Yes, the definite article makes a difference…not because we’re being pedantic, but because we’re being attentive to anagrams and acrostics. Here’s the problem: I’m talking, of course, about the recent PBS Masterpiece series by Anthony Horowitz, titled Magpie Murders, as… Read More ›
When people find out that I’m a math teacher, the most common response among adults over 30 is “I was never any good at math.” An excellent short article in the Harvard Gazette recently explained what’s going on here. The… Read More ›
Speaking of women in libraries…this seems to be the time of year to read and review books about women in libraries, especially mysteries about them. After The Woman in the Library, my next example is The Department of Rare Books… Read More ›
And here is the full solution to the puzzle about telling time in Estonian. First the answers, in case you want to check your answers before following the link to the full solution: Challenge 1a. 9:25b. 11:45c. 2:30d. 3:15e. 6:35… Read More ›
“Everyone should marry a gay man at least once,” says Mary Rodgers (better known as the daughter of Richard Rodgers, but an important figure in her own right, and not just for Once Upon a Mattress) on page 128 of… Read More ›
You know the problem, right? If a girl is meek and submissive, she won’t impress the debate judges. If she is strong and assertive, the judges will call her an aggressive bitch and she won’t do well. So there’s no… Read More ›
Alex Bellos, on Atlas Obscura, has written a fine linguistics/math puzzle about telling time in Estonian. No knowledge of Estonian is required (in fact, it would spoil the puzzle), nor is any advanced knowledge of math or linguistics expected. Here… Read More ›
According to Wikipedia, film noir comprises “stylish crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations.” So, what then is Jewish Noir? Moving the medium from film to short stories, we get a series (two books so far) edited by… Read More ›
A great article in The Spectator teaches us the history of language in Ukraine in the context of the rest of the history of the country. Author Norman Davies is remarkably thorough and thankfully straightforward, teaching us a lot in… Read More ›
Yet another entertaining Jersey Girl mystery by E.J. Copperman. This is the fourth. Although we’re firmly out in SoCal at this point, there are still enough reminders of her Jersey origins that you won’t forget where Sandy Moss, the protagonist,… Read More ›
Prescriptivists and right-wingers were all outraged back in Shakespeare’s day, when progressives and descriptivists started using the plural pronoun “you” to address a single person. It would be the death of the English language! How dare they try to change… Read More ›
If you are from either the New York or the Philadelphia area—and if you are of a certain age—you will fondly remember the Horn & Hardart Automat. And now there is a wonderful documentary about it, simply titled The Automat,… Read More ›
If you look cooly at the maps of common mispellings, paying attention to the miniscule details, it won’t take you a millenium to recognize that many of these words are frequently mispelled. The lists in those maps may or may… Read More ›
Not the book, not the musical: I’m talking about the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio along with Christopher Walken, Tom Hanks, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, and others that I haven’t heard of but you have. As you probably… Read More ›
I went up to the den to sit and read in the easy chair, with my feet on the ottoman. But Flicka, of course, was occupying the ottoman again, and William left no room in the easy chair, which was… Read More ›
Ordinarily you would never expect me to want to read a book with that title. Ordinarily I would never expect to want to read a book with that title. But it had been recommended to me by a reader I… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 