Category Archives: humanities

was it a blur for you too?

Posted on Friday, 2002 December 06 by Anton

Eighties Trivia – without looking, I’m sure of the answers to 27 of the 106 questions. It might help if I had watched television.

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funny you should say that

Posted on Wednesday, 2002 December 04 by Anton

James Grimmelmann opines: So if they catch the [Potomac] sniper – and we all hope that “if” is really a “when” – I would find it harder to make the claim that he should live than to make such a … Continue reading →

Posted in law, politics | Leave a comment

tits over time

Posted on Thursday, 2002 November 28 by Anton

Some public-spirited person has posted [and soon thereafter removed] all of Playboy’s centerfolds from Norma Jean to Miss October 2002. (I can’t resist a complete series of anything at all interesting.) It’s not without interest to compare the earlier and … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, history | Leave a comment

that’s just the drugs talking, dear

Posted on Thursday, 2002 November 28 by Anton

Do you enjoy dictionaries as much as I do? The Office of National Drug Control Policy (boo hiss) publishes this one: Street Terms: Drugs and the Drug Trade. (Link provided by Michael Travers, as an aside from a digression about … Continue reading →

Posted in drugwar, language | Leave a comment

1897-1997

Posted on Thursday, 2002 November 28 by Anton

Teller doesn’t talk, but he writes. His story A Memory of the Nineteen-Nineties, a sequel to Max Beerbohm’s “Enoch Soames” (which I read sometime in the Eighties), almost makes me wish I’d thought of making the same pilgrimage. Teller’s account … Continue reading →

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Hortensii present and past

Posted on Saturday, 2002 November 16 by Anton

A few months ago in alt.fan.miss-manners someone confessed ignorance that Hortense is feminine. That sent me to the books to learn its etymology. From E.G.Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, I learn that the Hortensii were a Roman … Continue reading →

Posted in language | 1 Comment

did the wabbit ever learn what updock is?

Posted on Friday, 2002 November 15 by Anton

I am advised by World Wide Words that Oxford University Press have just published a Dictionary of Catchphrases. Joy at the availability of a reference that could soothe many a mental itch is diluted by a touch of “Is nothing … Continue reading →

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