SALVAGING (AND SATIRIZING) THE FLOTUS PART 2
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN GLEANING TIDBITS from Thomas Mallon’s review in The New Yorker of Lois Romano’s book An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln. Part … Continue reading
SALVAGING (AND SATIRIZING) THE FLOTUS PART 1
THOMAS MALLON WRITES “A WOMAN SCORNED: Mary Todd Lincoln has long been derided. Is her reputation salvagable?,” The New Yorker, May 25, 2026; this, in his review of Lois Romano’s … Continue reading
USTA BE AN EDITOR, Y’KNOW PART 2
HERE IN PART 2, WE’LL CONTINUE OUR LINGUISTIC DISCUSSIONS encouraged by Professor Valerie Fridland’s “Despite All the Likes, Literallys, and Dropped g’s, English Isn’t Decaying Before Our Eyes.” It’s quite … Continue reading
USTA BE AN EDITOR, Y’KNOW PART 1
THOUGH THE GHOST OF MRS. GRIMBLY continues to remind me not to split infinitives, I confess to being otherwise hep in my modern English usage. One of my guides in … Continue reading
HAVEN’T WE A WORD FOR IT? PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN GLEANING TIDBITS FROM FRANCIS GOODING’S LRB REVIEW of Steven Mithen’s The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of The Stone Age. We continue here in … Continue reading
HAVEN’T WE A WORD FOR IT? PART 1
FRANCIS GOODING’S “ROCKET SCIENCE FOR MONKEYS” is the compelling title of his London Review of Books review of Steven Mithen’s The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out Of … Continue reading
HORTUS DELICIARUM—THE GARDEN OF DELIGHTS
MY RECENT TREATISE ON PRETZELS got me consulting The Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Prompting of this biblical research was straightforward: Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus enjoying a … Continue reading
D.J. SIMS GOT THINGS RIGHT, SORTA
IT WAS MORE THAN A HALF-CENTURY AGO (AGG!?) that a math professor at the College of the Virgin Islands on St. Thomas submitted a freelance piece to R&T. Image by … Continue reading
COLOR—PHILOSOPHICALLY
DEIDRE MASK’S “DOES THIS COME IN PINK MARGARINE? A SURPRISING HISTORY OF COLOR NAMES” caught my eye in The New York Times Book Review, April 26, 2026. In fact, her … Continue reading
A HUNGER (AND LUST) FOR WORDS
MY LATEST HISTORY EXTRA (USTA BE BBC HISTORY) has “Eat, Drink and Be Merry,” by historian Sam Bilton, who certainly knows her way around Elizabethan times and kitchens: “Shakespeare’s works,” … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 