Pylimitics

"Simplicity" rearranged

  • Hit the road, Jack

    Old joke: “there are no roads in the City of London”. (The City of London is relatively small, ancient, and not the same as “London” itself). The joke is true; there’s not a single passageway there called a “road” — because by the time “road” entered English, every similar thing in the City of London… Continue reading

  • November 23

    Have you ever wondered why actors are called “thespians”? It’s because of November 23. Partly, anyway. This is the day in 534 BCE that, according to Aristotle, someone named “Thespis” was the first person to portray a character on stage in a play. We’re talking about well over two thousand years ago, when record keeping… Continue reading

  • Stamp out damp

    Getting rained on is not my thing;I don’t like getting wet —I don’t enjoy baths much either.I’m told I can swim but I haven’t tried yet.  The problem is that once I’m wetI just don’t like my choices.It’s shaking, towels, or those hot air thingswith such annoying voices.  On rainy days I mostly stay insideand listen to… Continue reading

  • Mary Ann Evans Lewes Cross

    Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, and you’ve very likely heard of her. That’s the case even if you’re now saying “Mary Ann Evans? Who the heck is Mary Ann Evans?” And you probably are saying that, because you don’t know Mary Ann Evans by her real name; you know her pen… Continue reading

  • Simply indescribable. So let’s try.

    Some English words exist only as what sound like negative forms, like “incognito.” You never hear about anyone going around “cognito,” after all. But there are also some that were originally positive words, then gained a negative form, then the positive form faded out of use leaving us with only…for example…“ineffable.”  Something that’s “ineffable” can’t… Continue reading

  • November 22

    Have you ever wondered why actors are called “thespians”? It’s because of November 23. Partly, anyway. This is the day in 534 BCE that, according to Aristotle, someone named “Thespis” was the first person to portray a character on stage in a play. We’re talking about well over two thousand years ago, when record keeping… Continue reading

  • “New” can be a relative term

    In Hampshire, England, there’s a park called the New Forest that’s not very new at all. It goes back to William the Conqueror (who was in charge 1066-1087), and was a “royal forest.” In the Domesday Book in 1086, it was called “Nova Foresta.” It was used for royal hunts — of deer, for example… Continue reading

  • This actually is a brief bio

    You’ve probably seen a painting of a pipe made for smoking tobacco, with the label, in the painting itself, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“this is not a pipe.”) The artist was Rene Magritte, who was born November 21, 1892 in Belgium. Magritte never said much about his childhood, but we do know he began… Continue reading

  • November 21

    November 21 is the day that the settlers in Plymouth Colony signed the Mayflower Compact in 1620. Except that if you’d asked them at the time what day it was, they would have said it was November 11 — because it was. It didn’t become November 21 until 1752, when the old calendar was finally… Continue reading

  • What about diamonds on the SOLES of your shoes?

    Up until about the 1920s, if you were a well-dressed person, you’d often wear “spats” over your shoes. Spats were cloth covers for the tops of shoes, extending up to the ankle. In some accounts, King George V of England was partly responsible for changing the style away from spats; in 1926 he began appearing… 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. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.

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