ARISTOPHANES—ANCIENT GREECE’S S.N.L.
SATIRE WAS AS important to ancient Greeks as it is to those of us living through today’s muddle. Think of the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes as that era’s combination of … Continue reading
A PHONY BARD
THIS IS A TALE of deception. It involves a collector of English artifacts; his talented, if unscrupulous, son; the greatest of playwrights, William Shakespeare; and a passel of people capable … Continue reading
RIDING ON THE RED? THE GREEN? JUST THE RODS?
HERE’S HOW TO know when you’re a hep-ghee (sophisticated individual) and counter the lamentable trend of 140-character missives, all through a study of English language usage from the 1950 Dictionary … Continue reading
UTOPIA REVISITED
“UTOPIA IN TEXAS” by Glen Newey in the London Review of Books, January 19, 2017, provides counterpoint to my recent review of four dystopian novels here at SimanaitisSays. Not that … Continue reading
THE ETYMOLOGIST WILL SEE YOU NOW…
RECENT BROUHAHAS of executive orders bring to mind the terms “slapdash,” “going off half-cocked” and their cousins “haphazard” and “slipshod. In the interest of keeping myself etymologically hep, I arranged … Continue reading
THE (MIS?)RULE OF THUMB
I RECENTLY posted a Facebook comment mentioning “rule of thumb” as contrasted with more scientific methods of measurement. Think crowd size, for instance. Before doing so, I felt compelled to … Continue reading
I’M JUST A GHEE WITH THE LINGO
WIFE DOTTIE believes I am overdoing the old-time radio bit. Be that as it may, for her sake alone it is appropriate that I consult a period document, my Dictionary … Continue reading
BEATRICE D’ESSLING WAS A REAL CRACK
ONCE AGAIN, I SEEM to feed myself (and you) lines that call for more research. A couple days ago, I cited The San Francisco Call newspaper describing actress Beatrice d’Essling … Continue reading
CELEBRATING WWW: WRETCHED WRITERS WELCOME
VICTORIAN AUTHOR Edward Bulwer-Lytton couldn’t have sensed his place in literary history when he began his 1830 novel Paul Clifford with these immortal words: “It was a dark and stormy … Continue reading
MORE THAN ONE TURKEY
HAVE YOU EVER wondered why the U.S. traditional Thanksgiving bird shares its name with a Eurasian country on the shores of the Bosphorus? Me too. This calls for some timely … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 