We have been moved by the groundswell of support for the emerging field of Parasemiology, and yet we are simultaneously perturbed, as a rivulet of water encountering a stone, by the misapprehensions of some of our otherwise erudite colleagues. For the application of parasitic, paranormal, and paralytic methods to the study of the semiotaph there has been a tsunami of public support, which, if properly channeled, could make arable a large desert. But if channeled in the direction favoured by our misguided colleagues, this tidal wave risks crashing into mudflats with no need of the water.
The Institute for the Calibration of Reality cannot let the field of Parasemiology fall into disrepute and disuse. As the two articles that follow will illustrate, Parasemiology is the paragon of human thought, the paraffin fueling the lamps that light our way into a precarious future. The papers advance the two most promising approaches to Parasemiology, and our dear readers will be forgiven for wondering, reaching the end of our treatise, how reality managed to get this far without the Institute’s essential calibration work. We hope that our two turns of the parasemiological screw will tighten the wind truss of academic inquiry in this area.
The Taming of the Screw: The Parasitic Signifier in Gothic Literature, by Porch Lagersthwaite
Seminal Parables of Parasemiology: The Turn of the Shrew, by Saintarctica Ottorino