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

TIDBITS OF MEDIEVAL PAPER PART 2

YESTERDAY, WE GLEANED TIDBITS from Tom Johnson’s review of Orietta Da Rold’s Paper in Medieval England: From Pulp to Fiction. Paper arrived big-time in England in the late 14th-century. Fifty … Continue reading

May 24, 2022 · Leave a comment

TIDBITS OF MEDIEVAL PAPER PART 1

TOM JOHNSON BEGINS his London Review of Books article with quite an amazing tidbit: “In 1391, 2.3 million sheets of paper arrived at the port of London: a page for … Continue reading

May 23, 2022 · Leave a comment

BEOWOLF—A DIGITALLY UNRULY TYPEFACE (FOR A WHILE, THAT IS)

AS DESCRIBED BY John L. Walters in his fascinating Fifty Typefaces That Changed the World, “Few recent typefaces can claim to be as radical—anarchistic, even— as Beowolf….”  Imagine a typeface … Continue reading

May 17, 2022 · 3 Comments

VINTAGE BOND

I REALIZE THIS TITLE might be about whisky, but in fact I’m thinking of Bond, James Bond. I confess I haven’t kept up with the Bond franchise, thus my inclusion … Continue reading

April 25, 2022 · 2 Comments

MALAPROPING THROUGH THE AGES

WHICH CAME FIRST: the malaprop, a humorous misuse of similar sounding words, or Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals? The French language gives a … Continue reading

April 23, 2022 · 3 Comments

SKOOL IS BACK

NOW THAT KIDS ARE returning, sorta, to traditional schooling, maybe it’s time to bring some humor, er… humour to the educational process. I do this in vintage fashion, by examining … Continue reading

April 18, 2022 · 3 Comments

BUT HE WENT, LIKE, WHATEVER….

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, ANGLO-IRISH playwright, went, like, “The true use of speech is not to express our wants as to conceal them.” Whatever.  How facile this evasive English rolls off the … Continue reading

April 10, 2022 · 1 Comment

ONLINE LEARNING PART 2

YESTERDAY, PROFESSOR WILLIAM DAVIES discussed plagiarism, identifying such literary treachery with TurnItIn software, and obscuring it by means of Artificial Intelligence. Today, his article in London Review of Books continues … Continue reading

April 9, 2022 · 1 Comment

ONLINE LEARNING     PART 1  

I ENJOYED THE PROCESS of lecturing on mathematics. And, apparently, so did my students (if their anonymous surveys were to be believed). Even though I am computer-friendly, I’m not sure … Continue reading

April 8, 2022 · Leave a comment

ON BOOKS

AS MENTIONED EARLIER here at SimanaitisSays, Wife Dottie and I accumulated books in anticipation of eventually opening a secondhand shop. Also cited, we gave up that dream when a nice … Continue reading

April 6, 2022 · 1 Comment