crash blossom. noun. An ambiguous headline, particularly one that yields comedic interpretations. Coined in 2009 by Danny Bloom based on the headline “Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms” in Japan Today, crash blossoms tend to occur in headlines because of space constraints. These linguistic gems are a kind of garden path sentence, in which one must backtrack to resolve an ambiguity, most often due to words that can be nouns or verbs, as in the classic example: “The old man the boat.”
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Links: October 15, 2017
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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.
History of the Entire World, I Guess
From quarks and stuff to smart machines making more smart machines…in just under 20 minutes: a ► history of the entire world, i guess (through May 2017, at least).
Fidget Spinner in Space
► Fidget spinner spinning in space! Can we finally say the fidget spinner phenomenon has jumped the shark?
triffid
A lot of words have come to us from science fiction, such as robot, coined by Karel Čapek in his influential play “R.U.R.” (or Rossum’s Universal Robots) as well as now common scientific and popular terms like Zero-G and cyberspace.
But sometimes a word evolves to more literary uses, such as this episode’s word: triffid /TRIF-id/ noun. Generally speaking, a triffid is a vigorous, rapidly-developing, usually invasive plant. But in its original use, these plants were also mobile, malignant and carnivorous, with a sting demonstrably capable of killing humans. These were the plants John Wyndham was describing when he coined the term in his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids. (Incidentally, Wyndham writes that the word evolved from the “etymological gymkhana” around the combination of “tri” (three) and “it…”
drumlin
drumlin /DRUM-lin/ noun. A ridge, or a low hill, often oval (think of a half-buried egg), formed by—and in the direction of—glacial movement. Originally applied to landforms in Ireland and Scotland, such as Dromore (Droim Mór, or Large Ridge) and Drumoak (Druim M’Aodhaig, or the ridge of St Aodhag). From the Irish & Scottish Gaelic druim (a ridge or the back of a person or animal), from Old Irish druimm (same meaning), origins unknown.
What I regret most… (George Saunders)
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.
Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering and I responded … sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
—George Saunders
—from Congratulations, by the way
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