Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 51

• Bay State Model Railroad Museum Open House

  By ljd42 on March 9, 2020

  So you’ve never heard of the Bay State Model Railroad Museum? Well, it exists, even if you haven’t heard of it. It’s very small — but yes, it does exist and seems to be thriving, right in the heart of… Read More ›

• What difference could a few zeroes make? Zero is nothing, isn’t it?

  By ljd42 on March 8, 2020

  

  Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. population is 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million check and still have money left over. I feel like a $1 million check would be life-changing for most people…. Read More ›

• Which is better, having or wanting?

  By ljd42 on March 7, 2020

  

  “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” — Mr. Spock in “Amok Time.” I’ve recently been watching various recommended episodes… Read More ›

• “Any Dem will do.”

  By ljd42 on March 5, 2020

  Vote Blue, no matter who! And here is the inestimable Randy Rainbow: In case you don’t know the original for this song, check out how Randy compares to Donny Osmond.

• Dim sum at Chau Chow

  By ljd42 on March 4, 2020

  

  During a brief break from her 14-hour stint as an election warden at the polls yesterday, Barbara and I had a delicious dim sum lunch at Chau Chow on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester. Since it’s a weekday, there were not… Read More ›

• Words for Granted

  By ljd42 on March 3, 2020

  

  Don’t take words for granted. But do take Words for Granted. What can that possibly mean? Words for Granted is a pop-linguistics “podcast about how words change over time,” in their own words. They’re going strong at 83 episodes so… Read More ›

• Tsundoku: The practice of buying more books than you can read

  By ljd42 on March 1, 2020

  

  The Japanese have a word for it. According to Melissa Breyer, “tsundoku” describes piling up books to save for later… even if you’ll never actually read them. Thank you, Betsy Miessner, for this link. I don’t speak Japanese (despite a few… Read More ›

• What’s wrong with grammar.com?

  By ljd42 on February 29, 2020

  

  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 ›

• Wrong address?

  By ljd42 on February 28, 2020

  

  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

  By ljd42 on February 26, 2020

  

  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…

  By ljd42 on February 25, 2020

  

  …even when the furnace isn’t working.  

• Can a man write a good novel? Or can only a woman do that?

  By ljd42 on February 24, 2020

  

  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?

  By ljd42 on February 22, 2020

  

  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?

  By ljd42 on February 20, 2020

  

  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?

  By ljd42 on February 18, 2020

  

  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

  By ljd42 on February 16, 2020

  

  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

  By ljd42 on February 14, 2020

  

  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!

  By ljd42 on February 13, 2020

  

  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!

  By ljd42 on February 11, 2020

  “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

  By ljd42 on February 10, 2020

  

  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 ›

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