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October 17
October 17 has been a bad day to be in London. In 1091, of all things, a tornado touched down. The city was a great deal less impressive in 1091 than it is now, but it did have a London Bridge — which the tornado demolished. It also destroyed the St. Mary-le-Bow church and about… Continue reading
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Football by any other…rules
In the late 1800s, at the Rugby School in England (the school is specifically in Warwickshire, but on the other hand I haven’t the faintest idea where Warwickshire might be), students for some reason started to form new slang words by adding “-er” to the end of a root word. They created “ekker” for exercise… Continue reading
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Born today: what did you say your name was?
Let’s talk about pseudonyms. Stage names. Monikers that performers might adopt early in their careers for some reason, and then find it difficult or impossible to change because they get well-known and nobody even knows their real names. Nico, for example, born October 16, 1938 in Germany, was a famous avant-garde rock singer in the… Continue reading
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Pilgarlic
In 1699 Abel Boyer published a dictionary with the unusual characteristic of a three-sentence title: “The royal dictionary. In two parts. First, French and English. Secondly, English and French.” In that dictionary you can find this entry: “Pill-garlick, a pitiful sneaking Fellow out of Countenance.” It wasn’t long before “pill-garlick” became the word “pilgarlic.” It… Continue reading
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October 16
You know, if Ricimer hadn’t defeated Avitus back on this day in 456 — which, incidentally, was the Year of the Consulship of Avitus Without Colleague — then he wouldn’t have gone on to be the magister militum of the western Roman Empire for the next sixteen years. There were various emperors, of course, but… Continue reading
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Marooned on the strand
If you find yourself on a desert island without a boat, what you are is “stranded.” On the face of it, that seems like an unusual term to use for that situation; why not “trapped” or something? By the way, if your pirate crew got tired of always having to let you win at Scrabble… Continue reading
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October 15
Today we’re halfway through October, at the measured center of a month the ends with the thinning of the trusty veil holding back the dark from us. Or to take the other side of it, holding the chaos and discord of us back from the slower, comforting dark. People have always been afraid of that… Continue reading
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Flamboyant
The English word “flamboyant” is taken directly from French. That is, in French the word is the same, but the meaning differs. And the meaning in French has changed in interesting ways since the 1500s, and also since the 1800s, which is when it started to appear in English. The French word is probably older… Continue reading
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October 14
This is the day that George Eastman received his first patent on photographic film delivered in a roll. It was 1884, and photography at that point was very much a matter of an individual craftsman putting together a camera, an amateur chemist preparing “photographic plates,” usually on glass or metal, and a self-taught photographer putting… Continue reading
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There’s a balm in…well, England, I guess
“English” (the word) comes from the Angles, a tribe who lived in those parts and by all reports were pretty belligerent. But they also contributed a great deal to the language, including the odd detail that the English towns “Norfolk” and “Suffolk” were named by the Angles, because they were where the “north folk” and… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer (among other things) located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. No surprise, she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my newsletter, Artisanal Scribbles, where I’m grappling with writing, authentic human authorship, integrity, and the craft of beauty in the AI age. You can also find some of my old software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly wrote tiny utilities in Python and shell scripts. I’m mostly retired from coding nowadays.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
Recent Posts
- How much is that doggie in the window?
- Hang on, I’m busy
- Sometimes it’s not an improvement
- Do not call your friend…
- Once more, into the breach
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