As any user of word processing software knows, the search-and-replace function can be invaluable — and quite literal. Consequently, when an e-book translation of War and Peace for Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book reader changes every instance of kindled (eight in the entire book) to Nookd, I have to laugh. The prevailing theory is that … Continue reading Nook’s ‘War and Peace’ changes ‘kindled’ to ‘Nookd’
I have a love/hate relationship with spell checkers. They’ve saved me some embarrassment on more than one occasion, but as often as not, they simply frustrate me. They flag words that are perfectly correct, miss misspellings they should catch, and suggest alternate words that are totally irrelevant. The English language, of course, seems specifically designed … Continue reading Spell checkers and pullet surprises
Today is 11/11/11 or 11.11.11 or 11-11-11. It’s lovely to look at. A palindrome even. But there’s nothing special about the date other than its interesting appearance. The apocalypse is not scheduled for today. Thinking otherwise, tempting as it is, means you’ve got apophenia. Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in … Continue reading Got apophenia?
Newfangled. We all know what it means. But I started wondering if there was simply a fangle (there is), or such a thing as oldfangled (didn’t see it). The surprise to me was that it’s a single word, not two and not hyphenated, and that it dates back to the 15th Century: “Origin of NEWFANGLED … Continue reading Wordplay: newfangled
(Updated May 19, 2013) It’s hard to imagine anyone spending much time browsing the Internet without coming across the colorful coke-pop-soda map, the one showing the preferred term for a carbonated drink in each U.S. county. I did a post on it myself about two years ago and then as now wondered what some of … Continue reading Pop vs. soda vs. whatever
Still scowling into my coffee this morning, I flipped open the laptop to read my email. And there was that word, leaping from the screen: supercalifragilisticexpiali-fuck-it Big. Bright blue. A live link. I almost spewed coffee all over the keyboard. So damn funny! At that moment I didn’t know or care what the post was … Continue reading You’ll really sound precocious
