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It is my wont to want what I wont
It’s not in very common use nowadays, but at one time it was pretty common to see or hear phrases like “he’ll be at the race track on Thursday, as is his wont.” That doesn’t mean he “wants” to visit the race track. Even though obviously he does want to, “wont” and “want” are completely… Continue reading
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With great facility
“He was positive, facile, amiable,” wrote Josiah Gilbert Holland in The Story of Sevenoaks in 1876. The question is, what did he mean? “Facile” is a word that’s had quite a number of subtly different meanings over the years. For instance, in 1576 it meant lenient or mild: “he shewed hym selfe gentle and facyle.” Generally a good… Continue reading
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Flyboys
Today we remember two aircraft designers — one quite mainstream, and the other controversial and somewhere outside the conventional history of aeronautics. First up is Henri Coandă, who was born June 7, 1886 in Bucharest, Romania. In 1909 he enrolled in a brand-new school in Paris teaching aeronautical engineering, and graduated at the head of… Continue reading
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That’s flattened, not flattered
As you might know, the earth is not really spherical. Not that it’s flat, of course — but its shape is slightly distorted by the fact that it spins, so it’s an “oblate spheroid” — that is, it’s slightly flattened at the poles. Now, if you read anything about European history in the late Middle… Continue reading
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June 5: Otis Barton
On June 3, the birthday of Pietro de’ Medici, we explored some of the typical tropes about rich kids being self-indulgent waste cases. But not everybody born into wealth squanders their lives and fortunes. Consider, for example, Otis Barton, who was born June 5, 1899 into a wealthy New York family and accomplished some remarkable… Continue reading
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Ad lib
If you’re pressed for time before, say, a presentation or a task, sometimes you just wing it — you improvise, proceed in haste without preparation. That is, you autoschediaze. “Autoschediaze” — which is pronounced with FIVE syllables: aw-toe-ske-di-ez — is the verb form of “autoschediastic.” That word showed up in English from either Greek or… Continue reading
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June 6: Angelo Moriondo
As you’re enjoying your coffee, possibly an espresso-based drink, give a thought to Angelo Moriondo, who was born 173 years ago today in Turin. Why, you ask? Simple. Moriondo invented the espresso machine. Or, well, at least pretty much the basic kind of espresso machine used today. Moriondo was born into a family of entrepreneurs… Continue reading
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Casing the joint
One of the tropes of cowboy movies is the poker game in the saloon. Depending on the movie, the game might show off the skills of the hero, unmask the villain’s fruitless attempts at cheating, or simply provide a way to gather the important characters into one location so that when another important character walks… Continue reading
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All mixed up
Amid the chaos of everyday life, it’s common to mistake one word for another, or to think that two words might be related even though they aren’t. And the way English works, if enough people make the same mistake, it’s not really a mistake any more and ends up memorialized in the dictionary. “Chaos” is… 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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