the idea as a ‘Theory of Ruin-Value’, henceforth taking care only to use building materials that would crumble picturesquely (Speer, 1969). I offer this uncomfortable story, like the irradiated Strahlenkatze of nuclear semiotics, as an instance of our common drive to communicate across millennia—whether we grasp the fact, or not, that what we speak may be our darkest sin.