RACKETEERING ETYMOLOGIES
THE NEWS CONCERNING Trump, Giuliani, omertà, getting thrown under the bus, and other mob-speak got me wondering how the nice French sports racquet evolved into something as sordid as racketeering. … Continue reading
UPDATING ALICE
MARTIN GARDNER’S Annotated Alice, 1960, was the first in my collection of annotated classics. Indeed, Gardner’s was the first in the series, many of which I have. Wife Dottie recently … Continue reading
BRUNI ON TRUMP’S ENGLISH
FRANK BRUNI composes the best lines in today’s journalism. In The New York Times, October 26, 2019, he titles his analysis “ ‘Human Scum,’ ‘Lynching,’ and Trump’s Tortured English.” Bruni’s … Continue reading
THE ATLANTIC REDUX PART 2
YESTERDAY HERE at SimanaitisSays, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was quoted saying, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Today in Part 2, … Continue reading
THE ATLANTIC REDUX PART 1
I’M IN A postpositive mood today. My topic and the word “redux” in the title are, according to Merriam-Webster, “placed after or at the end of another word.” In particular, … Continue reading
FROM TABLET TO SCROLL TO CODEX TO BOOK
WE THINK OF books as being on particular topics. Even anthologies have a common theme: mysteries, short stories, and the like. But it wasn’t always that way. Here are tidbits … Continue reading
DICTIONARIES—DULL, DRY, AND MUSTY?
SAMUEL JOHNSON’s A DICTIONARY of the English Language, 1755, is anything but dull. Nor is Ambrose Bierce’s A Devil’s Dictionary, 1911, at all dry and musty. The tradition is maintained … Continue reading
☞ HURRAH FOR THE MANICULE! ☜
PERHAPS I GOT your attention today thanks to a pair of manicules bracketing the headline above. I hadn’t known their typographic name until reading about it in Keith Houston’s Shady … Continue reading
HENGWRT PINKHURST TIDBITS PART 2
THE HENGWRT CHAUCER is the oldest known manuscript of The Canterbury Tales. Yesterday here at SimanaitisSays, I shared several tidbits of Christopher De Hamel’s encounter with the Hengwrt at the … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 
A TYPEFACE GETTING NO RESPECT
THE POINT OF putting a thought into print is to preserve and share it. The choice of typography (this word from the Greek: loosely “an impression pictured”) is a complex … Continue reading →