Learning Strategies

The Dry

By ljd42 on March 8, 2026

This is not a review. More of a warning, I suppose. The reason it’s not a review is that I can’t write one for a book that I didn’t finish, and I didn’t even come close to finishing Jane Harper’s… Read More ›

Recent Posts

Picard: Welcome to the Sticks!

By ljd42 on March 6, 2026

No, no — not that Picard! Not Jean-Luc. I’m talking about the language called Picard, not the Star Trek character. You say you’ve never heard of that language? Well, read on… First, take a good look at the map below…. Read More ›
Taunton vs. Colmar?

By ljd42 on March 4, 2026

Several decades ago — at this point I don’t remember exactly how many — I was traveling in France and happened to stop in Strasbourg and Colmar because of recommendations in a guidebook. These two are not by a long… Read More ›
The Little Altar Boy

By ljd42 on March 2, 2026

No, not the song by that name, nor the TV series. What I’m reviewing here is the 2020 crime novel of that name, written by John Guzlowski. (Why, you ask, am I so late to read and review it? It’s… Read More ›
A special brunch at Tavolo

By ljd42 on March 1, 2026

As I enter my 80th year of life — and no, that does not mean that I’m 80; do the math again! — Barbara and I celebrated with a delicious brunch at our favorite local restaurant, Tavolo. Barbara had a… Read More ›
Time to snuggle

By ljd42 on February 23, 2026

Cassie and Barnaby say it’s time to snuggle together during the blizzard:
Death of the Party

By ljd42 on February 22, 2026

Take one part gothic thriller, two parts cozy mystery clichés, and three parts Agatha Christie, stir them all up and you get Carolyn Hart’s Death of the Party. It’s a serviceable combination of those components, but what stands out is… Read More ›
Everything you wanted to know about the Great Vowel Shift but were afraid to ask

By ljd42 on February 8, 2026

Odds are that you studied a European language back in high school — most likely Spanish or French, possibly German or Italian — and you quickly realized that the vowels in those languages are not pronounced as they are in… Read More ›
Streets of Minneapolis

By ljd42 on January 28, 2026
Definitely a bonded pair

By ljd42 on January 25, 2026
Who’s better at understanding written English — you or some random teen in South Korea?

By ljd42 on January 22, 2026

Statistically speaking, as a reader of this blog, you are most likely a native speaker of English, so surely you must understand written English better than a random South Korean teen. Right? Well, maybe so. Or maybe not. A recent… Read More ›
Cassie being Cute on Purpose

By ljd42 on January 20, 2026
Will the real John McWhorter please stand up? (No, no, that’s not the real one; that’s the AI John McWhorter!)

By ljd42 on January 18, 2026

John McWhorter is a professor of linguistics at Columbia University who is both a professional linguist and a popular linguist. In other words, he writes both for his colleagues and for the general public. He also podcasts for the latter… Read More ›
Milkweed

By ljd42 on January 16, 2026

After getting haircuts at SuperCuts, Barbara and I walked to the storefront right next door to it and ate brunch at Milkweed. What excellent geography we have here in Dorchester! Barbara had the traditional homemade house-made corned beef hash, which… Read More ›
They understand us across the pond.

By ljd42 on January 11, 2026

Trump claims that the USA has regained the respect of everyone across the globe, but the Marsh Family knows the truth:
A note from Langston Hughes to my dad

By ljd42 on January 10, 2026

Seventy years ago the great Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes penned this inscription in the front of my dad’s copy of Hughes’s A Pictorial History of the Negro in America. (Note that Hughes’s co-author, Milton Meltzer, added his own autograph… Read More ›
Enough is enuf.

By ljd42 on January 8, 2026

This book would have made an excellent New Yorker article. But a whole book? Not so much. All right, I suppose many a New Yorker article does feel like an entire book — but Enough is Enuf by Gabe Henry… Read More ›
Is Modern Hebrew a conlang?

By ljd42 on January 6, 2026

So I keep seeing references to posts on Reddit…and I always ignore them. But then I said to myself, “Why not give Reddit a chance? What’s there to lose?” That led me to sign up for a few subreddits in… Read More ›
Friends with words

By ljd42 on January 4, 2026

Yes, you read that correctly: the title really is Friends with Words, not the more familiar phrase Words with Friends. And even the correct phrase, Friends with Words, has at least two meanings (think about it). If you yourself are… Read More ›
This year’s traditional Christmas dinner

By ljd42 on December 26, 2025

In accordance with long-established tradition, Barbara and I went to Chau Chow yesterday for a delicious Christmas feast: beef noodle, Chinese broccoli, har gao, shumai, xiao long bao, shrimp paste in tofu skin, stuffed taro, and pan-fried noodles with jumbo… Read More ›

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About me

In 2018 I retired from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching math there; 2008 was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. After retiring from Weston, I continued to teach at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer (2024 was my 21st, as well as the program’s 21st!), and I recently supervised a student teacher through Simmons. For 21 years I taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA, and I used to serve on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.

I read, cook, and spend a lot of time building my model railroad. Did I mention reading? I also spend a lot of time reading. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, considering that I’m supposed to be retired, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our feline companions.

Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com