An infamous example is Foucault's citation of Borges'
description of the classification of animals in an ancient Chinese
encyclopedia, the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge:
The classification of "women, fire, and dangerous things" as
Balan in traditional Dyirbal has been shown to be "from
the perspective of the people doing the classifying a relatively regular
and principled way to classify things." [Lakoff, p, 95]
animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor,
(b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids,
(f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this
classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable
ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others,
(m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble
flies from a distance. [Note: Cited in George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and
Dangerous Things, p. 92, also in Foucault, Order of Things,
p. xv]