PS: When I was a kid, we would ask this question, but then everyone else would get to assign you a penalty. Like, if I *could* communicate in every human language, then perhaps I wouldn't be able to control what language I was speaking at any given time. Or, if you could fly, then you'd never be able to stand or walk again. If you got a lot of money, you'd get it but it would come in a single gold ingot that would land on you and maim your body for life.
Nobody ever wished for teleportation or control over gravity, but I might assign them the penalties of never being able to teleport to a place within sight of any other place you'd ever been, and not having control over gravity when you were asleep, meaning you risked injury and your furniture would be kindling in the morning.
(Also, we made sure you couldn't resolve all the problems that would come with granting a wish. That is, if you wished you could fly, it didn't meant that you could magically breathe at 30,000 feet, or that you wouldn't feel cold there. You would. Or if you had a lot of money, it didn't mean it would magically show up in your bank account. You'd still have to deal with the taxman, greedy relatives, and the problems of proving it was yours.)
Thanks, SideDish! Compliments are always welcome (though new word submissions are welcomed more). Now off to correct somebody's misunderstanding of the origin of the term "hot dog"...
Although it's always sad to note the passing of people who had an impact on the American consciousness, it looks like the "bundt pan" naming story is fanciful. The story has it that "55 years ago" Dalquist made the pan on request and came up with the name on the fly. However, there are much earlier citations for bundt recipes that prove Dalquist did not coin the name (nor did he invent the pan, which is also being claimed elsewhere).
The post linked below reprints information gathered by a colleague from the Settlement Cook Book. It shows the term and the cake were familiar at least as early as 1912. Note specifically the description of the pan: "Bundt form (a heavy round fluted pan with tube in center)."
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0106E&L=ads-l&P=R126
The 1903 edition of the same cookbook also included "bundt kuchen," which means something like "band cake," though a band cake is a different item.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0107D&L=ads-l&P=R1946
The only thing Mr. Dalquist gets credit for, I'm afraid, is trademarking a term that had already existed for at least 63 years. The trademark info can be seen here.
I keep looking for the Abu Ghraib-like conditions in his accounts. So far it's a perfectly average prison experience. (I read a lot of prison writing looking for prison slang...)
Wait a second. It says
"Houghton Mifflin Books for Children's
Curious George."
He belongs to the children? Is there an alternate adult Curious George? Is the "Adult's Curious George" work-safe?
Two more (although the "Just Fucking Google It" answer is right on: this is the second-oldest question on the Internet, after "Where can I see some titties?"):
Paper of RecordFactiva
Yay! Hem. Love me some Hem. I've seen them a few times (usually at Southpaw in Brooklyn) and a few weeks ago at Madison Square Park (not Garden; big difference) for a free outdoors show. Lovely stuff (and it doesn't hurt that the whole bad--there are, what, 400 people on stage?--are good-lookin.'
Nothing like Zara. Not even much like Wal-Mart. More like Grandpa Pigeon's without the hardware. Or the A&S or Bradlees stores in the NYC area.
I can't remember any of the details right now, and all my books are at home, but there's a great short story told by a Maghrebian woman about her first years in Paris, after her family had immigrated. At one point she's completely lost in the city, and does the unthinkable: she speaks to a cop. He asks her where she lives. She doesn't know, exactly, except that she lives near Tati. And that makes it all clear for him. He brings her back to Goutte D'Or, the neighborhood near the Tati mentioned above, and she recognizes where she is. Of course, folks there are nervous she has brought a cop to the neighborhood.
There are several overlaid points to be made in the story, the main one, for the moment, is that Tati is/was a landmark for a lot of non-rich Parisians.
Most of these "funny" signs come from church-industry newsletters and the like. The laff-lines are usually published with the intention of being used by subscribers. The newsletters are like any industry's journals: information on marketing, satisfying clients, retaining business, building mind and market share, dealing with problem clients, managing the business financially, etc.
I like all the fun and loving ideas here, but:
Doom spells the lack of social restraint. Your hotel would be invaded by people trying to rape your sisters. The waitstaff there would have killed the boss and stuffed him in an industrial clothes dryer, then looted all the seafood in the hotel restaurant kitchen, and set out for Florida in your car, which they stole from the parking lot after pitching your Journey CDs into a ditch. Your mother would have already died of a heart attack. Her neighbors are already going through her things because they secretly don't believe the world is going to end, so they're hoarding. Really hoarding. Two of them have taken over a Walgreen's with only a pair of shotguns, and they intend to be rich sumbitches when the world doesn't end and they have such a deep supply of all those hard-to-find drugs. A high school football team started out by nobly directing traffic after the power went out because a church group committed mass suicide in Ohio by forming a hug circle around the biggest power transformer in 10 states, but then the football team caught sight of the cheerleaders dressed as boys, being snuck out of town by their worried parents, who were killed by the football players when they figured out why, exactly, the parents think their cheerleader daughters are in danger from football players like them.
So good luck with all the fighting you'll be doing in your last six hours. I hope the ice cream freezer still works at the 7-11 after the neighborhood kids set it on fire.
Oh yeah, and I hope the radiation sickness from the nuclear warheads doesn't set in until the 6:01 mark, at least, for those of you who live, because if we get six hours' notice of the end of the world, the first thirty minutes will be spent watching the pretty criss-cross of rocket exhaust trails in the sky.
Languagehat, you're right in a lot of ways here:
I am pronouncing it wrong, to some ears, because apparently the pronunciation does vary, thus the differences in spelling.
Kathay's spells it pechah, with a breve over the e, while the Kamus Tribahasa Oxford Fajar (a trilingual Malay-English-Chinese dictionary) spells it pecah. Neither of these dictionaries has pronunciations nor pronunciation keys, but it looks like (according to a completely unscientific search of Google) that pecah is more common.
I cannot for the life of me remember where I got that hard c information from, but I did pull it from a book rather than from my butt. My grammars of Singaporean English are at home, and no doubt one of them is the source.
Thanks for the link, Mr. Imp. Beeswacky, I'd add in examples of "flarf" but that's not really the role of a dictionary.
posted by Mo Nickels 18 years ago
In "Curious, George: "
PS: When I was a kid, we would ask this question, but then everyone else would get to assign you a penalty. Like, if I *could* communicate in every human language, then perhaps I wouldn't be able to control what language I was speaking at any given time. Or, if you could fly, then you'd never be able to stand or walk again. If you got a lot of money, you'd get it but it would come in a single gold ingot that would land on you and maim your body for life. Nobody ever wished for teleportation or control over gravity, but I might assign them the penalties of never being able to teleport to a place within sight of any other place you'd ever been, and not having control over gravity when you were asleep, meaning you risked injury and your furniture would be kindling in the morning. (Also, we made sure you couldn't resolve all the problems that would come with granting a wish. That is, if you wished you could fly, it didn't meant that you could magically breathe at 30,000 feet, or that you wouldn't feel cold there. You would. Or if you had a lot of money, it didn't mean it would magically show up in your bank account. You'd still have to deal with the taxman, greedy relatives, and the problems of proving it was yours.)
posted by Mo Nickels 19 years ago
Oh, I've wanted this one since I was very young: the ability to communicate fluently in every human language.
posted by Mo Nickels 19 years ago
In "Curious George:"
Thanks, SideDish! Compliments are always welcome (though new word submissions are welcomed more). Now off to correct somebody's misunderstanding of the origin of the term "hot dog"...
posted by Mo Nickels 19 years ago
Although it's always sad to note the passing of people who had an impact on the American consciousness, it looks like the "bundt pan" naming story is fanciful. The story has it that "55 years ago" Dalquist made the pan on request and came up with the name on the fly. However, there are much earlier citations for bundt recipes that prove Dalquist did not coin the name (nor did he invent the pan, which is also being claimed elsewhere). The post linked below reprints information gathered by a colleague from the Settlement Cook Book. It shows the term and the cake were familiar at least as early as 1912. Note specifically the description of the pan: "Bundt form (a heavy round fluted pan with tube in center)." http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0106E&L=ads-l&P=R126 The 1903 edition of the same cookbook also included "bundt kuchen," which means something like "band cake," though a band cake is a different item. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0107D&L=ads-l&P=R1946 The only thing Mr. Dalquist gets credit for, I'm afraid, is trademarking a term that had already existed for at least 63 years. The trademark info can be seen here.
posted by Mo Nickels 19 years ago
In "Corey Feldman is back!"
Gorilla tactics? Like throwing dust?
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Is censorship Evil?"
Further proof of incompetence over malice: a response to Slashdot a site which also posted this stupid claim of censorship.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "An online Scottish dictionary."
Here's a real Scots dictionary, the best on the topic, bar none.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Jailhouse Blog"
Is getting Hep. C in Jail really a perfectly average prison experience? Close: About 40 percent of all prisoners in the U.S. - in federal and state prisons - are infected with HCV. These are alarming rates. In some prisons, the rate of infection has reached 80 percent - virtually saturation level.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
I keep looking for the Abu Ghraib-like conditions in his accounts. So far it's a perfectly average prison experience. (I read a lot of prison writing looking for prison slang...)
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Lingua Franchise"
Languagehat is on hiatus, but he linked to the article nine months ago; perhaps comments from then are still relevant.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Curious George."
Wait a second. It says "Houghton Mifflin Books for Children's Curious George." He belongs to the children? Is there an alternate adult Curious George? Is the "Adult's Curious George" work-safe?
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Curious George: How do you research old news stories?"
Two more (although the "Just Fucking Google It" answer is right on: this is the second-oldest question on the Internet, after "Where can I see some titties?"): Paper of Record Factiva
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Tell me what to like, O' djinni!"
Also, I just notice's Hem's web site was done by Sohrab Habibion who used to be (still is? I dunno) in the band Edsel. Neat. Did their album art, too.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
Yay! Hem. Love me some Hem. I've seen them a few times (usually at Southpaw in Brooklyn) and a few weeks ago at Madison Square Park (not Garden; big difference) for a free outdoors show. Lovely stuff (and it doesn't hurt that the whole bad--there are, what, 400 people on stage?--are good-lookin.'
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Tati Danielle"
Nothing like Zara. Not even much like Wal-Mart. More like Grandpa Pigeon's without the hardware. Or the A&S or Bradlees stores in the NYC area. I can't remember any of the details right now, and all my books are at home, but there's a great short story told by a Maghrebian woman about her first years in Paris, after her family had immigrated. At one point she's completely lost in the city, and does the unthinkable: she speaks to a cop. He asks her where she lives. She doesn't know, exactly, except that she lives near Tati. And that makes it all clear for him. He brings her back to Goutte D'Or, the neighborhood near the Tati mentioned above, and she recognizes where she is. Of course, folks there are nervous she has brought a cop to the neighborhood. There are several overlaid points to be made in the story, the main one, for the moment, is that Tati is/was a landmark for a lot of non-rich Parisians.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Signs of the Apocalypse....well not exactly. "
Most of these "funny" signs come from church-industry newsletters and the like. The laff-lines are usually published with the intention of being used by subscribers. The newsletters are like any industry's journals: information on marketing, satisfying clients, retaining business, building mind and market share, dealing with problem clients, managing the business financially, etc.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "<b>Curious George:</b>"
(me, I'd call up all the women I've ever loved and tell them I love them still)
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
I like all the fun and loving ideas here, but: Doom spells the lack of social restraint. Your hotel would be invaded by people trying to rape your sisters. The waitstaff there would have killed the boss and stuffed him in an industrial clothes dryer, then looted all the seafood in the hotel restaurant kitchen, and set out for Florida in your car, which they stole from the parking lot after pitching your Journey CDs into a ditch. Your mother would have already died of a heart attack. Her neighbors are already going through her things because they secretly don't believe the world is going to end, so they're hoarding. Really hoarding. Two of them have taken over a Walgreen's with only a pair of shotguns, and they intend to be rich sumbitches when the world doesn't end and they have such a deep supply of all those hard-to-find drugs. A high school football team started out by nobly directing traffic after the power went out because a church group committed mass suicide in Ohio by forming a hug circle around the biggest power transformer in 10 states, but then the football team caught sight of the cheerleaders dressed as boys, being snuck out of town by their worried parents, who were killed by the football players when they figured out why, exactly, the parents think their cheerleader daughters are in danger from football players like them. So good luck with all the fighting you'll be doing in your last six hours. I hope the ice cream freezer still works at the 7-11 after the neighborhood kids set it on fire. Oh yeah, and I hope the radiation sickness from the nuclear warheads doesn't set in until the 6:01 mark, at least, for those of you who live, because if we get six hours' notice of the end of the world, the first thirty minutes will be spent watching the pretty criss-cross of rocket exhaust trails in the sky.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
In "Talking Cock"
Languagehat, you're right in a lot of ways here: I am pronouncing it wrong, to some ears, because apparently the pronunciation does vary, thus the differences in spelling. Kathay's spells it pechah, with a breve over the e, while the Kamus Tribahasa Oxford Fajar (a trilingual Malay-English-Chinese dictionary) spells it pecah. Neither of these dictionaries has pronunciations nor pronunciation keys, but it looks like (according to a completely unscientific search of Google) that pecah is more common. I cannot for the life of me remember where I got that hard c information from, but I did pull it from a book rather than from my butt. My grammars of Singaporean English are at home, and no doubt one of them is the source.
posted by Mo Nickels 20 years ago
(limited to the most recent 20 comments)