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Katexic Clippings (ARCHIVE)

Wide-Arsed (N. J. Sewell-Rutter)

Sir, —Stephen Halliwell is right to defend his use of the “standard” translation “wide-arsed” for an adjective in Aristophanes. This rendering is vivid and faithful to the Greek compound word it translates. However, it may be possible, by a slight modification, to take account of Simon Goldhill’s objection that this translation misleadingly connotates a fat, not a repeatedly buggered, fundament. I have wondered before whether ambiguity may be removed by translating Aristophanes’ work with the less subtle, but more expressive, “arse-widened”.

—N.J. Sewell-Rutter
—from TLS: The Times Literary Supplement

coffle (kaffle)

International Slavery Museum exhibit

coffle (kaffle) /KAW-fəl/. noun. A train or chain of humans or animals, usually slaves. From Arabic qāfilah (caravan).
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Links: October 9, 2016

  1. If I were a rich man, one of these would be mine. → Inside the New York Public Library’s Last, Secret Apartments

  2. Awesome photo series and story, shared simply and directly. → I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa.

  3. I’ll have the ampersand pizza…and tattoo. → Miscellany № 77: amperbrand.

  4. I’m not sure I’m buying what they’re selling even though I’m watching. → Why television writing has become the new home of verbal complexity

  5. Is “Snarxism” a thing? Is it killing conversation? → The Snarxist Temptation

  6. @DeepDrumpf is a Twitterbot from an MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) postdoc that uses neural networks trained on Donald Trump’s speeches and debate language to create Tweets that are sometimes indistinguishable from the real thing. Pair (or rinse your palate) with @AMightyHost, which uses data sources including WordNet and Wikipedia to invent new fleets inspired by the catalog of ships in The Iliad.

  7. It hurt me more than it hurt them… → Kids Are Judgmental, Morally Pure Little Jerks

  8. America’s Workforce Runs on Uppers

  9. On CBC’s q, an episode in which graphic designer Christopher Rouleau and writer Anne Trubek discuss the question Is handwriting obsolete in the digital age? Also, Every Day Commentary writer Anthony Sculimbrene takes issue with Trubek, Trubek responds and then Sculimbrene has one more go.

  10. Today is Leif Erikson Day in the United States, as established by the US Congress in 1964. Believed by many to have landed in North American more than 500 years before Columbus, Erikson established a settlement in an area he called Vinland (named after the abundance of grapevines found there) that was likely in the north of Newfoundland (though Cape Cod makes a persistent claim as well…and why not?). October 9 marks not any particular day of Erikson’s life, but the arrival of the Restauration in New York City, commencing the first organized immigration from Norway. Leif Erikson day is a state holiday in seven US States including, naturally, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

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