Updated 2 years ago
Sit back, finish some of those Thanksgiving leftovers and take a moment to reflect on the past four years.
What They Wanted
What They Got (I made this!)
What We Wanted
What We Got
And now… the aftermath… our current zeigeist… mon pièce de résistance…. if you watch nothing else today, watch this.
News
- Grammarphobia: Blog | Grammarphobia
- languagehat.com
Q: In the phrase “spick and span,” the word “spick” seems to be bound to “span.” It doesn’t stand on its own. Is there a concept for words that are […]
Q: I am reading Ben-Hur (1880) by Lew Wallace and I have come across a word, “lewen,” that I cannot find in any dictionary. It appears to be an architectural […]
Q: I’m perplexed by the use of “bad boy” to refer to an object. For example, a tool: “This bad boy is very useful.” Can you shed light on this […]
Q: I couldn’t find anything on the verb “gress,” yet it forms the root of many often used words today. How about a take on the apparently outdated verb and […]
Q: I once heard that “jealousy” is a feeling about someone we think we have a right to (such as an intimate partner) and “envy” is a feeling about something […]
Q: Why do we say “roof of the mouth” rather than “ceiling”? A friend asked me this and I had no idea but I thought maybe you would. A: The […]
Q: Your recent post about “repair” refers to guests who “repaired to the drawing room.” That made me wonder about the origin of “drawing room.” I doubt it was ever […]
Q: This kind of construction always puzzles me: “He built his home on the banks of the Ohio River.” Can the plural “banks” refer to the land on just one […]
Q: Have you ever looked into “after” in the context of “What y’after?” I can’t see any relationship between the “behind” and the “pursuing” meanings of the word. A: Both […]
Q: I am trying to find the source of the expression “emotional baggage,” but references seem few and far between. Any pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. […]
Q: I recently came across the use of “donjon” for an inner tower of a castle. I assume the word is somehow related to “dungeon.” A: Yes, both English words, […]
Q: How did the verb “repair” come to mean to move to another place as well as to fix something? A: The verbs “repair” (to fix) and “repair” (to go) […]
Q: Where does the expression “talking head” originate from? And why has it become so pejorative? A: When the term first appeared in the mid-19th century, it referred to mythical […]
[Note: In observance of Memorial Day, we’d like to share an article that Stewart wrote for United Press International in 1971 about the last day in the life of an […]
Q: Where does the expression “off the cuff” come from? A: The use of “off the cuff” to mean without preparation apparently comes from notes jotted on one’s shirt cuffs. […]
Q: I see the verb “critique” used all the time in place of what I believe is the correct word—“criticize.” I thought “critique” meant to analyze the pros and cons, […]
Q: My wife asked me about the expression “happy as a clam,” and I had to admit I knew nothing about it. But I am sure you do. A: English […]
Q: I first heard the expression “one of the best there is” in a game from 2011, and it’s been on my mind ever since. Shouldn’t it be “one of […]
Q: Where did the expression “claw back” (referring to money) come from? It seems to be a fairly recent usage. A: The phrasal verb “claw back” is heard a lot […]
[Note: In recognition of the Passover and Easter holidays, we’re republishing a post that originally ran on May 23, 2022.] Q: Why do the words for Passover and Easter sound […]
A reader sent me Edward Denny’s Atlas Obscura post World’s Largest Pewter Tankard, saying: There are a few things of linguistic interest here, including a few little puns, but the […]
Seamus Perry reviews Zachary Leader’s Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker for the LRB (Vol. 47 No. 16 · 11 September 2025; archived), and I find […]
The Guardian story I’m posting (by Kate Connolly) is adequately represented by its headline: Doorbell prankster that tormented residents of German apartments turns out to be a slug. Here are […]
I’m very fond of this poem by Michael Symmons Roberts from the new TLS (which has gone over to a biweekly schedule, shock horror!), but the reason I’m posting it […]
Matthew Scarborough has featured at LH many times (see, e.g., here), and he has now posted The Indo-European Cognate Relationships dataset (Scientific Data 12. 1541): This is somewhat old news […]
Two letters from the latest LRB column (Vol. 47 No. 16 · 11 September 2025; archived): Colin Kidd, writing about Stefan Collini’s history of English studies in Britain, mentions that […]
Here’s a beautiful example of a garden-path sentence that needed additional context to disentangle. I was wondering how the cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw pronounced her name, and as is my […]
Barbara Newman reviews two Boccaccio books for the LRB (Vol. 47 No. 14 · 14 August 2025; archived): Histories of Italian literature begin with the Tre Corone or Three Crowns: […]
Back in June I posted to Facebook as follows: OK, I need to know what to make of what appears to be a meaningless sentence in Paige Williams’ article on […]
I recently came upon the Wiktionary page Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/tewk- and was struck by the wide semantic divergence involved. The reconstructed meaning is ‘germ, seed, sprout, offspring’ (presumably based on Indo-Iranian *táwkma), […]
The indefatigable Bathrobe has sent me a couple of good links I hereby share with you: 1) Arthur Waley’s “Notes on Translation” (The Atlantic, November 1958; archived) has lots of […]
Some interesting words I’ve run across recently: 1) I was watching Jia Zhangke’s movie Ash Is Purest White, about a couple involved in the (pretty petty) underworld milieu of Datong, […]
Jonathan Law writes about misprints in editions of poetry; he is either way too fond of such typos or is pretending to be for the purposes of pleasing his audience, […]
Zach Helfand’s “The History of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department” (archived) is an excellent read and scratches an itch I’ve had for years (“how does that work, anyhow?”); it […]
1) From Hua Hsu’s New Yorker piece “The Otherworldly Ambitions of R. F. Kuang” (archived): As [Rebecca] Kuang stirred a pot of pasta, I asked Eckert-Kuang [Kuang’s husband] about his […]
Michael Idov (“a Latvian American novelist and screenwriter”) has a NY Times piece (archived) on a subject that has often exercised me: the terrible names English-speaking authors come up with […]
Andrew Van Dam of the Washington Post decided to investigate the question What are the most American and most British words? (archived). After a long thumb-sucking introduction (“And for columnists […]
Victoria Livingstone writes about the ever-more-pressing issue of using machine-translated texts to save money: I lived in Latin America for several years and I speak Spanish fluently, but I am […]
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The Fire and Fury Inside the Trump White House – Michael Wolff – 2016
The Mass Psychology of Fascism – 1933
The Open Society And Its Enemies – Karl Popper – 1962
The Wealth Of Nations – Adam Smith – 1776
BONUS:
My Political Platform
I thought it would be fun to put it on paper to finally get it out of my system, so here’s my “enlightened libertarian moderate” platform. Basically, it’s a generous welfare state with conscription and dog-eat-dog capitalism.
Call this my 21st Century Moderately Progressive Libertarian platform.
Elect me president and I will..
Militia
– Ask not what your country can do for you
-This is the cornerstone, and would probably require a constitutional amendment. Mandatory 2-year coed military service at age 18, which includes a generous tuition for college or technical training afterward. Let’s call it Militia. You can opt-out with a hefty cash payment, or just not make it past boot camp, but you permanently lose the benefits of citizenship – the right to vote, run for public office, be on juries, and bear arms. If Militia is missed for whatever reason, citizenship could be earned later than age 18, but the financial reward would be eliminated and the length of service would be extended somewhat.
Handicapped people (or asthma, autism, etc) would go though special needs boot camps and work in support/IT.
In peacetime Militia would work in either peacekeeping operations led by the UN or NATO or work in FDR-style federal works programs and law enforcement.
Militia would solve many problems such as unnecessary wars, student debt, and youthful ennui. Also, all immigrants would be required to perform this service, even having spanish (or Cantonese!) only brigades. Quakers and others religious groups can qualify for conscientious objector status (if a nonmilitary support role isn’t peaceful enough for them) but the benefits of citizenship will be denied.
Voting and Electoral
-Eliminate the electoral college
-Massively invest into blockchain open-source election software development
Economy
-Lower corporate taxes and regulation
-Raise personal taxes, keep it progressive, eliminate all deductions
-Eliminate the minimum wage completely
-End all farm and coal subsidies
-Promote a 100% paperless cashless government
-Put reduction of our national debt as a top priority of government policy.
-Return to the gold standard, possibly somehow converting the dollar into a Bitcoin style currency
-Abolishing all corporate welfare, including the Import-Export Bank
-Abolishing all non-environmental regulation of agriculture, including subsidies. Large scale hemp cultivation re-legalized and taxed.
-Support and expand all free trade agreements.
-No corporation is too big to fail. Creative destruction must be embraced.
-Moderate slavery reparations via postgraduate degrees
Environment
-Expand environmental regulation with carbon credits; solar and wind power credits greatly expanded
-Maintain EPA at current levels. Halt Keystone.
Foreign Policy
-Stop being the global policeman – do not take sides in international conflicts, especially in the Middle East. We should have not meddled in Libya, Syria, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam – basically every conflict since Korea. This includes Israel, which although is a natural ally and is our friend and a beacon of light democracy and hope in the Middle East, is mighty enough to stand on its own. However, if Israel is ever invaded, help them to the utmost. Update 2022: EXCEPT UKRAINE!
-Push for a free Kurdistan carved from parts of Turkey Syria and Iran as a free economic zone to encourage investment to pay for reparations for surrounding governments.
-Don’t give Putin an inch.
-Be a fire breathing, drone using hawk when it comes to nukes.
-Halt all international aid programs
-Increase special ops and drone technology and expand Obama’s reliance on use of drones and Bin Laden-style assassinations.
-Close Guantanamo
Education
Encourage privatization with school choice and vouchers.
Health & Homefront
-Keep Obamacare, expand to single-payer but limit the spending for those over 65 to manageable levels commensurate to the young.
-Offer free counseling, rehab, and jobs to all drug and alcohol addicts in FDR-style federal work projects.
-Relax FDA restrictions of orphan drugs (i.e. smart drugs, performance-enhancing supplements proven to be safe)
-Legalize and normalize assisted suicide
-Expand abortion rights
-Eliminate private prisons
-Allow handguns and rifles and open carry to remain legal, but ban all assault rifles, increase screening, increase penalties for gun violations, offer buybacks for guns
-Legalize drugs on the federal level but offer funds for state-level enforcement. Take all savings and reinvest into drug treatment programs
Law and Order/Immigration
-Heightened sentences for violent offenders and crime in general, with financial penalties significantly increased
-Legalizing all drugs on the federal level including cocaine, meth, and heroin and immediately releasing all drug prisoners. Tax drugs. States however are free to regulate as they see fit and would play a key role in preventing a return to the Great Binge of the late 1800s.
-Offer free housing to homeless people, it’s cheaper than what we have now. Possibly put them to work with Militia
-Eliminate the death penalty, which while deeply gratifying from a social vengeance perspective has frankly proven to be too costly and sometimes we killed the wrong guy.
-Relaxing gun control laws, but requiring insurance.
-Beefing up federal internet law enforcement, possibly a whole new Federal Internet Crime bureau
-Expand immigration for those with high-tech skills
-Make Militia mandatory for able-bodied immigrants for citizenship. Immigrants who do any crime within 10 years of military service get deported and recorded into an expanded national database.
-Rather than focus on keeping immigrants out, I would focus on making them prefer their own neighboring countries. Militia can help them on public projects, schools hospitals, and crime control.
-Work more with local churches and synagogues in sponsoring persecuted Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, etc.
I wouldn’t have a chance of winning… “Hi, elect me, I’m gonna put all you Millennials in boot camps.”
Infographics
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