There's a lovely and horrible museum caption in the National Museum of Ireland about a grad student who spent 10 years trying to decipher the runes on an elk horn, only to discover that it says "This is an elk horn."

This makes me want to laugh...and feel so sorry for the grad student.

Runes go in for the Ronseal ("it does what it says on the tin") approach. Who knew?

Oh brilliant. Believe there’s a rune above a doorway at Maeshowe in Orkney, saying ‘this is a high place’

Could've been worse youtu.be/zdA__2tKoIU?...

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine

Scene from A Christmas Story in which Ralphie gets his decoder ring -- and learns something about the world.

i love how stupid shit like this is extremely useful for translation purposes.

Here it is! I did misremember slightly after 25 years - it is a deer antler, not an elk horn!

I'm reminded of the "Buy Ovaltines" decoder scene...

I mean, if you don't do SOMETHING to fuck w the people that come after you what are you even doing?

Years 1-7: translatin Years 8-10: sobbing