February 2011
17 posts
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6 preposterous english titles
No English-speaking country has so many titles as England herself, both “at home” and in the Colonies, particularly in India. Here are a few examples:
His Excellency the Right Honorable Lord Curzon, viceroy and governor-general of India
His Highness the Prince Pospo Admojo
His Highness the Maharaja of Mysore
His Highness Sir James Bourdillon, Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab
The...
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the king's figure of speech
my eudora email client has been pulsing with electronic letters from a handful of friends, fake friends, and adultfriendfinder.com friends with hawt news about the rhetorical device known as the paraprosdokian. here’s what jimmy wales has to say about it »
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that...
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13 gifts to woo a well-bred girl
Until a young man is accepted as an affianced husband, he should not presume to offer gifts of jewelry. In society…it is decreed that a lady may be offered no gift that implies an obligation or the necessity of restoration to its donor in case his courtship proves unsuccessful. It is not, therefore, permitted a gentleman to offer a gift of gloves, a hair-comb, a scarf, etc. But he may...
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hot wet meat (this is not a misleading title)
the dictionary of abbreviations and contractions commonly used in general mercantile transactions (1902) is about as thrilling as it sounds, which is a very poetic way of saying that it is not thrilling at all. however, in this age where we are nickel-and-dimed for each text message that we transmit through our cellular phones, where the amount of letters in our exceedingly clever tweets are...
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on cortés and asskissery
this is how the idiot conquistador hernán cortés addressed his letters to king charles the fifth:
Very High and Most Powerful Prince, Very Catholic and Invincible Emperor, King and Lord,
he concluded his letters like this:
Most Powerful Lord, Your Caesarian Majesty’s Very Humble Servant and Vassal who kisses the Royal Hands and Feet of Your Majesty
major barf-factory, right?
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a word and its definition
verticordious (adj.) : turning the heart from evil
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words wholly unrelated
penthouse & house
i was leafing through a well-read 1998 penthouse magazine at my barbershop when i started to wonder what most gentleman wonder when reading this particular periodical—just what exactly is the etymology of penthouse and how has it come to mean the top level of a building?
had pent something to do with 5? was the penthouse the 5th floor? if so, that’s a pretty low...
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