Keyword spam
My main blog has been receiving a lot of comment spam lately. Annoying, but the upside is that some of the comments are mildly entertaining: they're posted by a spambot...
pandiculation
Pandiculation is "the act of stretching oneself." The context in which I encountered it indicated that the term is specifically used to refer to the sort of stretching one does...
Monkey and chimp communication
Interesting New York Times article: "Deciphering the Chatter of Monkeys and Chimps." Excerpt: It is tempting to think of the vervet calls as words for "leopard," "snake" or "eagle," but...
Boggle poetry
I've been playing an iPhone game called Befuddled that lets you find words in a grid, sort of Boggle-style (but a much bigger grid and with many many complications). It's...
Small caps and the numeral 1
John Gruber at Daring Fireball has been linking to various posts having to do with the use of small caps in typesetting. For example: Gore's choice explains Al Gore's request...
buckraking
Apparently, "buckraking" refers to a journalist taking a lot of money for a speaking engagement, especially speaking to a group that has a particular agenda; such a payment may cast...
Utah baby namer
Apparently, Utah Mormon names are often pretty unusual. A couple who used to live in Utah have been collecting such names for the past ten years or so; the result...
Three pirate lasses
It occurred to me recently to wonder about the derivation of the word "cutlass." Turns out it's from Middle French "coutel," meaning knife, which ultimately derives from Latin "culter," meaning...
in the wind
Just happened across a remarkably poetic phrase that I've never heard used this way before. I was reading an article about a woman who stabbed an attacker; the woman fled...
New iPhone word game
Some day I'll review various iPhone word games that I like; in particular, Jumbline (also available in a free lite version) was my favorite until now. And it's still pretty...