The method by which the greater part of the Egyptian alphabet was     1     is this: The oval, or “cartouche” as it is called, always contained a(n)     2     name. There is only one cartouche on the Rosetta Stone concerning a Ptolemy. If the cartouche did contain the name of Ptolemy, who ruled over Egypt, the characters in it would have the sounds of the Greek letters, and that all together they would     3     the Greek form of the name of Ptolemy. On the obelisk (方尖碑) which Mr. Bankes had brought from Philæ (菲莱，埃及一地名), there is an inscription in two languages, Egyptian and Greek. In the Greek     4    , two sacred names are mentioned, Ptolemy and Cleopatra, and on the second face of the obelisk are two cartouches. When these cartouches were     5     with the one on the Rosetta Stone, one contained hieroglyphic (象形文字的) characters almost identical with those on the Rosetta Stone.

Rosetta Stone Obelisk from Philæ

Taking the cartouches supposed to contain the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra from the Philæ Obelisk, and     6     the signs, we have:

Ptolemy, A.

Cleopatra, B.

No. 1 in A and No. 5 in B are identical, and judging by their     7     in the names, they must represent the letter P. No. 4 in A and No. 2 in B are identical, and they must represent the letter L. A’s L is the second letter in the name of Cleopatra, No. 1 must represent K.

In the Greek form of Cleopatra, there are two vowels between the L and the P,     8     to the two hieroglyphs, and , so = E and = O. In some forms of Cleopatra, No. 7 is replaced by , identical with No. 2 in A and No. 10 in B. A’s T follows P in the name Ptolemy, and as there is a T in the Greek form of Cleopatra, and have     9     the same sound of T. In the Greek form of Cleopatra there are two a’s, the positions of which agree with No. 6 and No. 9, so can be     10     the value of A. Substituting these values for the hieroglyphs in B, we may write it as thus:

Picking Up the Word of the Year

The story of a year is sometimes easy to identify: the financial crisis of 2008, the Brexit Trump populist wave of 2016 or the pandemic of 2020. The most     1     event of 2022 has been the war in Ukraine, yet those earlier stories have lingered in the headlines. For language-watchers, all that meant much new vocabulary to consider.

Facebook renamed itself Meta in 2021 and spent vast sums in 2022 trying to activate metaverse, an online world in which people can     2     via avatars and virtual-reality goggles. Instead profits dropped as the company struggled even to get its employees to     3     its metaverse. The word was a(n)     4     in Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year contest, but was not selected. Perhaps another year. This is still a word (and a world) looking for users.

Instead, Oxford’s choice this year—based on a public vote—was goblin mode, a(n)     5     in which people indulge their laziest or most selfish habit. After years of covid, recession and inflation, people are tired and     6     and finding it harder to keep up appearances. But another product of the Covid era is Johnson’s word of the year.

After, the lockouts of 2020, followed, in 2021, by a low return to the office, 2022 was the year that hybrid work     7     in. Working at home some of the time has advantages of decongesting cities and fewer painful commutes, and disadvantages like fears of lower     8     combined with a sense of never being off duty. In the spring Twitter a policy of unlimited working form home for those who wanted it. When Elon Musk bought the company he promptly decreed the opposite. But most firms have not gone to either     9     instead trying to find the best of both worlds.

As a coinage, hybrid work is no beauty. But it will     10     cities, careers, family life and free time. That is sufficient qualification for a word of the year.