Monthly Gleaning: October 2007
Monthly Gleanings.
Totally Weird and Wonderful Words
Weird Words!
Many Happy Returns of the Day
Or, Study Etymology and Live Long
Anatoly Liberman ponders longevity.
Undetermined Scholars Confront Indeterminate Numbers
The Oxford Eytmologist takes on more words.
Deliberation and Infotopia
By Cass Sunstein What happens when people deliberate with one another? Do they arrive at the truth? Do they go toward the middle? Can we predict the effects of deliberation? A few months ago, I tried to find out, collaborating with David Schkade (of the University of San Diego) and Reid Hastie (of the University […]
“Jes’ copasetic, boss,”; Being also a Note on Frank Vizetelly
For some reason, interest in the etymology of copasetic never abates. This adjective, a synonym of the equally infantile hunky-dory, is hardly ever used today unless the speaker wants to sound funny, but I cannot remember a single talk on words without someone’s asking me about its derivation and thinking that the question is of a most imaginative kind.