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August 25
It was August 25, 1835, that the New York Sun newspaper published one of the greatest stories ever — certainly their biggest scoop in history. The greatest astronomer of the time was Sir William Herschel, and he had made some astonishing observations from his “immense telescope of an entirely new principle,” built in South Africa. … Continue reading
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Tiller
In the early days of automobile design, none of the standards we’re used to had emerged yet. Most very early cars didn’t have steering wheels; you steered them with a lever, which was called a “tiller.” English has two “tiller” words. The first has to do with farming; a tiller in that sense is either… Continue reading
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Lurch
To be “left in the lurch” means you’ve been abandoned, lost, deserted, without assistance. It’s a pretty common phrase — in 2017, a couple of days before the Trump inauguration, NBC News ran a story with the headline “Democrats: Left in the Lurch.” Where is this “lurch” you might be left in? Actually the lurch… Continue reading
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Born Today: Sophia Brahe
You probably remember Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer from the 1500s who created a vast catalog of amazingly accurate (for the 1500s) astronomical observations. But you might now know that his younger sister, Sophia Brahe (who was born on August 24) was his research partner and shared a great deal of the work (but usually… Continue reading
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August 24
It’s August twenty-fourth, a date that will live in…paperwork. It was the date in 1215 that the Pope declared the Magna Carta invalid. The Pope got involved because, well, in those days the Pope got involved in everything. The “Great Charter of Freedoms” had been written by one of his crew, the Archbishop of Canterbury,… Continue reading
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Born Today: Volin
These days all you hear about political leanings is, for the most part, “conservative,” “progressive,” and the occasional “liberal.” A hundred years ago we weren’t so lexically starved. Take Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikenbaum, for example. He was born August 23, 1882, and is usually known by his pen name, Volin. He wasn’t just a “conservative” or… Continue reading
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August 23
August 23 is the birthday of the sculptor Alexander Calder. You’re thinking of the big steel mobiles and abstract constructions on exhibit in airports and concert halls. But no, it’s not that Alexander Calder. Oh, right, you say, you must mean Alexander Calder who sculpted the Washington Square Arch in New York; the one with… Continue reading
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Ordinal
And a one, and a two… There’s a small mystery about numbers that you may have noticed. When we count things, we use “one,” “two,” “three,” and so on. But when we talk about the position of something in a sequence, we say “first,” “second,, and “third;” different words altogether. After that, though, it’s back… Continue reading
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Grapevine
Whether you’ve heard “Heard it Through the Grapevine” or not, you’ve probably heard of hearing through the grapevine, and you’ve probably heard things through the grapevine. But have you ever heard why you’d hear things through a grapevine in the first place? “The grapevine”, as a metaphor for people passing information individually, one-by-one, dates back… 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 other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity. You can also find some of my minor software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly write tiny utilities in Python.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
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