"language" archive
Sunday 20 February
- Three times something equals bullshit - thinkness was sad to not have found any more triple mixers recently. Sad no more: "It's got to be the beginning of a thaw. It's like a family that got a divorce. You have to kiss before you go to... Posted in language
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Tuesday 18 January
- Verbs that are anatomy - While thinkness is getting its language dork on, I'll add one more category of words: body parts that are verbs [and not just meaning "hit something with that part of the body," like "knee"]. Brain, foot, eye [sorta lame], nose,... Posted in language
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- Verbs that are animals - One of the greatest lines ever to emerge from The Simpsons [not "the Simpsons," mind you -- check the masthead] was when Homer was dropping some sage fatherly science on Bart: "Son, weaselling out is what separates us from the... Posted in language
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- Words that are bad - thinkness was just emailing with the official older brother of thinkness when thinkness mentioned that you could tell the exact name of a newspaper by its "masthead." [The context was a question about when newspapers are "The Stinkstown Post," or... Posted in language
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Wednesday 12 January
- The word of the year - The professional language nerds just picked their word of the year at their annual meeting. They chose "red/blue/purple states," which isn't so great in and of itself, but how they arrived there is a funny story. I was also highly... Posted in language
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Saturday 25 December
- Guess what, kiddies - thinkness is back. Oh yes. And just like the official shower of thinkness [ie, the shower in my apartment] that backed up a couple of months ago, I am oh so backed up with ideas [okay, yes, the shower doesn't... Posted in language
, the lethal literal
, thinking progress
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Monday 26 July
- The recipe for a great team - Sport is one of the most cliche-ridden ventures around (probably just behind journalism), so it's not so surprising to see this quote from Rangers GM John Hart pop up on ESPN.com: "'But I'm not going to short-circuit this plan we've... Posted in language
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Wednesday 21 July
- Words for worlds - Astrobiologists are stoked that the OED just added 'astrobiology' to its authoritative pages. About time this modern, very interdisciplinary study is getting broad attention. Also interesting to see the little discussion about the roots of the word and what exactly... Posted in language
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Wednesday 7 July
- Apostrophe placement is important - "The stadium loudspeakers blare 'We're Not Going To Take It' so loud that all three of the team mascot's ears bleed." Heh.... Posted in language
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Thursday 24 June
- Cleavers a-plenty - Thanks be to Axel, for he hath shown me the folly of my ways. It turns out that there are many 'cleavers,' or words that are there own opposites. There's a whole other name for them: autoantonyms. (Pretty dreary, no?... Posted in language
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Sunday 20 June
- Cleavers - I woke up today thinking about words that can be their own opposites, depending on their degree and the connotation of the word. 'Righteous,' 'sentimental,' and 'decadent' can all be either good or bad, depending on how they're used. Consulting... Posted in language
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Friday 18 June
- Triple mixer strikes back - Tom Hanks, discussing why it's better to be an actor than a politician: "I'd much rather be able to carve that out of popular culture as opposed to becoming yet another cog in the polarized 24-hour wheel of news." This... Posted in language
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Monday 31 May
- atlantic humor - "Mark Twain once said that comedy is British, wit is French and humor is American." I probably shouldn't be so charmed by pat generalizations like this. But I am. Still don't know how Jerry Lewis fits into this.... Posted in color
, language
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Tuesday 25 May
- high-low-first - The other day I looked up "primacy" in the dictionary, just to make sure I knew what was really going on. The first definition from American Heritage, via Dictionary.com: "The state of being first or foremost." You don't need to... Posted in language
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Friday 14 May
- Nice butt - That's not how they said it in Greece 2,500 years ago. They said 'callipygian,' meaning, 'having beautifully proportioned buttocks.' Thanks to Slate for pointing this out in their slideshow about casting the role of Helen of Troy.... Posted in language
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Tuesday 4 May
- Politics in a nutshell - Daniel Patrick Moynihan achieved thinkness' favorite combination of insight and smooth verbiage when he said, "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics... Posted in color
, language
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Monday 3 May
- "Real-world issues" - Ron Rosenbaum writes a very interesting story in the NYObserver about management-consultant bullshit taking over journalism. He says it may have created the atmostphere where USAToday star reporter Jack Kelley could print lies for a decade. The connection between management-consultanting... Posted in language
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Thursday 29 April
- Sick man dragged to exuberance - I like the main conceit of this Thomas Friedman column: "Even through my jet lag, I can see that the sick man of Asia, otherwise known as the Japanese economy, just jumped out of bed and is now running laps... Posted in language
, the lethal literal
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| 86 Comments
Monday 12 April
- The proof has left the pudding - Apparently, my favorite saying is wrong. "The proof is in the pudding" is supposed to be, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." According to some guy named John Powers, anyway. And I have been misusing the word... Posted in color
, language
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Friday 26 March
- The triple mixer - A Kerry financial advisor said, "each plank in and of itself is not a silver bullet, but a building block toward a comprehensive plan." Everybody got that? The best thing I've seen since Ari Fleischer's triple mixer back in October.... Posted in language
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- Color - Time for wasting - "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - Bertrand Russell, via Mark Robinson in Wired... Posted in color
, language
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Tuesday 23 March
- English history - I've always been interested in how modern English was formed from Old English and French/Latin influences. This site reveals a quick history about it. Neat stuff. I'm happy that it mentions that sometime in the 13th century, the French word... Posted in language
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Monday 22 March
- Color -- Dynastic memories - Talking Points Memo says -- referring to the Bush admin's idiotic clutching to old, Cold War-era threats -- "As Talleyrand said of the restored Bourbons, they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing during their time in exile." Well said, especially... Posted in color
, language
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Saturday 7 February
- Color -- animatronic Lincoln - That's the whole quote right there. It's in reference to John Kerry [who happily points out that his initials are JFK], from Mickey Kaus via Michael Kinsley's latest Slate column. I love animatronics -- there's something so spellbinding about those... Posted in language
, monkey vs robot
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Thursday 5 February
- Cutter Kennedy - Last year a whole fracas emerged surrounding ads using John Kennedy's likeness to sell Bush's income-tax cut. Kennedy, Bush said, was a tax cutter, and his tax cuts helped the economy. Ted Kennedy, John's younger brother, got pissed. ['Don't you... Posted in color
, language
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Monday 19 January
- Literal watch strikes back - Part I: I was at a meeting last week in which one presenter said a former art teacher told him, "The paint literally explodes off the canvas." Wow. Art rocks. Part II: Paul Krugman says, "Mr. Bush has, of course,... Posted in language
, the lethal literal
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Tuesday 30 December
- Color - President Cool - 'Man, though less than some male mammals, exhibits the "Coolidge effect": a new female refreshes his libido. The effect is named after the famous story about President Calvin Coolidge and his wife beig shown around a farm. Learning that a... Posted in color
, language
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- Color - capitalist kingpin - 'Humphrey began an essay on the topic with the story of how Henry Ford once asked his representatives to find out which parts of the Model-T never went wrong. They came back with the answer that the kingpin had never... Posted in color
, language
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Sunday 28 December
- Color -- proof negative - Ridley uses three different metaphors to convey the idea of observation that falls short of proof. None of them are individually good enough to earn their way to thinkness' esteemed Chronic section, but in toto they squeak by: 'A man... Posted in color
, language
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Monday 22 December
- Color - Flying abhors a vacuum - I really like this line from Kant, as quoted in a book by Robert Fogelin, as quoted in a story by Edward Rothstein: '[A dove] cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its... Posted in color
, language
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| 172 Comments
Wednesday 10 December
- Literally not literally - Okay, I've been gone for long. But I'm back. I was sick and travelling. It seems that blogging, for me, is kind of like exercising: easy to do when you're doing it, tough when you lost the momentum. My brother... Posted in language
, the lethal literal
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Monday 17 November
- Color -- Rules of the dance - Another good example from this weekend, in regard to politicians' relationships with their campaign contributors: 'You gotta dance with them what brung you.' Sad but true.... Posted in color
, language
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- Color -- Looking down the barrel of the press - At a long meeting this weekend, someone, referring to taking on the media, said, 'Don't get into an argument with the guy who buys ink by the barrel.' Great saying, but we were talking about this in close proximity to... Posted in color
, language
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- McD's bitching -- a Kroc of shit - McDonald's is complaining about the Merriam-Webster dictionary's addition of McJob, meaning dead-end drudgery. They say it's a slap in the face to thousands of employees, and possibly a violation of the company's trademark on 'McJobs', a decade-old program to give... Posted in language
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Monday 10 November
- Color -- homosexual dilettantism - According to this article on how society has viewed homosexuality, Voltaire once experimented with homosexual sex, just to see what it was like. When his devoted-homosexual partner entreated him to repeat the experiment -- surely for the sake of science... Posted in color
, language
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Tuesday 21 October
- You may find yourself: Wondering why I'm posting this stuff - Why do I post this kind of stuff [like the previous post about Randy Moss] on the site? Why post this basically meaningless shit about how people overuse the 'shocked, shocked' line? Why post this stuff about Randy Moss' Bush-like... Posted in language
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Monday 20 October
- Moss does time warp [again] - This Sunday, Randy Moss, the most exciting man to ever catch a football, completed a phenomenal and outrageous play at the end of the first half in the Vikings' game against the Broncos. Moss absorbed a long bomb from Daunte... Posted in language
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Tuesday 14 October
- Floating on exaggeration - Heh. I saw this article that committed one of the funniest fallacies I know of, and I see it everywhere. ''I'm not worried about a military quagmire,'' says a congressman. ''People worry about a financial quagmire in a country literally... Posted in language
, the lethal literal
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Wednesday 8 October
- Searching for that perfect pear - My mom, in an email consoling me about the unfathomable world of romance, says she recently saw a plate that said, in Italian, 'When the time is right, the pear falls from the tree.'... Posted in color
, language
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Tuesday 7 October
- Ministry of Obfuscatory Nomenclature - Corporations have been using greenwashing and related lying schemes for a while in order to hide from people what they're really doing. [Sometimes their puppets are branded as 'astroturf groups', vis a vis the bona fide grass roots ones.] Now... Posted in language
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Friday 3 October
- Everyone doesn't know how right they are - A couple days ago I came across the most interesting article I've seen since that Scientific American one about synesthesia a couple weeks back. This new one was so rich that I had to let it settle for a couple... Posted in language
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Thursday 2 October
- Shocktopus III - A few months ago, I started cataloguing people's [over?]use of the Casablanca quote "shocked, shocked!" It's all over the place. Today: The overlapping power circles of government and journalism were shocked -- shocked! -- this week by reports of yet... Posted in language
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Monday 22 September
- Clashing color - Disclaimer: I don't usually comb the fashion section of the NYTimes looking for quasi-celebrity wedding announcements. But today I found word that Jonathan Frankel, who apparently is some teevee personality, is marrying a '9/11 widow'. For a guy who makes... Posted in color
, language
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- Puddin' - 'The proof is in the puddin' -- one of my favorite phrases of all-time. I'm going to immediately start getting into some of the ideas I want to steer toward in this new incarnation of thinkness, so as to show... Posted in language
, monkey vs robot
, psychology & consciousness
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Thursday 4 September
- Deep regret - pot calling the fridge black - Okay, I've totally gotten out of posting to my 'chronic' columns of late. I think it's somewhat related to the fact that I don't feel like manually entering them all into my blog page. But perhaps at some point I'll... Posted in language
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Wednesday 30 July
- Color -- words from the good doctor - How could I blog for this long without having any Freud here? In a quite interesting LA Mag story on Mickey Kaus, RJ Smith cites a quote from psychoanalysis' dad: "the narcissism of small differences", which, he says, Democrats and... Posted in color
, language
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Tuesday 29 July
- Color -- life during peacetime - A Slate article discussing the movie Buffalo Soldiers, which is getting jerked around because it's anti-military or whatever, cites a Nietzche quote: "Where there is peace the warlike man attacks himself."... Posted in color
, language
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Wednesday 9 July
- Color -- calm strength - I'm glad I came across a particular reason to link to this City Pages article from a [former?] friend of Christopher Hitchens' lamenting and wondering what has happened to him to make him such a bitter crank. Good story. I... Posted in color
, language
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Monday 23 June
- Deep regret -- real entertainment - This is an old story that I meant to post long ago. The NYTimes ran a good expose on how CBS tried to secure exclusive rights to interview Jessica Lynch by using owning-company Viacom's ability to make her a star... Posted in language
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- Color abounds - There's so much color in this Safire column about the Davis recall effort I don't know where to start. Yes I do: Yesterday my brother said that people would start saying that if the cali gubernatorial recall effort succeeds and... Posted in color
, language
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Wednesday 11 June
- Deep regret -- my bullshit meter's going off the charts! - A federal judge just made a decision that broadened attorney-client privileges to include client-PR flack communications. Just more bullshit, if you ask me. Also sort of ridiculous to think that people who can afford PR losers will get an edge... Posted in language
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Tuesday 3 June
- Color -- ain't that the truth - Finally I'm getting a Texan into my color chronic section: 'Error runs around the world before the truth can get its boots on.' I should probably just troll Ivins and Hightower columns to get color bits. Or I could just... Posted in color
, language
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- Color -- processed programming - FCC Commish Jonathan Adelstein on the new, more permissive ownership rules: 'If this is the toaster with pictures, soon only Wonder Bread will pop out.' By the way, if you read the comments from the five commissioners [available at FCC... Posted in color
, language
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Monday 2 June
- Communitarians unite! - Didn't take long before I came across another textbook example of conservatives and liberals unified by their communitarian leanings. Steven Pinker writes in the Globe ideas section: 'In his book ''Our Posthuman Future'' (just released in paperback), the conservative thinker... Posted in color
, language
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Thursday 29 May
- Shocktopus II - I'm so on the ball that this is actually a shocktopus sighting from today: 'Despite many Dems' protestations that they are shocked--shocked!--that Bush refuses to adequately fund...' blah blah blah. Then there's some other stuff about politics or something. I... Posted in language
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- Shocktopus I - For your benefit, good reader, I am crawling the web and with my numerous tentacles gathering up every use one horrendously hackneyed phrase that just keeps popping up in various snarky articles no matter how much I wish it would... Posted in language
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Monday 26 May
- Color -- what's close? - Adam Clymer [the famous 'major-league asshole' from the 2000 presidential campaign] today wrote the second part of his Democrats-are-up-shit-creek-wif-no-paddle. And in one swift stroke explained the sourcing for one of my brother's favorite phrases: 'As George C. Wallace once said,... Posted in color
, language
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Sunday 25 May
- Deep regret -- strong dollar or bullshit market? - This past week there was a big financial furor over whether the US still supported a 'strong dollar policy' as implemented first by Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Current T-boss John Snow said the US still did advocate a strong... Posted in language
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Monday 12 May
- Deep regret -- Drug news at 11 - Ohmigod this is ridiculous. Melody Peterson of the NYTimes exposes two extremely dodgy companies that exploit newscasters' celebrity and credibility to hawk their pharmaceuticals. Of course, these companies take money from their big drug clients. Isn't there a slight chance... Posted in language
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Thursday 10 April
- deep regret -- intention - deep regret -- intention A white Republican state representative has helped me to delineate and explicate the nature of the "deep regret" chronic piece in real-time. The legislator, Fred Brummer, said during to another legislator during a House session that... Posted in language
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Tuesday 8 April
- color -- know your phalluses - color -- know your phalluses Here is a dope comic Eric sent me [this is the second section out of four]. Here's the color: "Some women just haven't gotten used to having a pet Talib around the camp. They've been... Posted in color
, language
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| 308 Comments
- deep regret -- let's call a spade a diamond - deep regret -- let's call a spade a diamond Here's one from a while ago that I wanted to put up on the blog before I forget. It's a good Molly Ivins story about corporate PR. Good quotes, such as,... Posted in language
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Thursday 3 April
- color -- the sammich - color -- the sammich General Tony McPeak getting interviewed by the Oregonian: Oregonian: "There is an argument here, which is that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological and nuclear know-how . . . that the Iraqi government could... Posted in color
, language
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| 185 Comments
- Color -- The Sandbox - I'm introducing another chronic entry to thinkness. This one's called 'color'. It's just a collection of colorful analogies and metaphors related to news and ideas and anything that interests me. Here's the first: color -- the sandbox My father sent... Posted in color
, language
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Saturday 29 March
- deep regret #1 - deep regret #1 This is the story that convinced me I would eventually launch some kind of catalog of this one particularly heinous type of insult to the human race as well as to Truth, as a sort of Platonic... Posted in language
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