Author Archives
In 2018 I semi-retired by retiring from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. In 2023 I retired fully, adding in my 18 years at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer. For 21 years I had 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. 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 varying number of cats (once up to six, but now sadly down to one).
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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A glorious morning…
…say the purple morning glories next to our driveway:
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Diversity and majorities in Boston elections
Boston just had a preliminary election yesterday (more or less what other places call a primary, though it’s non-partisan). As you know from my post of September 22, one of the topics that I teach in my Quantitative Reasoning class is… Read More ›
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Batman uses linguistics! Who’d’a thunk it?
Yes, it’s a couple of days late for Batman Day — but that’s OK. I was astonished to learn that there are not just one but two episodes of School of Batman in which linguistics plays a major role. First… Read More ›
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Looking back from the 23rd Century
It’s too had that the Times editors had to write “The opinion piece below is a work of fiction,” but I guess nobody recognizes satire anymore. If they had managed to date it “September 23, 2021,” I don’t suppose anyone… Read More ›
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What is “quantitative reasoning”?
If you read this blog regularly, you know that I teach a course with the strange title of “Quantitative Reasoning.” What does that mean? I’ll describe the course in general, followed by specifics of all four units. Generally referred to… Read More ›
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Jiffy? Centijiffy? Decijiffy?
“I’ll be with you in a jiffy.” How long is a jiffy? What about a centijiffy? Before we get to the urgent question of how long a jiffy is, I want to comment on a surprising error (or is it… Read More ›
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People speak [insert language name here] really quickly, don’t they?
We’ve all had the experience of listening to someone speak an unfamiliar language and perceiving their speech as being particularly rapid. It seems like a stereotype — depending on the language, that is — so we’re naturally skeptical. Maybe it’s… Read More ›
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The answers you’ve been waiting for!
Here are answers to the puzzle from a few days ago, the one that asked you to identify 13 different languages: 1. French 2. Italian 3. Spanish 4. Portuguese 5. Ladino 6. Galician 7. Aragonese 8. Catalan 9. Occitan 10…. Read More ›
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What Has Become of You
Academic settings… disturbed and/or disturbing people… why do I keep reading such novels? Well, we know why the academic settings appeal to me. As for the characters, that’s harder to analyze. I suppose I’d like to understand some of the… Read More ›
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Gyu-Kaku
Gyu-Kaku recently opened a new restaurant at South Bay Center in Dorchester, its third location in Massachusetts (Harvard Square and Brookline predate it). This turns out to be an enormous chain — with over 700 restaurants world-wide, 90% of which… Read More ›
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Easier (perhaps?) languages to identify
A sentence is shown below in 13 different languages, which are obviously related but how many can you identify? Some of them are going to be easier than the languages on the Mars bar the other day. I can give a… Read More ›
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High Society
Why hadn’t I ever seen this movie before? I’m referring to the 1956 version of High Society, with a cast that includes Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Celeste Holm, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. Most importantly, it has lyrics and music by… Read More ›
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Literally
Kory Stamper’s typically excellent article in The Cut is literally the best thing ever. What did you think of that sentence? Did the figurative/emphatic use of literally bug you? If so — or even if not — you should read “The 300-Year… Read More ›
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Loner
Take a look: he’s a nerdy Jewish kid from New Jersey, known as a “nice guy,” intellectually passionate but awkward in social situations. He’s starting his first day as a Harvard freshmen. How could I resist this 2016 novel by… Read More ›
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Mars (the candy bar, not the planet)
The image below shows the trilingual wrapper of a candy bar abandoned by a film crew that had been shooting in South Boston near Dorchester. Can you figure out what the three languages are? Hint #1: I can’t speak any… Read More ›
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Blinded by the Light (the movie)
What a terrific movie! You don‘t have to be a Springsteen fan to find it inspirational and completely engaging. You also don‘t have to be South Asian or British, even though your point of view would inevitably be affected if… Read More ›
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Social gatherings
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Because Internet
Every language changes, as I occasionally have to remind my non-linguist friends when they complain about this or that. Some languages change more than others — English, for example, has changed much more quickly and more dramatically than, say, Icelandic… Read More ›
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{Korean, Arabic} Script Hacking for Beginners
No. “Script hacking” does not refer to writing programs in JavaScript — or even AppleScript. In this context it refers to exploring and playing with a non-Roman alphabet. At this point, Teach Yourself Library has published five books in the Script… Read More ›
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The Blarney Stone
Barbara had to work late continuing the endless task of cleaning out the Trybe house, so we went to the Blarney Stone around the corner for dinner. It was (perhaps surprisingly) really good — and (more surprisingly) it was relatively… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 