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“The library building once housed an insane asylum—so notorious that the park was known as ‘Barmy Park.'” → The Library of Books and Bombs [Thanks, Reader B.]
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“Stab” appears rather early… → I’ve tracked (and graphed) all my son’s first words since birth
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“Fifty years ago, Marottichal was rife with alcoholism and illicit gambling, but everything changed after one man taught the town to play an ancient game of strategy.” → The ancient game that saved a village
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Talk of adjective order (and “GSSSACPM” … and ablaut reduplication) has spiked of late…and it is a fascinating (and ultimately complicated) topic! So, some links old and new. → A surprisingly good article in Slate | Language Log’s Big bad modifier order | Mark Forsyth’s Bish bash bosh | Neil Whitman on Ordering Your Adjectives | A bit more technical but intriguing, Donka Minkova’s Ablaut reduplication in English: The criss-crossing of prosody and verbal art
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A brief essay on true “first editions,” AKA books published during the incunabula, with a few nice illustrations. → On the Nature of Things
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“…This mark is based on the Tilburg dialect word ‘jè’ (which sounds more or less as ‘yeah’) that is used as a confirmation but often expresses some doubt or mild irony. The jè-mark bridges the gap between the exclamation point and the question mark.” → TilburgsAns introduces a new punctuation mark
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Sweden has just listed the entire country on Airbnb :: Speaking of Airbnb, they are launching a print (!?) magazine because they found that existing travel magazines had “almost no people in them.”
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“I designed A Movie Poster A Day in 2016 and here’s the collection.” (many are better than the real ones).
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Today in 585 BCE, a solar eclipse said to have been accurately predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus occurs, the drama of which, according to Herodotus, ends a decade-long war between the Medes and the Lydians. This event is arguably the earliest historical event whose date is known with precision to the day.