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Who’s Trick Is It
(That this is just a cute generic illustration. A trick, of a sort. Hare does not really dress this way) “Beaver,” said Hare, “I need some help.” “I’d be glad to help,” said Beaver, “what do you need?” “I need you to help me play a trick on Dog,” said Hare. “You and your tricks,” Continue reading
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Eat, Drink, and Be Epeolatric
When you’re exploring a vegetable garden, you might note that most of the produce is edible. You’d be in good Latin company if you did; “edible” comes directly from the Latin “edibilis,” and in both Latin and English it means something you can eat. But you might, of course, have accidentally stumbled into an 18th-century Continue reading
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Born today: Guillaume Amontons
You may have heard of the Stirling engine. It’s a pretty fascinating device; all it needs to operate is two areas fairly close together (or that can be connected) that are at different temperatures. It’s also called a “hot air” engine, and although Robert Stirling invented the modern version in 1816 (and gave it his Continue reading
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Kitties and corners
If you place things diagonally, for example on the opposite corners of a four-way intersection, it’s sometimes said that those things are “kitty corner” to each other. Most people seem to know what that means, but hardly anybody knows why “kitty corner” came to have that meaning. It all started with dice. People have used Continue reading
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August 31
Since August 31st is National Trail Mix Day, and also National Language Day (in Moldova), we should all practice saying “mix de trasee”, which is “Trail Mix” in Romanian. Why Romanian? Well, Moldova has its own language (Moldovan, obviously), but on a closer look, it turns out that Moldovan and Romanian are identical — the Continue reading
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The Mouse Twins
Ma Mouse was having a very good day. She’d had a good day at work, and lunch was especially tasty. One of the things she liked best about her new job was that they always got a catered lunch at work after they made their way through the warehouse. On her way home she stopped Continue reading
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Chicken Children and Childish Chickens
More than one child? That’s “children”. Add another ox and you have “oxen”. But a “chicken” is just a single one. What’s going on, besides another run-of-the-mill bit of inconsistency in the world’s most inconsistent language? First the use of “-en” to pluralize a word. That goes back to Old English, where “-en” was commonly Continue reading
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Butterfly
Summer the time of year when you can see butterflies. But what’s with the “butter” in “butterfly”? Butterflies aren’t drawn to butter; they alight on flowers. It’s regular non-butter flies that would prefer butter. It could be that “butterfly” is “flutter by” slightly mixed up, like a young child might. After all, butterflies definitely do Continue reading
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Born Today: Bruce McLaren
You may have heard of McLaren cars; they’re ridiculously expensive, ridiculously fast, and probably ridiculous in a couple of other ways too. They come from the McLaren company, which originally just built racing cars because Bruce McLaren, who founded it, was a racing driver. McLaren was born in 1937 in New Zealand and probably got Continue reading
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August 30
Now that world travel is once again a reasonable (and possible) pastime, you might decide to visit as exotic a location as you could find. Or even one that might be pretty hard to find — like, for example, East Timor. Timor is an island at the southern end of the island chains in southeast 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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peterharbeson@me.com