Reading Nonsense

It’s Reading Monday. Personally I have never quite understood what it is about Reading that makes it eligible for its own day here on our blog – I mean, we don’t have Bristol Tuesdays or Warwick Wednesdays, now do we? Nevertheless, Reading, Berkshire gets its own day. Understand it if you can.


I’ve never been to Reading, so I can’t tell you all that much about it (other than what Wikipedia informs me, but you can check that out yourself. Unless you accidentally click on some other language in the left sidebar on Wikipedia – you might end up get the page in Volapük [whatever language that is] or something. If you can understand that, you’re better than me! [Though the Volapük Wikipedia page for Reading isn’t all that informative, so I don’t reckon I’m missing out on much]).

However, since I don’t know much about the topic of this blog post I have done a little research in an attempt to assemble as much information as possible.

For instance, in addition to the one in Britain, there appears to be more places called Reading. In the US alone, there are (at least) eight Readings, and then also a North Reading, a West Reading and a Port Reading (I wonder, though, why there aren’t any East, South or Starboard Readings).

There are also a number of people by the name of Reading, most of whom are dead. Such as John of Reading (who died in 1346), Pierson B. Reading (who died in 1868) or Bertice Reading (who died in 1991). There are several people named John Reading, and again, many of them are dead. Not to worry, though, there is a Peter Reading who is still alive, so it is too hasty to conclude that there is a connection between the name Reading and death rates.

“Reading” can also refer to certain activities. For instance, in legislature reading refers to “the mechanism by which a bill is introduced”. How clever. In computer wizardness, “reading” is “the act of a computer extracting data from a storage medium”. Speaking of mediums, in divination “reading” can refer to any number of ways of predicting the future. Reading tea leaves, reading palms, reading other types of tropical trees, reading omens and reading cards.

Finally, “reading” is also a process, apparently. Again I consulted Wikipedia: “[Reading is a] cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive meaning from text”.

I have no idea what that means. I think I’ll find a book instead.