Revisiting Saussure

I came across the words diachrony and synchrony today. Reminded me of reading and re-reading that thin volume, Course in General Linguistics, by Ferdinand de Saussure. I wrote a short paper on Saussure's ideas for Bergesen's sociology class at UofA. Re-read it today and I'm surprised how clearly I was able to express my thoughts then. It bothers me that I seem to be losing the ability to express myself as clearly as that. My god, I'm growing senile!

Diachrony & synchrony. Things change across time and yet have definite structures at any one point in time...Knowledge grows hierarchically and collaterally (Palmer). Ranganathan's chains and arrays.