Category Archives: language

etymology

Posted on Sunday, 2003 August 17 by Anton

I wonder: Minbar, name of a planet in Babylon 5, could be Elvish for ‘first home’.

Posted in cinema, language | 1 Comment

transported by melody

Posted on Tuesday, 2003 August 05 by Anton

Honda Prelude; Hyundai Sonata; what other cars have musical names?

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Sunnydalish

Posted on Saturday, 2003 August 02 by Anton

Can you speak Buffy? Now the witty diction of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been accorded the academic respect that it deserves in Professor Michael Adams’s Slayer Slang (Oxford University Press). Under headings such as ‘The Attraction of Prefixes’ and … Continue reading →

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translation sought

Posted on Friday, 2003 August 01 by Anton

The log says נפגעי תקיפה מינית linked yesterday to one of my math doodles. Do you read Hebrew?

Posted in eye-candy, language, me!me!me! | 1 Comment

a bundle of sticks

Posted on Friday, 2003 July 25 by Anton

On the Straight Dope site: Semantic and geographic wanderings, over the past two centuries, of the words fag, faggot.

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a question for philologists

Posted on Sunday, 2003 July 20 by Anton

Is the phrase “some are more equal than others” older than Animal Farm?

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the creation of tradition

Posted on Thursday, 2003 July 17 by Anton

Aha! When this blog was young and innocent, I asked how the heck Madison came to be a favorite name for girls. Rick Heller cites a NYT article with the answer: a movie that I never saw.