Simanaitis Says

On cars, old, new and future; science & technology; vintage airplanes, computer flight simulation of them; Sherlockiana; our English language; travel; and other stuff

Category Archives: I Usta be an Editor Y’Know

FONTS CAN SAVE TREES

“HARPERCOLLINS MADE A TINY TWEAK to its Book Design—and Has Saved Thousands of Trees as a Result,” reports Elizabeth Segran in the Fast Company website, April 2, 2024. What’s more, … Continue reading

April 29, 2024 · 1 Comment

DIALECTS THAT I’VE HEARD, LIKE, Y’KNOW

 A RECENT WORDS TRIVIA WEBSITE “Top 6 English Dialects That Sound Like Different Languages” got me thinking of dialects I have known. Here are tidbits gleaned from the Words Trivia … Continue reading

April 22, 2024 · 5 Comments

LLM HALLUCINATING: AN A.I. PARLOR GAME

ROBERT CRAWFORD’S ARTICLE “After the British Library Cyberattack,” London Review of Books, April 4, 2024, is an excellent—and humorous—imagining of A.I. It follows up on the lamentable October 2023 British … Continue reading

April 19, 2024 · 2 Comments

CELEBRATING LATE-19TH-CENTURY LITERARY ART

“THE VOGUE FOR LITERARY POSTERS,” Leah Greenblatt writes in The New York Times, April 5, 2024, “burned briefly, beginning in 1893 and lasting not much more than a decade.”  And … Continue reading

April 12, 2024 · 1 Comment

SHAKESPEARE’S WORDS

THE Words Trivia website offers “5 Ways Shakespeare Changed English That You Never Knew.”  I add these Shakespearean tidbits to “Bereft of Insults?,” “Shakespeare’s Vocabulary,” and “OP Shakespeare,” this last … Continue reading

April 11, 2024 · 2 Comments

THE OED IS COOKIN’—IN JAPANESE

THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE adds 23 Japanese words in its latest update. Ella Creamer reports this in The Guardian, March 27, 2024: “More than half of … Continue reading

April 3, 2024 · Leave a comment

THE BENETTON FORMULA 1 TEAM: REBELS—YOU’RE TELLING ME!?

JOURNALIST EXTRAORDINAIRE JUDY STROPUS alerted me to a new book Benneton Rebels of Formula 1, by Damien Smith, Foreward by Pat Symonds, Evro Publishing, 2023. Amazon lists it. I surely … Continue reading

March 31, 2024

HISTORICAL (HYSTERICAL) PUNS

THE WORD GENIUS WEBSITE RECENTLY OFFERED “Historical Puns That Can Still Make You Laugh.” I works for years with R&T Editor John Dinkel, punster extraordinaire, so my standards are high.  … Continue reading

March 29, 2024 · 5 Comments

JUS’ TALKIN’ ’MERICAN, LIKE, Y’KNOW PART 2

I’M ENJOYING RESEARCH OF uniquely American phrases, enough so it’s stretching here into Part 2. To tighten the focus today, I even sneaked in two that are more than just … Continue reading

March 22, 2024 · 2 Comments

JUS’ TALKIN’ ’MERICAN, LIKE, Y’KNOW PART 1

I’M HARDLY ONE TO SPEAK, what with a high-school teacher once asking me “How long have you been in this country, Dennis?” However, I do find amusement and erudition in … Continue reading

March 21, 2024 · Leave a comment