Category Archives: humanities

limits of metaphor

Ever notice that blunt is not always a synonym for pointless ?

Posted in language | Leave a comment

do you speak Algol?

DigiBarn Posters: Mother Tongues of Computer Languages

Posted in history, neep-neep | Leave a comment

drugs of choice

(I’d tried caffeine a few times; it made me believe I was focused and energetic, but it turned my judgment to shit. Widespread use of caffeine explained a lot about the twentieth century.) Andrew Worth, narrator of Distress (1995) by … Continue reading

Posted in humanities | Leave a comment

the sound of sunlight

Purple Numbers and Sharp Cheese: is synæsthesia metaphor, or is metaphor synæsthesia?

Posted in psychology | Leave a comment

assuming, of course, that he really exists

A correspondent asks: Incidentally, why does Schwarzenegger do so many epist[e]mological films? We’ve got the 6th Day, Last Action Hero, Total Recall, The Running Man . . . (and one I haven’t seen) . . . . Kindergarten Cop.

Posted in cinema, humanities | Leave a comment

still looking for a set of Elvish filters

Living languages are always changing; the most conspicuous way they change is in their sounds, and this change is generally regular — which is why it’s possible to imitate another dialect even if you’ve never heard the particular words spoken … Continue reading

Posted in arts, language | 2 Comments

semantic drift

According to John Ross (author of Unintended Consequences), What Shakespeare’s character Dick the Butcher really said was “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the legislators.” That’s a bit different suggestion, isn’t it?

Posted in arts, history, language | Leave a comment