No, really:
Our goal is to write at least one limerick for each meaning of each and every word in the English language. Our best limericks will clearly define their words in a humorous or interesting way, although some may provide more entertainment than definition, or vice versa.
To quote Hoefler & Frere-Jones’ link to the site:
H&FJ’s Third Law, which states that for every act of exhaustive research, there is an equal and opposite act of total silliness.
Jeff Deck is my current hero:
This March through May, we, sworn members of TEAL, will be taking a road trip around the country to stamp out as many typos as we can find, in public signage and other venues where innocent eyes may be befouled by vile stains on the delicate fabric of our language. We do not blame, nor chastise, the authors of these typos. It is natural for mistakes to occur; everybody will slip now and again. But slowly the once-unassailable foundations of spelling are crumbling, and the time has come for the crisis to be addressed. We believe that only through working together with vigilance and a love of correctness can we achieve the beauty of a typo-free society.
He updates the blog daily with photos and stories of the typos and people (some friendly, some disobliging) he has encountered during that day; he tends to write in an amusing and up-beat style (he reminds me sometimes of Wodehouse’s Psmith).
I was in a newsagent this afternoon on the Rue de la Servette, a four-lane (+two tram lines) road in Geneva. A lady had got in to the shop just before me; she asked the shop-keeper where there was a parking meter in the vicinity. The lady behind the counter told this woman that although the signs had been put up and the ground prepared for them, the meters hadn’t yet been installed. Nevertheless, she went on, the customer should be vigilant because the lack of machines is not seen as a valid reason for not displaying a parking permit, and the wardens—who, she said, are known to pass regularly—are still liable to issue parking tickets!
All of this was reported slightly apologetically (in a don’t-blame-me-it’s-not-my-fault tone) but seemingly neither of them would consider the possibility of challenging such a ridiculous situation. I for one welcome our new parking-warden bureaucrat overlords.
Pliny the Younger, Epistles 2.1.5:
Nam cum vocem praepararet acturus in consulatu principi gratias, liber quem forte acceperat grandiorem, et seni et stanti ipso pondere elapsus est. Hunc dum sequitur colligitque, per leve et lubricum pavimentum fallente vestigio cecidit coxamque fregit, quae parum apte collocata reluctante aetate male coiit.
For while he was preparing a thanksgiving speech to the Princeps for the consulship, he happened to lift a rather large book which slipped from the old man’s hand, who was standing up at the time. When he bent down to pick it up, his foot slipped on the smooth and wet pavement, and he broke his hip, which was knocked out of joint, and because of his advanced age, re-knitted badly.
Let that be a warning to those of us who use heavy encyclopaedias and dictionaries like the Oxford Latin Dictionary…
Pah, whatever:
No one hears you when you say you’re sick of Paris. Sick of Paris: three words that make sense to people separately, but not in sequence. And they’re right—what am I talking about? What about champagne for sale in gas stations? And aisles dedicated to yogurt in grocery stores? And grocery stores that only sell frozen food of such high quality that, when reheated, it beats most bistro meals? And my boss and his thousand Lacoste shirts in every color? And all the gossip and insights: how French men go to pieces when they’re dumped; how Parisian girls won’t sleep with you unless you have permanent residency papers. And the white morning sunshine in Place de la Concorde, and its slow wheel of drivers, and me on my bike. And homeless men spreading out a picnic on a Metro platform.
I understand you entirely when you say you’re sick of Paris, buddy. The smells, the winter darkness, the strikes, the rudeness…
I’ve been in two minds about this one since I first saw it before Easter. Ammon Shea has a book forthcoming called Reading the OED: one man, one year, 21,730 pages. In this entry on the blog of OUP USA, he makes reference to various entries in the OED which he considers to be ‘absurd’. For most (if not all) of his examples, I’m inclined to side with the Press’s dictionary compilers.
Just because he doesn’t understand all the words used in the definition of a technical geological term, why should this academic publication be dumbed-down? He also seems to approach it from the point-of-view of an American (understandably), since he doesn’t understand the definition ‘Touch wood’ given for ‘Unberufen’ (which presumably is considered to have been assimilated into English at some point). Yes, perhaps it would be more helpful for an example of a syllogism to be given in English in the OED, but I’m not complaining about the given example, ‘Omne …
Khoi Vinh, whose nephew has just been introduced to Tintin:
…he became engrossed by the cast and story immediately, burying himself in the books without hesitation. Before we’d even crossed the Atlantic, he’d finished both, laughing at the comic hijinks, connecting effortlessly with the characters, and marveling at Hergé’s pristine, still amazing ligne claire drawing style.
Ah, Tintin, with your fantastic albeit vaguely believable storylines. You introduced me to the Manchuria Crisis (in The Blue Lotus), Italian drivers (in The Calculus Affair), and numbered Swiss bank accounts (in Flight 714 [to Sydney]).
I’m not quite sure what to make of these new coin designs:
…the Shield of the Royal Arms has been given a contemporary treatment and its whole has been cleverly split among all six denominations from the 1p to the 50p, with the £1 coin displaying the heraldic element in its entirety. This is the first time that a single design has been used across a range of United Kingdom coins.
When all viewed together, the coins obviously make up the Shield of the Royal Arms. But who keeps his coins carefully arranged in a specific flat shape? When the coins are on their own, their design is striking, but rather more radical than previous Sterling coins.
The recent chaos at Heathrow brought about when the new Terminal 5 opened to passengers last Thursday has shot the airport to people’s attention across much of the world. Many people have been saying for years that the world’s most busy international airport is a nightmare to deal with, and hitherto I mostly haven’t agreed. I’ve used the airport frequently enough—several times a year—that I got to know it (Terminals 1 & 4 in particular) fairly well. However, I think that because I was comfortable using those terminals I didn’t realize quite how unfriendly Heathrow is to less-frequent travellers.1
All that changed for me last week. On Friday I was due to fly from Heathrow back to Geneva after the short university Easter holiday. I would be flying from …
Christopher Phin, deputy editor of MacFormat magazine:
Grammar nazis are so last century. Welcome, friends, to the brave new world of the typography nazi. Below are ten mistakes that everyone makes, an explanation of why each is wrong, and details on how to fix them.
I’m proud (?) to say that I’m rarely guilty of any of these faux pas; indeed I’m sure many people would say that I’m a downright bore when it comes to this sort of thing. This article also afforded me an excellent opportunity for some pedantic comment-posting…
