This is me complaining about the Appendix in Turner's "Pilgrimage."
What the hell, Turner.
The point of having an appendix is to help me understand the concepts on which I'm already confused. Studying for my exam was an unnecessarily arduous challenge thanks to your "definitions." Nothing about your Appendix was beneficial. I feel incredible pity for you, because I'm sure you spent days, weeks, or longer trying to interpret the terms you used so frequently in this book, when your intention was to hopefully help your readers. Although I applaud the attempt, you might as well have ended your book on page 241 and left it at that. When a classmate and I were stumped by the phrase "unification of disparate signata," our plan was to be enlightened, to have more answers than we started with. However we closed the book with only more questions and palms pressed against our foreheads.
Unification of disparate signata: the disparate signata of a dominant symbol are interconnected by virtue of their analogous qualities or by association fact or thought.
WHAT.
At first glance, I decided to not even try. But I went back and tried to REDEFINE the term which you had just so "simply" defined for me. When I finally figured out this jigsaw puzzle you call a supplement, I discovered that "unification of disparate signata" could have also been clarified as this:
Meanings of a symbol which are understood through similar, shared traits.
.........
Why was this term not simplified as aforementioned?!
And mind you, Turner, this is only one of several examples. When I'm looking up a word, I never expect that I will have to look up multiple other words in the definition first. I shouldn't have to go through a multi-step process to understand one term! By the time I actually learned the significance of "unification of disparate signata," ask me if I cared. OR ask me if I had overly concerned myself with one word for five minutes too long.
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