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November 18
Today is Mickey Mouse’s birthday! At least that’s what the Disney company says. There’s plenty of room to argue about it. What happened on November 18, 1928 was that “Steamboat Willie” was released, starring Mickey and Minnie. It was a big hit, but it was really Mickey’s third film. Mickey’s first film was called “Plane Continue reading
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Tales from the Forest
Moving the Mousehold Hare was serving tea cakes to Ma and Pa Mouse, Raccoon, Dog, Squirrel, and Magpie. They were sitting around a stump outside Hare’s house, and Raccoon had brought tea. Ma and Pa Mouse clinked their teacups together and Pa said “Attention everyone, I have an announcement to make!” Everyone quieted down and Continue reading
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Squiriferous
Nowadays if someone is called a “gentleman,, it mostly means they they’re polite. You’d think, since the word “gentle” is part of “gentleman,” that such a fellow would be particularly unlikely to rap you over the head with his walking-stick, or challenge you to a duel of swordplay. But the meaning of “gentle” has changed Continue reading
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Aposiopesis
If you read “Born With the Dead” by Robert Silverberg, you’ll run across this remarkable passage: “They spoke in fragments and ellipses, in periphrastics and aposiopesis, in a style abundant in chiasmus, metonymy, meiosis, oxymoron, and zeugma; their dazzling rhetorical techniques left him baffled and uncomfortable, which beyond much doubt was their intention.” Each one Continue reading
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Born today: Joost van den Vondel
English has Shakespeare, Russian has Tolstoy, and Dutch has Joost van den Vondel. He was born November 17, 1587 in Cologne to Flemish-speaking parents who were refugees of a sort. They were faced with religious persecution in their original Antwerp and fled to Cologne, then had to escape again, to Amsterdam. At the time the Continue reading
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November 17
November 17 is a bit of an odd day in the history of, well, history. It’s not that nothing ever happened — it’s more like a number of things that did happen might was well not have. Maybe an example is in order. In 1810, the Napoleonic Wars were still in progress in Europe, and Continue reading
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Restively Restless
Occasionally everyone has a night when they can’t seem to get to sleep. They toss and turn and can’t settle in. They’re “restive.” Or, wait, is that “restless”? “Restive” has an interesting history, at least for a word (the Tower of London’s history is probably more interesting, but as a cultural landmark, it wouldn’t be Continue reading
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Danger!
You know, obviously, what “danger” means. But I’ll bet you don’t know what it used to mean! As you might expect, “danger” is a pretty old word. It entered English in the 1200s, or possibly earlier, and came from Latin. The Latin word it comes from is “dominus,” which means master or lord. The original Continue reading
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Born today: Jean le Rond d’Alembert
How many things can be named after one person? In some cases, a huge number of physical things like roads, bridges, and monuments, but let’s instead concentrate on cases where each thing is different. I think a good candidate for the champion of that category is Jean le Rond d’Alembert, who was born November 16, Continue reading
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November 16
When the colonists in North America first declared themselves the United States, I bet you don’t know which country was the first to officially recognize the new nation. It happened on November 16, 1776, and had to do with a ship — so there’s a hint; it had to be a country with a harbor. 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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