Category Archives: language
Gromyko’s Saprophytic Tendencies
Saprophytic Tendencies, Gromyko, 2007 Somehow I found myself back at DeviantArt this morning, for maybe only the second time this year. Had something to do with Cephalopod Awareness Day, I think. Anyway, I revisited James Koehnline’s pages (blogged previously), and … more…
links for 2007-10-08: is the internet good for writers?
Is The Net Good For Writers? – 10 Zen Monkeys RU Sirius polls a number of prominent and thoughtful writers on the question. The answers, while they are various in their emphasis, are interestingly downbeat, for the most part… (tags: … more…
meh, a word whose time has come
It being a sleepy sort of Saturday, I notice that no less than two recent visitors came in search of “yiddish lorem ipsum“(Google). Enthusiasm fluked into the results. Anyway one thing led to another, and better still, to the discussion … more…
links for 2007-01-19: techno-progressive vocabulary
Sentient Developments: Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux Transhumanist and technoprogressive perspectives on science, philosophy, ethics, and the future of intelligent life (tags: concepts ai culture technology singularity future)
Textual web apps
Another couple of “Web 2.0″ apps which may turn out to be of some use: Chris Locke, in his capacity as Chief Blogging Officer, points to LibraryThing, where we are offered the opportunity to catalogue our books, and to network … more…
Return of the MacGuffin: Iran and Nuclear Weapons
A similar curiosity to the one about “short shrift” similarly affected me on the subject of The McGuffin. The results brought me into more topical waters: Subject-Barred: Return of the MacGuffin: Iran and Nuclear Weapons A MacGuffin (sometimes spelt McGuffin … more…
Short shrift
Abruptly seized with an urge to discover the roots of the expression, “to give [something] short shrift”, I light upon the following, at The Maven’s Word of the Day: The English words shrift and shrive derive from an Old English … more…
Likelihood
Defective Yeti has posted a short, elegant appreciation of the word, like. Really, “like” is more than just a word — it is practically a auxiliary verb that puts the entire statement into a new tense. Call it the “Past … more…
twonked, blather
It was twonk that did it. I just suddenly realised that when I had read the word ‘twonk’ in passing, a day or two ago, probably the first time I’d heard of it. But welcome, twonk, the ultimate in gentle … more…