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Born today: Miguel de Cervantes
September 29th is the birthday of a writer so significant that his native language is still referred to as his. It’s Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote. He wrote in Spanish, which is still sometimes called “the language of Cervantes.” And Don Quixote, which was the first modern novel, and written hundreds of years Continue reading
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September 30
September 30 is the day, in 1954, that the USS Nautilus was commissioned. It was not only the world’s first nuclear submarine; it was the first nuclear-powered vessel of any kind. In 1954, people thought nuclear power was going to define the future. There were predictions that electricity was going to be free because nuclear Continue reading
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September 29
September 29, coincidentally, is the date of some surprising coincidences. Some of them have been purposeful, at least sort of. It was this date in 1990, for example, that the Washington National Cathedral was completed. It took a while to finish — the cornerstone was laid on exactly the same date, but in 1907. That’s Continue reading
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Barmecide
There was once a wealthy man, Shakashik, who lost all his money and was forced to beg for help at a great mansion. The owner welcomed him into the house but then began to act a bit strangely: he presented Shakashik with a wonderful feast, praising and describing each dish in detail. At one point Continue reading
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Metagrobalize
In 1693, Thomas Urquhart and Peter Motteux translated a work by François Rabelais into English, and quite possibly confused everyone with this line: “I find my Brains…metagrabolized and confounded.” On January 20, 1991, the Sunday Star-News of Wilmington, North Carolina, mystified its readers with: “You don’t need to have your brains metagrobolized by his inscrutable statements Continue reading
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Born today: Johann Mattheson
These days we’re all used to a whole ecosystem around creative works like music, academic underpinnings of them, like music theory, and considered commentary from people like critics. None of that is new; in the 17th and 18th centuries all those things existed in Europe. One difference was that in those days, not everybody had Continue reading
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September 28
If you read the note about yesterday, you noticed that the Christmas Carol “Good King Wenceslaus” showed up because one of the two Kings Wenceslaus — Wenceslaus II in that case — was born in 1271. If you didn’t read it, you have a second chance — because the other Wenceslaus (Wenceslaus I, fairly obviously) Continue reading
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The Realization of Ferret
“I’m visiting the farm today,” said Raccoon, “do you want to come?” “Oh I dunno,” said Hare, “what’s going on at the farm?” “Apples,” said Raccoon. “The first apples are ripe.” “Now, how do you know that without going there first?” asked Hare. “Bear told me,” said Raccoon. “Bear is visiting the forest? And he Continue reading
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Sic (sic)
A perfectly reasonable news story might include something like this: “The report stated ‘my friend wanted me to sick my dog on them but I wouldn’t…’[sic].” What it means is that the friend recommended commanding the doc to attack, the dog owner misspelled “sic,” and the news reporter wanted to make it clear with [sic] Continue reading
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Umbra
The Latin word for shadow is “umbra,” and it shows up a number of places in English. The first place it shows up, although maybe not the first place people nowadays would think of, is the actual English word “umbra.” It’s not necessarily a literal shadow; one usage of “umbra” means ghost — either a 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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