Word for the day: omphaloskepsis
omphaloskepsis: contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation. Etymology: New Latin, from Greek omphalos + skepsis examination Thanks go to my own mother for advising me today that this word actually exists.
Noteworthy entries.
To the Power of N
This is not about math. I just had a pre-somnolent image of a cluster of words that I just have to let out. In less pretentious language: I thought of this as I dozed off last night.
“A mnemonic pneumonic gnu’s knees.”
Nglish is a weird language. Note that of the 4 words that are all pronounced as though they start with en, none actually start with en. They also came from four different root languages to English (Latin, Greek, Khoikhoi, and German).
We are taught spelling in school as a sort of faith: This is how it is because it is. The root of spelling (in non-pictographic languages) is to produce a stream of characters (letters) to represent the series of sounds (phonemes) that make up each word. So why do we use three different letters for the same hard-K sound? Four if you count eks. Let’s knot forget the mental knife we use to silence kay itself in several common words. Why have we lost the letters for hard and soft ch? Greeks still use chi (χ is not x). Can you spontaneously spout the 5 pronunciations of “ough”?
Basically, why are so many words pronounced differently than they are spelled? The simple answer is, teenagers.
“Rapture Wreaks Havoc On Local Book Club”
Anyone familiar with The Onion already knows the publisher of this sad story. The headlines are often the best part of the story, and that's not to sleight the stories. Or check out this story: "MLB No Longer Accepting New Players" I don't know how those guys do it so well…
Spoof ads, anyone?
Madison Avenue is so clever these days that most commercials are, to some extent, fun to watch. Adbusters.org is working hard to top Madison Avenue, though, with its own spoof commercials. Some of these are quite well done. You'll find more of Adbuster's spoof ads here. Here's what Adbusters…
Astrophysicist Ashes: Sort of a Rambling Eulogy
Today is the first anniversary of my dad’s death. Yesterday I came home from the crematorium “with me dad took’d under me arm,” to badly paraphrase the children’s song about Ann Boleyn. Death doesn’t frighten me in an abstract way. I grew up with Tom Lehrer music, Charles Addams cartoons, Hitchcock short story books, and other foils to the timid mortal. This package of charred and calcined particles I carry in the crook of my arm is merely a transient monument to the man in whom they once dwelled.
Although my father died a year ago, his ashes just now returned from the medical school circuit. He was first and foremost an educator, and this seems a fitting final use for his corporeal remains. It was also was his expressed wish.
“Ashes to ashes” is a lame phrase to someone whose head was usually far beyond the clouds. I grew up perfectly aware that my body was made up of ashes from the remains of a supernova, as is the rest of our solar system. The even my cell nuclei are literally composed of decayed nuclear waste!
Not all of the mass of these coarse ashes was actually part of his body during his life. Cremation binds oxygen to any atom that will have it, increasing the total mass from the proteins being torn apart and vaporized by the process. Sort of like how 6 lbs (a gallon) of gasoline produces 30 lbs of greenhouse C02
It doesn’t …
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