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
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
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
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
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
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
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
GIAMBATTISTA BODONI—”JUST THE TYPE”
MOLLY YOUNG WRITES ON X (formerly known as you-know-what), “Can’t help but think that ‘Bodoni’ sounds like Italian slang for ‘gorgeous big butt’— e.g. ‘Mamma mia, check out the bodoni … Continue reading
LET’S AIM FOR LAGOM
A RECENT WORD•GENIUS introduced me to the word “lagom” and also got me thinking about life in general. Originally a Swedish word, lagom (LAH-gawm) is “the principle of living a … Continue reading
SHAKESPEARE’S VOCABULARY
FOR SOME KID FROM THE STICKS (“… little Latin and still less Greek” according to fellow playwright Ben Jonson), William Shakespeare was sure ok with vocab. Elizabethan times were expansive, … Continue reading
