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It’s August 1; what’s for breakfast?
Today, August 1, would be a good day to have shredded wheat for breakfast. Why? Because August 1, 1893, is the day Henry Perky opened up an exhibit at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago to show off his “little whole wheat mattresses.” His original idea was that he’d sell the machines he’d come up Continue reading
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Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
If you think today’s politics includes some unusual characters, wait until you hear about Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. He was born July 31, 1909 in Tobelbad, which at the time was in Astria-Hungary and is now part of Austria. Kuehnelt-Leddihn was personally brilliant, fluent in eight languages and able to read seventeen more. He started writing Continue reading
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Louise Pound’s words
In 1872, in Nebraska, Louise Pound was born. She grew up to be a professor of English at the University of Nebraska. More to the point, she studied folklore — specifically, slang and dialects across middle America. The thing about most of these spoken variants of language is just that; they’re spoken, and not typically Continue reading
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Knot or not?
“Fit to be tied” is a sort of puzzling thing to say. Is it supposed to mean you’re “fit” as in able (“all fit to go”), as in “physically fit,” as in “appropriate” (“a fit subject for discussion”), carefully measured (“fitted suit”), or something else? And what’s all this about being tied? Does it mean Continue reading
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July 31
It’s July 31; do you have a pot full of plant ash soaking in water? You know, to make that really great fertilizer for your garden? The stuff called pot-ash? Okay, you almost certainly don’t, but even so, today’s the day in 1790, that the first US patent was issued, and it was for a Continue reading
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July 30
After WWII, there was something of a recognition in western culture that the world had gotten a great deal more organized — administratively organized — than it had been before. Time Magazine called it “the widespread 20th century malady — galloping orgsmanship.” The same tendency was described in a book as “the tendency of all Continue reading
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Some of the first stars
Today is the anniversary of the birthdays of not one but two major movie stars from the very early days of the US film industry. Theda Bara was born July 29, 1885, and Clara Bow was born on the same day twenty years later. Theda Bara was born Theodocia Burr Goodman, in Cincinnati in the Continue reading
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July 29
With so many people working at home and meeting over videoconferences, kids have taken a more prominent role. Maybe not as prominent as some kids in the history of July 29, though. Take the year 238 in Rome. It was July 29 when the Praetorian Guard — the secret police of the Roman Emperors (think Continue reading
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Websites for words
It’s easy to see that the way we use language changes over time. Dictionaries are one way to measure this, particularly over the long term. Compare a dictionary from a century ago to a modern version and you can see changes in meanings of words as well as changes in the words that are used 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