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Viatic ubication
I bet you didn’t know that if you have trouble determining your own ubication, you might not be in possession of a strong viatic urge. “Ubication” and “viatic” are at least obscure and probably obsolete words, but they go together pretty well. “Viatic” means anything related to travel. “Viatic” has the same root as “via,” Continue reading
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Yclept
Old English isn’t so much an older version of English as a completely different language. It was much more completely Germanic than modern English is completely anything. Nobody knows quite how old it is, but it died out over a thousand years ago. Although it’s one of the main sources of modern English, it operates Continue reading
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Vannevar Bush
If you ever use that World Wide Web thing, you should give a tip of your hat to Vannevar Bush, who was born March 11 1890. He was an engineer, inventor, and writer, and evidently an extremely capable administrator in both government and the private sector. Although he didn’t invent it, exactly, he wrote the Continue reading
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Tinker Talk
A “tinker” is (or was) an itinerant craftsman who would travel from village to village fixing metal utensils — pots, pans, kitchen knives, and the like. They were generally held in pretty low repute, and tended to be ready targets for derision. The profession is obsolete nowadays (nobody mends metal utensils; we just buy new Continue reading
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March 10
Generally speaking, people are pretty social. We find ways to join together in all sorts of ways. Family groups often stick together, whether they’re the nuclear families of very recent invention or various forms of clans. Children of similar ages play together. People organize clubs, organizations, bands, orders, associations, crews, teams, and circles. But there Continue reading
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A blizzard of blues
As everybody knows, a “blizzard” is a great big snow storm. What everybody may not know is that “blizzard” is a made-up word. In 1870 there was a great big snow storm in Estherville, Ohio, of all places. It was a late-season storm that happened on March 14. It was evidently quite an impressive storm, Continue reading
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March 9
In 1776, on March 9, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. It quickly became perhaps the first of a long line of books having one peculiar characteristic: it was highly popular, much talked about, cited in the halls of academia as well as in the chambers of governments, and yet hardly anybody actually read Continue reading
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Join the conversation
A “dialog” (also spelled “dialogue”, should you be playing Scrabble and need the extra points) is a conversation, generally between two people. It’s from Greek, and made up of “dia” (through) and “logos” (to speak). It was a single word even in Greek though: “dialogos.” It entered Latin “dialogus” and Old French “dialogue,” where it Continue reading
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Honkytonk
In February, 1900, the Evening Gazette in Reno, Nevada, explained the origin of the term “honkytonk:” “Every child of the range can tell what honkatonk means and where it came from. Away, away back in the very early days, so the story goes, a party of cow punchers rode out from camp at sundown in Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity.
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