bascule

According to my dictionary (MW11), a bascule is “an apparatus or structure (such as a drawbridge) in which one end is counterbalanced by the other.” Apparently it’s from a French word for seesaw.

Cthulhu-13

I’m disappointed to find that “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn” doesn’t turn into anything interesting when rot-13ed. (It becomes “Cu'atyhv ztyj'ansu Pguhyuh E'ylru jtnu'anty sugnta.” (Perhaps I’ll try to turn Pguhyuh into a catchphrase, the way alt.folklore.urban turned furrfu into a catchphrase.)

Augmentation

On an article about coyotes this morning, I saw a scrolling ad. Because of the way it was scrolling, it appeared to say: Learn About Beast Augmentations I had to look closely at it to see that there was indeed an R in that third word, and that it was in fact talking about breast […]

swug

Yesterday, Sumana told me about Martin Van Buren’s anti-Harrison campaign song from the 1840 US presidential election. Harrison’s slogan and campaign song was, famously, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” (because Harrison had been a military leader at the battle of Tippecanoe). Van Buren’s campaign song was to the tune of “Rockabye, Baby,” and the first verse […]