Have your feelings on "wordy" decks changed?

[Chiriku]

Oh, and when I asked that last question, Barley, I was thinking of decks that aren't explicitly esoteric. For instance, people keep mentioning "beginners' decks" with lots of keywords but I can only think of one, and I don't even remember its name (Starter Tarot, or Easy Tarot or something).

 

[Barleywine]

Oh, and when I asked that last question, Barley, I was thinking of decks that aren't explicitly esoteric. For instance, people keep mentioning "beginners' decks" with lots of keywords but I can only think of one, and I don't even remember its name (Starter Tarot, or Easy Tarot or something).

The Tarot Learning Cards shown here http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/learning/ have multiple keywords for both upright and reversed meanings on the backs of the cards, with the card titles on the front. I don't think they're intended for readings other than practice, though, since there are no scenic pictures in the example cards shown.

 

[AJ]

Do you mean the Norwiki Shakespearian Tarot? The Shakespeare Oracle is tarot too.

 

[Chiriku]

The Tarot Learning Cards shown here http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/learning/ have multiple keywords for both upright and reversed meanings on the backs of the cards, with the card titles on the front. I don't think they're intended for readings other than practice, though, since there are no scenic pictures in the example cards shown.

Wordy, indeed! Bit more "wordy" than even I can take, I think.

Do you mean the Norwiki Shakespearian Tarot? The Shakespeare Oracle is tarot too.

You're right, it's the Nowicki, I think. I remembered liking it years ago. Never actually read with it, I don't think.

 

[merissa_88]

I don't like a lot of words mixed with images. Like the Art of Living Tarot. It looks beautiful, and I love paintings, but the quotes are distracting to me. I like all words or images and a few words.

 

[Trogon]

The Rohrig has pretty much the same keywords as the Thoth. But the illustrations on the minors of the Rohrig are much more ... thorough, I guess, than those of the Thoth. The Rohrig was the 3rd deck I acquired and has become one of my main reading decks. But not because of the keywords, but rather because of the images. Since then I have added the Haindl, Thoth and now the Sacred Circles Tarot to my collection. All of which have the aforementioned "keywords" on them. With the Haindl and Thoth decks, even though the minors have simpler images, I rarely rely on the keywords, though I might (with any of them) use it to trigger the words I need to convey my impressions to the person I'm reading for.

More oddly though, when I first read the title of your thread, I thought of Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Rappinghood" ;

Words in papers, words in books
Words on TV, words for crooks
Words of comfort, words of peace
Words to make the fighting cease
Words to tell you what to do
Words are working hard for you
Eat your words but don't go hungry
Words have always nearly hung me

 

[Richard]

I really like the titles on the Thoth minors. They help with the interpretation. The Dowson Hermetic titles are taken directly from Book T, and the scenes on the RWS minors are based on the same source. (I keep a list of these handy when working with the Albano or Rider decks.) However, I can understand how some intuitive readers who are disdainful of the esoteric correlations may find the titles distracting.

 

[vee]

Many of the Merryday cards have more than one keyword on them. For example, the King of Autumn says "Diplomacy, Commerce." (I'm sure there are better examples, but I don't have the deck on hand and I had to reply on the AT scans.

I don't mind the words on some decks. Like AJ said, it's a case by case basis. I actually loathe the words on the Wildwood, but on other decks, like Merryday or Thoth, I like them quite a bit.

Edit: Navigators of the Mystic SEA has great keywords too.

 

[SweetIsTheTruth]

I still DETEST words on the cards. If I want to read words, I will crack open a book. When I want to read images, that's all I care to see. It's one reason why I doubt I will ever buy another LS deck. They ALL seem to have the keywords (and/or trump titles) on them, in several different languages (in addition to the cartoonish/comic-book-like illustrations.)

I trimmed my large Thoth. I trimmed the LS Classic Tarot, but only one side, since LS decided to deface only one side of that deck. That leaves me with only one multi-language keyword/titles deck left, which is the LS Tarocchi Di Marsiglia mini. I think I will replace it with a mini-Grimaud, then toss the LS Marseille mini in the trash (or better yet, burn it. Take that LS!). Being a mini, it's a bit too tiny to trim.

Other than that, I think any future decks purchased will be foreign language. For instance, I have the Spainish Morgan-Greer, which has titles (although not in four languages), but I pay no mind to the titles, because I neither read nor speak Spanish, so it doesn't distract me.

/Rant off

 

[Barleywine]

I really like the titles on the Thoth minors. They help with the interpretation. The Dowson Hermetic titles are taken directly from Book T, and the scenes on the RWS minors are based on the same source. (I keep a list of these handy when working with the Albano or Rider decks.) However, I can understand how some intuitive readers who are disdainful of the esoteric correlations may find the titles distracting.

This post sent me down an interesting road. Now that I'm branching out more into decks that don't have titles on the minors, I liked the idea of having a list of the Thoth titles handy as a reference since I can't always readily recall all of them (must be my "vintage" brain cells ). But I went one step further and set myself a Twitter-like task of cramming the most (IMO) expressive keywords into a single line of text adjacent to each title/astrological attribution (and a separate single line for "ill-dignified" meanings). This gives me both the title and a brief capsule meaning for those moments when intuition dries up (let's call it a memory-jogger). My wife, who doesn't read much, especially likes it for her daily draws.

ETA: Needless to say, my thesaurus and my "editor's bone" got a healthy workout!