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Hedgehog’s Map
Hedgehog was worried. “I’m worried,” he said to Squirrel, who had just leaped onto a branch above where Hedgehog was sitting. “What’s bothering you this time?” asked Squirrel, who was kind enough not to say anything about Hedgehog’s worrying. “I found this on the path yesterday,” said Hedgehog, carefully unfolding a piece of paper that… Continue reading
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Fat chance
“Slim” is a more interesting word than you might think. It means “gracefully slender,” which is considered good. But its connotation, in other contexts, is not so good. “Chances of success are slim,” for example. The word comes from either Middle Dutch (slim) or Middle German (salem), where it meant slanted or crooked. The related… Continue reading
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Getting on in years
In the olden days, “old” was “eld” and “oldest” was “eldest.” “Eld” is much older…er, “elder.”.. than “old,” having been a word in Old English, when it was “eald” — at least in the dialect of Old English spoken in West Saxony. Prior to Old English, “eld” goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European. In… Continue reading
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Disturbing hints continue
“Shortly after the [2024] election, a newspaper reporter asked Nikolai Patrushev, who is close to Putin, if Trump’s election would mean ‘positive changes from Russia’s point of view.’ Patrushev answered: ‘To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will… Continue reading
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Stand back from the cliff, please
When you start reading this, you’re on the brink of a not-particularly-important discovery. To wit: what the heck is a “brink,” anyway? You can be “on the brink” of something good, like a singer “on the brink of stardom,” or a scientist “on the brink of a major discovery.” It’s more common to find “brink”… Continue reading
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Wherein an answer is punctually directed
If one time-traveled to the here and now from, say, about 1650, probably the very first thing they’d animadvert is that nobody animadverts any more. Or more precisely, they might animadvert (at least on their phone), but practically everyone has forgotten what “animadvert” means. In fact, everyone has forgotten so completely that “animadvert,” which in… Continue reading
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Nonsensical padding
“Fustian” is a rare word, but not hopelessly obscure; you’ll still run across it occasionally. It dates from the 1200s, when it meant a kind of thick cloth that was used to make blankets. Nowadays it still retains that meaning, but over the centuries it acquired a second meaning: empty, overblown language. The sort you’d… Continue reading
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Dis- or Ab-?
If you write an academic paper, you include an “abstract;” a brief synopsis of the entire work. If you’re in business, you might work hard on an “elevator pitch” — a brief abstract of the product or service you’re trying to push, timed so you can deliver the whole thing while trapped in an elevator… Continue reading
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Thoughtfulness about fake thought
Quinn Norton wrote an insightful piece about large language models and evolved human behavior at EmptyWheel. I thought this observation was particularly on point: “They don’t even have to be engineered to charm us, and they aren’t. We’ve been engineered by evolution to be charmed.” 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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