from the serious to the ridiculous
A9 had a site that offered street-level images of just about any address you looked up on the site. That was a few years ago. It disappeared.
But leave it to the good people at Googleville to not be outdone. Check this out, and good luck doing anything productive for the rest of the week.
People, possibly some like me, who spend the days in cafes and parks. As you all know, I have a full-time job. It’s just that I keep odd hours. What’s their excuse?
Forgot to mention a few other thoughts I had the other night.
There’s a pretty prominent Washington Post reporter named Dan Balz. Now, best I can tell, the pronunciation on the last name ends with a hard Z, as in “ts.” But in print, it may as well be “balls.”
With such a last name, other than Richard “Dick” Balz, there’s an opening for Harry Balz, Sandy Balz (ouch), and Randy Balz, to name just a few.
Have more “naughty” names in mind? Feel free to comment.
Push your glasses back up onto your nose, that is.
I’ve decided there are two basic types: Bridgers and Framers.
Bridgers use one or two fingers on the bridge of the frames, and let go a simple push back up the nose.
Framers grab the frames on one or the other side where they wrap around the lens, with a thumb and one or two fingers, actually grabbing the entire frame. They enact a slight lift, and then the slide back over the ears and up the nose.
I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest there are personality types enmeshed in this binary construction. For example, a friend of mine is a framer, while I’m more of a bridger. Our personalities are pretty similar. No major differences. So put away the pen and pad, Sigmund.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Both, maybe.
It wasn’t the first time it occurred to me, but last night, as I was trying to go to sleep, I thought about how odd it is that there are people, tons of them, out there named Dick. Most have the option of going by the full-length version, Richard, or other derivatives, such as Rich, Rick, I dunno … Chard?
But many choose Dick wittingly. Fine.
Can’t find the etymology on the slang use of the word “dick,” but I imagine it had to derive from the name. Can’t find a definitive source on the etymology of profane terms, unfortunately. Nor can I find a timeline, so it’s hard to say roughly when “dick” became derisive.
But why aren’t there any female equivalents? What would they be, assuming the word would have to come from a common name? Meg? Jane? Hard to imagine.
And while I’m on that topic, pity (and a spot of incredulity) goes out to guys named Richard Cox. Or, more to the point, Dick Cox. Some are somewhat famous. Or how about this gem?
Moving away from appellations for human beings, we arrive at this, the Dick Strong Boning Knife. Are they serious?
I guess I meant to make two points here. First, unless you’ve got a huge sense of self-mockery and/or a fetish for humiliation, there’s always a way around embarrassing names. My last name is Hunt, and my whole life I’ve been asked if I have relatives named Mike. Even if I did, a) why/how could the parents possibly bestow such a name, and b) please just go by Michael?
Secondly, I find it noteworthy that there are no female equivalents to Dick. Period.
Yes, I ended that title in a preposition. Get over it.
And, more to the point: Rudy Giuliani is the only Republican I’d even give a nanosecond’s thought to voting for.
Here he is today, in Houston, being sensible about hot-button topics.
A few months ago, Dwell’s website launched a staff-driven blog. It’s a well-presented assortment of world art and architecture goings on. Check it out.
First off, let me state for the record that I believe language does and should change, and we should do our best to temper that change while also giving into its vicissitudes.
There.
Now, what I’m commenting on here isn’t anything new or revelatory, dialectical or abstract. It’s a comment on the tendency, gaining in frequency in recent years, to tack the suffixes “ish” and “esque” to words to denote “like, but not fully.”
I started out a few years ago being more of an esque adherent. I didn’t put too much thought into it. Just liked the way esque sounded. You could say it sounded pleasantish.
Then (and I can’t pinpoint exactly when the change happened), I went over to the ish side. Now I’m fully convinced of the superiority of ish, and I’ll do my best to explain why I think that is.
Ish is easy. Ish is to the point. Ish is small(ish) and easy to type and say. It is both humble and comical, never pretentious. All its letters are put to good phonetic use.
Esque is too full of unused letters and sounds too highfalutin. I’m not saying it’s too French, or even too Latin (though it does have that feel). I have no problem with that aspect (and am a bit of a French-o-phile myself). It’s just cumbersome-ish, and clumsy, despite an elegant pedigree.
So, that’s my two cents. Regarding treatment in type, I vote for adding a hyphen to the end of words that end in vowels, and going with no hyphen for words ending in consonants. “Readyish”, but “late-ish.”