Apparently there’s one four-letter word that “does great damage to way too many people.” No, not that word. This one is “like.” So says Edward Good, the developer of grammar.com; check out the excellent (and very short) article on this… Read More ›
Month: February 2020
Wrong address?
Somehow I suspect that they sent this to the wrong email address. Should I fill out the form? I do meet three of their criteria, after all.
Gaslight
Barbara and I had a special dinner last night at Gaslight, a “classic French restaurant in the South End of Boston” in their own words. The first thing to say is that they have free parking in their own parking… Read More ›
They know how to keep warm…
…even when the furnace isn’t working.
Can a man write a good novel? Or can only a woman do that?
I only read women. I know that men write books. But their lives are so limited. It’s such a small and narrow experience. That’s what famous author Marian Keyes says (in the Daily Mail of all places). It startles us in… Read More ›
Gender or gender?
Is sex the same thing as gender? When I was learning a little Latin and less French in middle school, I learned that gender was nothing but a grammatical category, having little or nothing to do with sex. Why should… Read More ›
Which languages are the most “efficient”? Which are the least?
Perhaps you’ve learned some Latin, or German, or Russian. If so, you probably don’t find those languages very “efficient”: they have too many fussy endings, too many details you have to pay attention to. If, however, you speak Mandarin, that… Read More ›
Can you say Buttigieg? Can you even say Klobuchar? What makes them so hard to pronounce?
We all try to say Mayor Pete’s name correctly — but most of us fail. That’s partly because we’re told that his neighbors pronounce it “Buddha judge” whereas his campaign insists on “Boot Edge Edge,” according to the New York… Read More ›
Valentine’s Day Dinner at Tavolo
Barbara and I had an excellent virtual-Valentine’s-Day dinner last night at Tavolo. (Yes, I know it was the “wrong” day: their Valentine’s specials lasted for two days!) We both had the combo of filet mignon, lobster tail, duchess potatoes, asparagus,… Read More ›
Weston wins! High School Quiz Show: Tantasqua vs. Weston
Congratulations to Weston High School for their impressive performance in the opening salvo of this year’s WGBH High School Quiz Show! Weston beat Tantasqua Regional by the comfortable margin of 555–440, despite the fact that Tantasqua’s team consisted of four… Read More ›
Mathematics Galore!
The aims of a mathematics masterclass and of this book are to enthuse educate inspire challenge audiences of young people, their parents and teachers, with the wonder, excitement, power, beauty, and relevance of modern mathematical ideas. So it says in… Read More ›
Listen and vote!
“The Day Democracy Died”: vote for whichever candidate the Democrats nominate! But first listen to this song. (Thanks for the link, David Schwartz!)
A very intensive language course
In my 1/30/2018 review of Our War I mentioned that one of the few war novels that I’ve read was Im Westen Nichts Neues, which I guess is translated as All Quiet on the Western Front in English, though I remember it in… Read More ›
How does the Washington Post know what you’re going to read and at what age you’ll read it?
Interesting post by one of my favorite novelists, Lev Raphael: “The Washington Post Claims To Know What You Read And When.” In case you decide not to read either Raphael’s post or the Washington Post column he describes, here is… Read More ›
Iowa and Ireland: election math
What happened in Iowa? Well, we don’t really know for sure how Mayor Pete managed to astonish everyone, but that’s not what I’m writing about here. And what does it have to do with Ireland anyway? The issue is one… Read More ›
The sister of English
No, not Paul English or Todd English — I mean the sister of English, as in the English language. Languages, like people, have family trees. If you’re French, you might be able to trace your family tree back to an ancient Roman… Read More ›
Which American dialect do you speak?
You and I don’t speak exactly the same version of American English. Our vocabulary, pronunciation, and maybe even syntax will vary, depending on geography (producing different dialects), socio-economic class (sociolects), and individual characteristics (idiolects). Many Americans are skilled at identifying… Read More ›
Map workshop at the BPL
Interactive historical local maps! Interactive historical local maps! Yesterday I attended a fascinating workshop at the Boston Public Library (JP branch), where we explored their new home-brewed web-based software for dynamically viewing historical changes in local maps and used it to… Read More ›
We need a respite from xenophobia.
Our xenophobic president is about to be acquitted of the high crimes and misdemeanors that he committed. His “alleged” actions have been proved, even according to Mitch McConnell’s good friend Senator Lamar Alexander (R, TN), who voted against additional witnesses… Read More ›
“There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen, Louise Penny, and Michael Connelly have nothing to do with each other. Nothing obvious, at any rate. But there’s an important connection that all these artists share, embodied by the quotation in the title to this post, which… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 