Pylimitics

In 1653, Sir Thomas Urquhart translated “The First Book of the Work of Mr. Francis Rabelais.” Urquhart was a Scottish aristocrat who was also a writer, but he is most known for his translations of Rabelais. That, and the way he died, of course. When he heard that Charles II had become the king, Urquhart… Continue reading

In 1667 John Milton published “Paradise Lost,” a poem that in its over 10,000 lines included a number of words that Milton had coined just for the purpose. “Paradise Lost” was a runaway bestseller (or what passed for one in the late 1600s at least), and although Shakespeare gets more credit for expanding the language,… Continue reading

Most glass beverage bottles nowadays are molded with screw threads so you can twist the metal cap off with your fingers. But some — particularly beer bottles — still come with metal caps crimped onto the top. Those caps have a name: they’re “crown corks.” They were invented in 1892 in Baltimore, and not only… Continue reading

Words can have more than one meaning, of course, and sometimes the different meanings are astonishingly different. Take, for example, “patibulary,” a very obscure word derived from the Latin “patibulum.” In Roman times a patibulum was a Y-shaped device that was used to restrain criminals; it was a yoke fastened around their necks in some… Continue reading

When you hear about the “Socratic Method,” it almost always refers to a way of teaching.  There may well be Socratic Methods for other things — making souvlaki, arranging your toga into erudite-looking folds, skipping rocks across a pond — but those haven’t generally gotten as much notice. Socrates taught by creating a dialog in… Continue reading