2009 April » otoh

Death of a Grammarian

Posted by Tim at 14:55 on 2009/04/05

Apr 052009

There is a knock at the pearly gates.

St. Peter calls out, “Who’s there?”

The arriving soul answers, “It is I.”

“Crap,” mumbles Peter, “another English teacher….”

Teenager Audio Test

Posted by Tim at 18:28 on 2009/04/03

Apr 032009

Well someone thinks I’m young! Either that or their claim that this sound can only be heard by young people is bogus. And that can’t be right….

Created by Train Horns

A Hairy Memory

Posted by Tim at 19:38 on 2009/04/01

Apr 012009

Someone that doesn’t blog any more once posted about a strange hair she found in the shower. She took a photo and posted it. I asked if I could add it to my collection of shower hair photos here.

This is a true story!

Oh, O, and o

Posted by Tim at 19:29 on 2009/04/01

Apr 012009

Sometimes I read things that seem so completely obvious that I feel foolish for never having noticed it before. For example, the origin of the word “geometry” means measuring the earth. It’s right there — geo- for earth and -metry for measure — but I had simply never noticed it before even though I knew that using triangles is a common way of developing maps.

I’m following up The Adventure of English [which I mentioned here and plan to write about more] with Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z. In a description of the Greek alphabet I learned that omicron is the short o sound and omega the long o sound. And again, it’s right there — o-micron is little o, o-mega is big o.

Doh!