Category: Uncategorized
Apples in the Washington Post
I’ve got a little glossary about apple-related terms in the Washington Post today.
Foreign scripts as decoration
Using foreign words, alphabets, or language scripts as decoration—as we see with Engrish on Japanese clothing or with Westerners tattooed with Chinese characters of unknown or dubious meaning—is widespread and ordinary, but I was still interested to see this particular object at the British Museum when I was in London in July. The label given…
PC Magazine’s Top 99 Undiscovered Web Sites
Double-Tongued was listed as one of PC Magazine’s top undiscovered web sites, as was Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words.
Dictionary.com Redesign
Dictionary.com has launched its redesign, done by Happy Cog. It’s not very drastic and seems to offer no new dictionary content.
Need to Change Nigeria’s Name
“All the woes, crises, skirmishes and problems bedeviling this great country since pre-independent period, could be traceable to the fact that Nigeria was named by a woman. Woman, your name is ‘Woe to man.’ These woes include political violence, religious conflicts, social upheavals, educational crises and economic strangulation, among others.”
For Harry Anderson, the New Orleans Magic Is Gone
“Then, in May, there was a repeat of an attack that had occurred more than a year before, when a stranger had approached Mr. Anderson, slammed his face into the side of a building and cursed him, saying, ‘You killed the Matador.’ That was the name of the bar he had replaced with Oswald’s.”
Tim Bracy: the Gentleman Sportswriter
Tim Bracy’s first sports column is up at L Magazine. He has a writing style that’s happily overwrought—it has that tingling anticipatory feeling of being one yacht race short of gentility and being too early in the afternoon for a whiskey before the fire. The column has the same name as his weblog, The Power…
Not Black but black
James Campbell, writing on behalf of the Houston Chronicle, has an excellent explanation of why that newspaper describes some Americans as “black” and not “Black.”
The outrage! The taps at your favorite tap dance show are pre-recorded
“It’s not quite unplugged (he has tiny microphones taped to his feet), but unlike most Irish shows, there are no pre-recorded taps. Every rapid-fire volley of sound coming from those magical feet is live.”
Scottish politics bring out the writerly instinct
I know about as much about Scottish politics as I do birds in Borneo, but I’ve read two interesting articles about the the legal victory of Tommy Sheridan, a Socialist politician, over the yellow rag News of the World. The writing at both links seems to credit Sheridan’s wife, Gail, with the victory. Andrew Hagan…