
I did not mean it was particularly Christian, it just tickled me that of all the 24 possible orders my Dad could have taught me, it was the one which matches the Tarot/occult order...
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I would go... hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades.
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Voles (as a word) is dark purplish.
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See you at Easter!
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See you at Easter!
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0 diamonds
1 spades
2 hearts
3 clubs
But I'm not sure if they can mathematically justify counting the the point of the spade but the lobes of the heart.
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"supposedly mnemonic", yes. Their system is a bit of a stretch (unlike mine ;-))
"Various people have independently suggested expanding the Anglo-American deck to five, six or even more suits" I'm slightly disappointed to find I'm not the first. I suspect Wikipedia is not yet ready for the Truth about Voles.
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I've added "secret suit of voles" to my interests list; I'll be waiting for the knock on my door at 3am now...
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(Anonymous) 2006-03-23 11:33 am (UTC)(link)I find http://www.symbols.com/ is often quite good for this sort of thing. Is it a Manx or an ancient Greek vole? (http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/16/1632.html)
-- a random Firedrake
Symbols nice
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