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Charles Brannock
If you go to a shoe store in the US and aren’t sure what size shoes you need, they’ll be happy to measure your feet, using a…thing. A gadget. A device. The apparatus is basically a flat plate you stand on, with sliders that touch specific places on your foot. Although nobody has ever come Continue reading
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ANTEpropreantepenultimate
In English we already know that the initial three items in a sequence: first, second, and “third, are identified in a different way than then next however-many (fourth, fifth, and so on). But what about the other end of a sequence? Other than last, next to last, second from last, and the rest, can English Continue reading
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Darn those dratted kids
A pretty common trope is the crotchety old man who waves his cane at the kids in his neighborhood, yelling “You kids get off my lawn!” That gentleman is clearly suffering from ephebiphobia, which is fear of the young. Although the syndrome is probably ancient, the word is quite new. It seems to have originated Continue reading
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L. Frank Baum
In some cases, students caught daydreaming in school are severely punished. In other cases, daydreaming students grow up to create amazing works fueled by their imaginations. And in at least one case, both things were true. Today is the birthdate of Lyman Frank Baum, who published his many books and stories as “L. Frank Baum.” Continue reading
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Did you happen to animadvert?
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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Spelling
English is definitely not among the languages where words are spelled phonetically. In phonetic languages, spelling errors are probably much rarer than in English, where they’re depressingly common. One of the problems with spelling in English is homonyms — words that sound exactly the same, but are different words. There are some unusual homonyms lurking Continue reading
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Doc Ricketts
If you’ve read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (published in 1945), you may remember the character Doc. The novel is set in Monterey, California, during the Great Depression (1929 to about 1939), when Monterey was primarily a fishing village. The title refers to a street where several fish-packaging businesses are located; it was informally called Continue reading
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Moveable Horns?
If you visit Yale University, you might view the portico of Davenport College, or even catch a glimpse of the official banner of the university’s president. If you do, you’ll see a yale. Not, mind you, a Yale — that would be a direct descendant of Elihu Yale, who was a governor of the British Continue reading
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Beached
If you find yourself on a desert island without a boat, what you are is “stranded.” On the face of it, that seems like an unusual term to use for that situation; why not “trapped” or something? By the way, if your pirate crew got tired of always having to let you win at Scrabble Continue reading
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A shot heard ’round the world?
Before a “big shot” was a person — like in “Unless the memory plays us a trick, Al Capone is the ‘big shot’ of Chicago gangland” (1930), it was literally a shot. One that was, and I suppose this would be obvious, comparatively large. Guns were probably invented in China around 1000 CE. They took 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