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10 Books About Words For Logophilic Readers Interested In The Wonders Of Language (I’ve read five of them and all were good).
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Inside Racists Anonymous.
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The Washington Post’s robot reporter has published 850 articles in the past year.
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An awesome collection of 70s Movie Poster Typography.
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President Trump’s Lawsuit Against Estate Of Johannes Gutenberg. While we’re linking to The Onion, how about this one: Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life.
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A quick-hit exploration of asemic writing/art, including examples from Henri Michaux and Xu Bing, author of A Book from the Sky.
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I find Brand New, a site that collects changes to famous (and not-so-famous) brand logos, strangely addictive.
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Merriam-Webster has quite a few word games on its site that Clamorites are likely to enjoy. I had fun with, and did terribly on, the Original Meanings Quiz (subtitled: a quiz for the pedantic and those annoyed by them!)
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Today in 1917, Margaretha Geertruida ‘Margreet’ MacLeod (née Zelle), better known as Mata Hari, (in)famous femme fatale and legendary spy (or was she?), is executed by a firing squad in Paris. A bit of trivia: what do Mata Hari, Geronimo, Beethoven, Descartes and the Marquis de Sade have in common? They all had their heads (more or less) stolen.
WEB
Links, links, links…from a certain, uncertain mind.
Links: October 8, 2017
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Kazuo Ishiguro wins the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. I only recently came around to the sense in awarding Bob Dylan the 2016 prize. I enjoy Ishiguro’s work, but it is so opposite Dylan’s in every way that I wondered at first if it was a prank.
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If you can spot the “glaring errors” in this ABA Journal editorial quiz, I applaud you. If you catch all the “venial errors,” I bow before you.
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The whole article is available free, but the bottom line: significant physical brain changes, not limited to the areas associated with “executive function,” were observed in three groups practicing, each practicing a different kind of meditation.
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A fascinating short essay making a case for the importance of bridging the “neurotypical”/”neurodivergent” communication divide.
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Flashbak has unearthed some compelling photographs of Belfast, Ireland circa 1955 || Pairs with these phenomenal photos, with equally great captions, taken of passengers by a cab driver in 1980s San Francisco.
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Hapax (logomenon) was the WORD exactly two years ago. Now, Atlas Obscura provides more grist for the mill.
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Some great long-forgotten expressions to knock your interlocutors for six. The one I plan to use first: a lazy sheep thinks its wool is heavy.
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“Hijacked minds” and a “smartphone dystopia” are the definition of click-bait phrases…but at the heart of articles like Paul Lewis’s recent Guardian article is what I believe to be not just a real concern, but an incipient tragedy.
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How is it that I’m not learning until just now that there’s a newly discovered Kurt Vonnegut story, “The Drone King,” in The Atlantic?
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Today in 1942, comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello launch their famous The Abbott and Costello Show on NBC Radio. The show (many episodes can be found in the Internet Archive) would run for nearly nine years. In 1952, the duo’s television show, also called The Abbott and Costello Show, would premier. The TV show lasted only two years, but appears in multiple “top 100” lists and was one of Jerry Seinfeld’s primary influences when creating his eponymous (and I guess some would say successful) series. Incidentally, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet radio program also on the Internet Archive debuted on the same day as Abbott and Costello’s radio show.
Links: October 1, 2017
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“Frances Glessner Lee’s miniature murder scenes are dioramas to die for” → How a Chicago Heiress Trained Homicide Detectives With an Unusual Tool: Dollhouses
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An Edgar Degas notebook online, complete and in high-resolution.
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I continue to be fascinated by the Container project, creating “books that aren’t books.” They’ve announced their next two projects, available soon → E, UIO, A is “a series of 30 typewritten letters in envelopes with hand-inked elements and other embellishments” and Tem is a boxed set of “origami gemstones cradled in containers of plaster-fused gauze.”
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An interesting essay that makes fitting use of creative web design/presentation → Long live the group chat: a look at the beauty, ubiquity, and therapy of group chats for black and brown people.
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Got the morbs. Coffee sisters. Parrot and monkey time. Some great stuff in this Dictionary of Victorian Slang.
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Wow → Scuba Diving Magazine’s 2017 Underwater Photo Contest Winners.
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Adam Aleksic, aka theETYMOLOGYnerd (a fun site to browse) has created quite an array of etymology infographics on topics as diverse as Star Wars, the anatomy of the eye, and Harry Potter spells.
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Links to a variety of “games with a purpose,” where your playing contributes to language research and other projects. Cool. → GWAP.
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Today in 1856, Gustave Flaubert publishes the first installment of his new novel Madame Bovary. The serialization of what is now considered one of the most important and influential novels every written would continue until December 15. Shortly after, French public prosecutors charged Flaubert (and the owner and printer of La Revue de Paris) with obscenity. The prosecutor’s speech is a literary read in itself, a passionate argument full of flights such as this: “…from this first fault, this first fall, she glorified adultery, she sang the song of adultery, its poesy and its delights. This, gentlemen, to me is much more dangerous and immoral than the fall itself!” Flaubert and the others would be acquitted, driving the popularity of the novel even higher. English readers might be interested in Julian Barnes’ assessment of the problems of translating, generally, and Flaubert and Madame Bovary in particular.
Links: September 24, 2017
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Minna Sundberg, author and artist of the dystopic serial comic Stand Still. Stay Silent created a beautifully realized visualization of the tree of human languages.
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Sometimes science fiction becomes reality, one small step at a time → Biomedical engineers connecting a human brain to the internet in real time || Also, another amazing (and beautiful) breakthrough: Scientists Can Now Repaint Butterfly Wings.
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I don’t really get the science, but the idea (and the metaphor) are seductive → Light Has Been Stored as Sound For The First Time.
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The interwebs have been abuzz with the news that Charlie (of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) was originally a black character…the New York Times has the detailed story.
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Even Racists Got the Blues (Thanks, Reader S.!)
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I’ll just leave this right here → A pile of trash in the ocean has grown to the size of France—and some people want it recognized as a nation
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Interesting history of a now-rarely-used word (though it was used by Chaucer and Shakespeare) and how it probably came to be written into Kim Jong-un’s speech (neukdari just doesn’t resonate) → What is the definition of ‘dotard,’ which North Korea called Trump?
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A compelling project that increases awareness of the beauty of endangered languages and maybe even contributes to saving some of them → the story of Tribalingual.
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Today is National Punctuation Day (for Clamorites in the US…the rest of you are spared), celebrating the useful and illogical rules alike and promoting irritating acts of pedantry. I enjoy apostrophe catastrophes as much as the next person, but for my own amusement at the daily struggle of communication, tempered by sympathy, much as I am entertained by—and feel great empathy with—kitchen disasters and cake wrecks. Sorry, all you Eats, Shoots & Leaves fans, for not sharing in the condescending vision of punctuation dystopia. But we can all still laugh and learn the conventions together: XKCD on hyphens, writing skills and a third way || The Oatmeal on semicolons and apostrophes.
Links: September 17, 2017
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A stupendous photo of wave-like structures in Saturn’s rings…and the story behind it. || Pairs with an amazing photo of the starry sky as seen in Finland. || And how about the most arresting images of Jupiter I’ve ever seen?
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Investigations range in subject from George Bush and the Prime Minister of Pakistan to Justin Timberlake… → Meet the Font Detectives
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Palimpsests! → Lost Languages Discovered in One of the World’s Oldest Continuously Run Libraries [back in 2014, it was the WORD]
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Mondegreens! → I don’t even know if vaseline is edible. [perhaps the most famous example of a mondegreen is hearing Jimi Hendrix’s lyric as “excuse me while I kiss this guy.”] || See also, the classic Science Behind Mondegreens.
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Eggcorns! → The Eggcorn Database [Eggcorns are similar to mondegreens (misheard lyrics) but aren’t part of songs. For instance, “Holland days” instead of “Hollandaise” sauce.]
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Reading lists! → More Than 100 Exceptional Works of Journalism || 100 Great Works OF Dystopian Fiction || 2017 National Book Awards longlists
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Thousands of examples of main titles from films as far back as 1920. → The Movie Title Stills Collection
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“When you memorize, you start to notice the things that you notice, your own habits of attention, your habits of reading.” → Memorize That Poem
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“A collaborative project with almost 90 artists and one instruction: look up.” → One Sky
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Today in 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland to Philadelphia. Tubman’s brothers Ben and Harry accompanied her at first but had second thoughts, so Tubman accompanied them home before making her own escape. Not content to remain safely in the North, Tubman returned to the South many times, eventually guiding more than 60 slaves—including her parents and many siblings—to freedom. After the Civil War, Tubman settled on a small property sold to her by the abolitionist senator William Seward (yes, he of Seward’s Folly fame), establishing a family center and eventually a rest home before her death in 1913.
Links: August 27, 2017
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Corncob? Donut? Binch? A Guide to Weird Leftist Internet Slang || Thanks, Reader B.!
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Along with providing a lot of information about safely using various drugs, TripSit also provides volunteer, real-time live chat support for, naturally, people who are tripping (as well as taking, or planning to take, other drugs). || See also: one of the best episodes of one of the best podcasts ever, Reply All #44: Shine On You Crazy Goldman.
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“Elephants use many different vocalizations to communicate. Share a message in Elephant and help us save this endangered language.”
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I know some Clamorites fly a lot. Artist Nina Katachadourian’s Seat Assignment “consists of photographs, video, and sound works, all made in flight using only a camera phone and improvising with materials close at hand.”
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“Users [of Buddhist Bitcoin] would be able to earn ‘Karma Coins’ by meditating and teaching Buddhism. The coins could be spent within a special Buddhist community called the ‘Lotos Network.'”
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Some examples of words/phrases first seen in print the year I was born: bioethics, comfort food, dorky, erectile dysfunction and love handles. What are some of yours? Find out using Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster: Search Words by First Known Use Date
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“The most significant fact to emerge from this history, though, is also the most obvious: Make It New was not itself new, nor was it ever meant to be. Given the nature of the novelty implied by the slogan, it is appropriate that it is itself the result of historical recycling.” → The Making of “Make It New” || Thanks again, Reader B.!
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Some of these (nearly 300) kitchen fails are so funny I couldn’t resist sharing the kind of listicle I usually avoid.
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Subreddit of the week: DadReflexes
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Today in 1955, the first Guinness Book of World Records—a book that fascinated me like no other when I was young—is published in London. Over the course of its 62-year-long history, the book has become the best selling copyrighted title in the history of publishing, selling more than 134 million copies as of August, 2015. A few records for your browsing pleasure: the oldest surviving love poem (written in 2031 BC), the most piercings (single-count, male), the most piercings (single count, female) (the same person holds the lifetime record, being pierced 4,225 times as of June, 2006) and the fastest time to drink one litre of lemon juice through a straw.
Links: August 20, 2017
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Shelf life: novelist Hanya Yanagihara on living with 12,000 books…in a one-bedroom NYC apartment.
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From “1-11” to “Zog,” the Hate Symbols Database “provides an overview of many of the symbols most frequently used by a variety of white supremacist groups and movements, as well as some other types of hate groups.”
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Voices from the Days of Slavery collects nearly seven hours of recorded interviews with former slaves including their time as slaves, slaveholders, freedom and even sing some songs learned during their time as slaves. Remarkable. || Pairs with a fascinating episode of 99% Invisible on the “Dismal Swamp” which uses interviews and songs from the archive.
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This 17th-century Jacobean traveling library is beautiful.
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Scroll down for the graphs! → The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television: Increases in the Use of Swear Words in American Books, 1950-2008
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Want to Transcribe Rare Magical Manuscripts on Your Lunch Break? Turn out, you can.
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Ear Hustle is a pretty amazing podcast made by a pair of inmates in San Quentin State Prison.
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And a bit of a feel-good link: Meet Dindim, the penguin who returns to his human soulmate every year. As in Dindim swims at least 3000 miles to return to the man who rescued him.
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Today in 1741, Vitus Bering, a Danish cartographer and officer in the Russian Navy, sights the southern coast of what would become the US state of Alaska. Four months later, Bering would become one of the 31 to die on the ill-fated expedition that included the discovery of Kodiak Island. Bering’s sympathy for the native people, including those who murdered some of his crewmen, caused the Russian administration to suppress much of Bering’s story for more than a century. The Bering Sea, Bering Island and the Bering Land Bridge are among the sites named in his honor.
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