Archive for the ‘words’ Category
Wednesday, April 27th, 2005
Here's a question for someone like Stephen Pinker: Why do we drop determiners on some acronyms? For example, when speaking of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, I wrote "the" before the name of the organization. However, if I called it "OSHA", then I would not say ...
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Tuesday, March 29th, 2005
I was at a plant nursery the other day and I was pleasantly surprised to find some very nice looking ones. The employee (or owner, perhaps), Sean, told me about a video series he saw, The Private Life of Plants. One plant, I can't recall the name, was ...
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Thursday, August 12th, 2004
Once again I Googled something completely innocent, and got back "adult" sites: "latex patent." See, Latex is a typesetting system that I use to write my papers, and I wanted to site a patent as a reference. There must be a word for this occurance, so perhaps I ...
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Sunday, July 18th, 2004
Even though "Please RSVP" literally means "Please Respond Please", RSVP seems to have taken on a meaning of its own. "Please respond" sounds odd, maybe a bit curt. So "RSVP" must now refer to a response to a party invitation.
I've been reading a great book, Why We Buy: ...
Posted in music, psychology, words | No Comments »
Thursday, July 1st, 2004
I just Googled the above. Woah. I was not prepared for the first link that came up. Still, it's not as good as Googling "amature," or if you can hangle it, "amatur". Yikes! For the contrast, Google "amateur." I'm staying away from Google images on ...
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Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
Yep, that's the Mirriam-Webster Word of the Day. Before I, uh, delete the message from my in-box, I should record the derivation, as it's pretty neat:
In medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, a series of dots was used to mark mistakes or to label material that should be deleted from a ...
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Saturday, April 10th, 2004
First of all, I don't know if this is true. I have not looked at the data. But say it is. It could be that the ballparks are smaller, or that the pitchers are worse, that the hitters are better or stronger. Perhaps the bats are different. ...
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Sunday, February 22nd, 2004
This social science research is quite odd.
Posted in psychology, words | No Comments »
Monday, February 9th, 2004
I've added two new booknotes files: The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker and Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.
So this Superbowl half-time show hubub is still in the news. The FCC is up in arms, and there are lawsuits. Ideally, how should this work? I am not so ...
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Monday, January 12th, 2004
to a young man in a grocery store wearing a black t-shirt that says "F**K off and die"? So, what do you wear when you're in a bad mood? Is this your outfit for picking up women?
In football there's something called the "prevent defense." Had I ...
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