The Head Heeb: The Sovereign Democratic Republic of Pitcairn. The most astonishing detail of this item is a correct use of the phrase eked out. (Cited, on other grounds, by Chris Brooke (The Virtual Stoa).)

Piltdown Plot — includes ‘prosecution’ and ‘defense’ of seven leading suspects

Geoffrey Nunberg:

we understand each other worse, and it matters less, than any of us suppose.

[Which goes well with this item.]

This item was found by Jim Bisso (Uncle Jazzbeau) and discussed at more length by and with Languagehat.

One of Nunberg’s examples is: The pool is deceptively shallow. Some take this to mean the pool is deeper than it looks, some the opposite — but I wouldn’t use it either way; to me it means that the pool both is and appears shallow, but one who infers from that lone fact that one can safely wade in it would be dangerously mistaken (because it has alligators or treacherous currents).

medieval Novgorod through the eyes of a child

Children’s drawings in the Middle Ages?! Even if such things were created in period, how could they have survived to the present day? After all, finger paints, magic markers, and crayons were not yet in use, paper was far too valuable of a commodity to waste on children, and refrigerator doors were unavailable for the display of Junior’s artistic genius. Most of the products of childhood inspiration probably were expressed on the ephemeral canvas of dirt or sand.

But birchbark was a different story.

(Relayed by Eric Johansson on a private list.)

Damn. I was doing so well.

U.S. Surname Distribution. (Link from James Grimmelmann.)

Most of the names I tried show an anomaly in some part of the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana); for example, Sherwood is rarest in Alabama. Exceptions include Wheeler, about equally common in every State, and Manlove, almost unknown outside Delaware.

Yesterday someone relayed to me an exhortation to commemorate the unsolved murder five years ago of a transsexual, who (it was mentioned) had a habit of addressing people by their Zodiac signs. How progressive, I thought, to go around labelling others according to an accident of birth!

I’ve looked into “reassignment” (I just know that my natal chart ought to have more Air) but my HMO won’t cover it.