HAMLET—A GRAPHIC TALE
I WAS rereading Hamlet the other day. Not in The Annotated Shakespeare, but my Classics Illustrated comic book, a version that introduced a lot of us to “Stories by the World’s … Continue reading
COMMUNICATING SCIENCE
TODAY, ENGLISH is the language of science for much of the world. Why is that? Lynn K. Nyhart offers insights on this in “Speaking of science,” in the April 10, … Continue reading
WRITING, METAPHORICALLY
THERE’S A recently published book that threatens to tell me more about metaphors than I really want to know. Its review by Colin Burrow in the London Review of Books, … Continue reading
@simanaitis #IF YOU DIG…
THE TWITTER social network has fostered new ways of communicating, some of which I’m apparently never meant to understand. Fortunately, though, Prof. Jacob Eisenstein of the School of Interactive Computing, … Continue reading
A SELECTION OF PANS
THANKS TO Groucho Marx, I offer a nonsensical rhymed couplet (in iamic heptameter): “I soon dispose of all of those who put me on the pan/Like Shakespeare said to Nathan … Continue reading
POLITICAL NAME-CALLING
THE BBC World Service reported today a British Liberal Party spokesman said that political coalition could “give the Conservative Party a heart and Labour a brain.” Being an outsider to the … Continue reading
THE ANNOTATED MONA LISA
“I MAY not know much about art, but I know what I like.” For a long time, this adage summed up my own art appreciation. But I recently rummaged through … Continue reading
LATINA MORTUA EST?
IS LATIN a dead language? Far from it if you’re into the biological sciences, philology, law or medicine. Or if you happen to be using an ATM in Vatican City. … Continue reading
“SOUNDS LIKE…”
AN ONOMATOPOEIC word is one that sounds like its meaning: Bang! Ring, ring. Meow. Some are cross-cultural; others are not. Some have been around a long time; others are only … Continue reading
ARTS AND CRAFTS IN CALIFORNIA
ARTS AND CRAFTS didn’t originate in California, but the movement reached a local high in that state at the beginning of the 20th century. The residential architecture and furnishings of … Continue reading
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