Category Archives: humanities

who else would tell you?

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).)

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don’t trust everything you find in a gravel pit

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

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and that’s on the up and up

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. … Continue reading

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the art of Onfim

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 … Continue reading

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back to the drearing board

Damn. I was doing so well.

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tangled threads, but not infinitely so

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 … Continue reading

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blind spot

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 … Continue reading

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