January 2008
Fact
Siblings who are separated when adopted may be naturally attracted to each other in later life. More details
Fact
Window cleaners who work on very tall buildings are trained to lie flat if their platform comes loose - a tactic which appears to have saved the life of Alcides Moreno, who tumbled some 500ft (150m) to the ground in New York.
Words
A bear helped carry ammunition for Polish troops during World War II. More details
Words
Using a mobile before bedtime can delay you getting to sleep. More details
Words
Swedes have a word for a man who visits prostitutes - torsk. More details
Headlines
A letter in today’s Times recalls the headline over a story about former Labour leader Michael Foot chairing a meeting of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: ‘Foot Heads Arms Body’. Any would-be coat-getters rest assured, I realise it’s not strictly an all-nouner, but still a great example of the sub-editor’s art.
Sam Spade
In Dashiell Hammett’s famously spare prose, fictional detective Sam Spade tells the story of a Mr. Flitcraft, who has a good life, but completely disappears, abandoning his wife and two small children: “Here’s what happened to him. Going to lunch he passed an office-building that was being put up—just the skeleton. A beam or something fell eight or ten stories down...
Words
Skimble-skamble Rambling and confused; rubbishy. Whatever slight popularity this word has ever achieved is due to its first known user, William Shakespeare, who put it into the mouth of Hotspur in King Henry IV, Part I. He complained about Owen Glendower continually bending his ear with “Such a deal of skimble- skamble stuff / As puts me from my faith.” As a result, “skimble-...
Woody Allen's typography
In a time when movie titles become more and more of a clueless “me too!” affair1, Woody Allen’s unique (and relentless) typographic style is entirely praiseworthy. His white type on black opening titles rolling on old jazz or classical music became a part of Woody Allen brand, just like his neurotic dialogues and “his black-rimmed glasses”2 are. The white type being Windsor-EF Elongated, by...
Greenbacks
the United States finds it cannot handle the logistics of procurement for its Civil War, much less finance this war, without printing its own money—quickly nicknamed ‘greenbacks’: “There was no central bank in 1861. The Second Bank of the United States had been shut down by President Andrew Jackson. No national currency existed, and gold, silver, and copper were...
Words
Decimate For 33 years, the little-known Lake Superior State University has been getting an annual PR boost as a result of its list of words that ought to be banished from our language, a list generated from suggestions by members of the public. This year’s list contains a classic complaint - the way that people misuse the word “decimate” - that the university notes has resulted...
Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), legendary political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement. In 1906, though married and the father of four, Gandhi took a vow of celibacy, or Brachmacharya, as part of his spiritual journey, and imposed celibacy on all those who lived in his ashram. Toward the very end of his life, a major controversy developed when it became known that he...
Words
lysdexia n. a joking name for dyslexia, a learning disorder.
Words
Best bib and tucker One’s best clothes. Origin This term originated not in any figurative sense, but literally - both bibs and tuckers were items of women’s clothing from the 17th to late 19th centuries. Early bibs were somewhat like modern day bibs, although they weren’t specifically used to protect clothes from spilled food as they are now. Tuckers were lace pieces...
New York City slang
It’s a spoiling good time listening to the millions of voices in New York City. Sometimes a little piece of all that talk changes your language. For example, if you take a ride in a yellow taxicab, you’ll see a metal emblem riveted to the hoods. That medallion shows that the car’s owner has purchased the right to operate on city streets. The opposite of the licensed taxis are the gypsy cabs....
The progress of civilisation
In his acclaimed book, Nonzero, Robert Wright argues that the fall of Rome was inevitable since it had ossified and was no longer the leading source of innovation—and that its demise did not slow the global progress of civilization: “When a civilization such as Rome dominates its neighbors, it typically possesses some sort of cultural edge: better weapons, say, or better...
Election trivia
When Stephen Douglas accused Abraham Lincoln of being two-faced during an 1858 debate, Lincoln’s famously wry response was: “I leave it to my audience - if I had another face to wear, do you think I would wear this one?” His verbal barbs didn’t always do the trick, though. In the early days of his 1860 presidential campaign, Lincoln reportedly hoisted a heckler by his...
Taking humor seriously
A glimpse of George Meyer and his theories of humor. Meyer was the long-term head writer for The Simpsons, as well as a writer on ‘Saturday Night Live’, The National Lampoon, and ‘Late Night with David Letterman’. He has been called “the funniest man behind the funniest show on television”: “(Meyer) remembers being particularly struck by a ...
The Discovery Machine
The launch of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which, with a circumference of 27-kilometers, will soon be the largest particle accelerator in the world. According to Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the LHC will usher in “a golden age of physics” when launched in 2008: “You could think of it as the biggest, most powerful microscope in the...
Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) was the author of the much-loved book of poems “The Prophet.” Gibran was born to a poor family of Maronite Christians in Lebanon, moved with his mother to a ghetto in Boston in 1895, then lived the remainder of his life primarily in Boston and New York. Author of seventeen books, he was never critically esteemed, and lived primarily through the...
Idea
Ralph Steadman suggests choosing a subject and writing a book about the history of it.
Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington (1899-1974), one of the most influential composers in jazz if not in all American music, and the Harlem Renaissance. In the early twentienth century, there was an outpouring of American black literature, painting and music known as the Harlem Renaissance. This movement faced its own challenges, though, especially the continued burden of prejudice and exclusion, along with the...