January 2010
30 posts
5 tags
3 tags
1 tag
asymmetric fashion choices, real and imagined
a long time ago, evolution found a way to cut a few corners when it stumbled across bilateral symmetry. now, evolution had only to make half a frog (or whatever) and then could mirror it and move on to the next thing—a half giraffe or something.
there are a whole bunch of ramifications to this shortcut though really, the most important one is that you and i and all of our fellow brazilians are...
2 tags
3 tags
future dissertations
now that some of my fake and real friends are publishing things, i wonder what the next generation of dissertation titles will look like. enter the very amusing pomo english title generator and a sackful of unsuppressible titters:
Negation and Means of Production: Grant and O’Connell, Coming and Crying and Edges
Riaz Moola Hybridizing Diaspora: Boys Without Fathers and the Darkness of...
3 tags
words wholly unrelated
reign & sovereign
the former is from the latin word regnum and is related to regal. the latter is from the latin word superanus and means “chief or principle.”
to do this afternoon: call your boss a SUPERANUS and then laff like a maniac and wink like a lunatic until security is called at which point you can whip out your wheelock’s and tell everyone what superanus actually...
6 tags
4 tags
misc portmanteaux deux
if there is one thing metallica fans like us know, it’s that metallica is a portmanteau of metallic + replica. speaking of portmanteaux, here are a few that i have been dreaming up since posting the first list exactly 400 days ago*.
fauxtest: (faux + protest) when one pretends to object but secretly consents. as in: “i know that you actually want to see the latest rom-com with that...
7 tags
falkentheorie
while the literary f-words that i posted earlier this morning were delightful in many respects, their definitions did little to highlight the wit and droll tone of j.a. cuddon’s radiant dictionary. to accomplish that task, let us consult a much beefier definition for the following f-word.
Falkentheorie: a theory of the novella worked out by the German writer Paul Heyse (1830-1914). This...
6 tags
to my fellow travelers
this f-word post is the first since the exciting conclusion of word idol and the crowning of its champion, fourings. but fear not, fellow metallica fans. just as we can all count on ulrich and hetfield to crank out an eternal barrage of face-melting power ballads, so too can we count on ol’ raynor ganan to golden shower us with words that start with the letter f.
this week’s...
5 tags
4 tags
3 tags
what the fork?
Forks were not generally used at table until the reign of James I in this country. They were, however, known in Europe long before this. The first fork mentioned in history belonged to a Byzantine lady, who, on coming to Venice as a bride in the middle of the eleventh century, brought with her a golden “prong” as it is called in the pamphlet describing it. This fork, which probably...
4 tags
3 tags
audiobooks out of context #6
this is the sixth...
1 tag
said the chicago banking house to the boston...
Some time ago a Chicago banking house asked a Boston investment firm for a letter of recommendation about a young Bostonian they were thinking of employing. The Boston firm replied by outlining in enthusiastic detail the young man’s excellent First Family background. Several days later came a curt acknowledgment from Chicago. Unfortunately the material supplied was not exactly what they...
3 tags
5 tags
WATCH BIG-TITTED MILFS GET HARDCORED 24-7
thus was the subject line of a piece of spam™ that infiltrated my gmail this morning and all i could think was: look at all that inventive anthimeria!
anthimeria is using one word class as a member of a different word class (eg. using a noun for a verb). this literary device is deftly employed not once, not twice, but thrice in the 6-word, ithyphallic spam header.
the noun phrase, big tits is...
3 tags
3 tags
a holorime scheme
Reine, reine gueux éveille. Gomme à gaine, en horreur, taie.
this french poem translates to something like, “queen, queen arouse the rabble/ who will use their girdles—horrors—as pillow slips.” though if you read it aloud slowly, it starts to mean something very different in english.
this poem is from an ingenious collection called: mots d’heures: gousses, rames. (get it?)...
2 tags
4 tags
3 tags
5 tags
2 tags
deceptive animal names
a titmouse is a bird
a prairie dog is a rodent
a fisher cat is a weasel
a walking stick is an insect
a geoduck is a mollusk
a sea horse is… hold on here, wtf is a sea horse?
anywaysies: i invite you to add to this list as you encounter other deceptive animal names throughout your life. a groundrule: animals with half-deceptive/half-straightforward names like bird dogs, catfish, and...
5 tags
4 tags
know your foods that end in -tine
a là florentine: a dish characterised by a bed of spinach on which the principle ingredient—topped with a mornay sauce—sits
ballotine: a stuffed meat dish (cf. turducken, geoducken, etc.)
clementine: a citrus fruit hybrid of a tangerine and a seville orange
galantine: a forcemeat wrapped in skin, poached, and usually served cold in aspic
gratiné: a dish served with a browned crust of...
2 tags
words wholly related
venezuela & venice
in fact, the former was named after the latter. amerigo “best naming rights deal in the history of naming rights deals” vespucci was reminded of the italian city when he came across a stilt village built atop lake maracaibo. he decided to name the area “little venice”.
3 tags
miscellaneous epiphanies (root vegetable edition)
that beets and chard are different parts of the same plant*
ditto turnips and chinese cabbage*
that baby carrots are regular-sized carrots cut to smaller pieces (this is a rerun)
that yuca is another name for cassava and that tapioca (and therefore tapioca pudding) comes from it
that queen anne’s lace is the above ground flower of the carrot*.
see also: miscellaneous epiphanies d.c....
4 tags
