WORK
“Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language knows only too dearly that languages can be full of pointless irregularities that increase complexity considerably without contributing much to the ability to express ideas. English, for instance, would have losed none of its expressive power if some of its verbs leaved their irregular past tense behind and becomed regular.”
—Guy Deutscher
—from Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
WORD(S)
Bycorne /BIY-korn/. noun. A mythical, human-faced cow which fed on patient, kind husbands (and was thus plump)…a counterpart to the chichevache, which fed on obedient, faithful wives and so was perpetually starving. Also, an obsolete spelling of bicorne, a two-pronged pitchfork.
“Now are portrayed two beasts, the one fat and flourishing, the other weak and thin. And the legend says: ‘These fearful beasts, Bycorne and Chichevache, according to their nature, can eat only patient husbands or sweet-tempered wives.’” (John Revell Reinhard)
“Chichevache (or lean cow) was said to live on good women; and a world of sarcasm was conveyed in always representing Chichevache as very poor,—all ribs, in fact—her food being so scarce as to keep her in a wretched state of famine. Bycorne, on the contrary, was a monster who lived on good men; and he was always bursting with fatness, like a prize pig.” (E. Cobham Brewer)
WEB
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Powerful, Pulitzer-worthy storytelling about justice denied far too long. → “Innocent Man” Part One and Part Two. See also, the Nieman Storyboard interview/annotations
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“As from February 2014, a series of Euro Banknotes, are drawn, scanned and spent on a daily basis. A social medium hacked to become part of a new territory. This site is a documentation of this attempt.” → banknotes.gr [Via Reader C.]
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3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake [also Via Reader C.]
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Various court cases have turned on an issue of punctuation. Various members of the Clamor shared the story of a missing comma’s place in Ohio appeals court history. That led me to the equally interesting story of Minnesota’s Great Umlaut War.
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When you’re thinking of the greatest thing since sliced bread, keep July 7, 1928 in mind. That was the day Otto Frederick Rohwedder’s new loaf-at-a-time bread slicing machine made its commercial debut with the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. Naturally, the city of Chillicothe maintains a bread news site.
WATCH/WITNESS
![[Untitled, 1975/76] by Francesca Woodman](https://buttondown-attachments.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/b0f213fc-9bc4-4e9f-bc52-f9931b785563.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJEXF6S6TCOKT7N3Q&Signature=pobxm9TxkhwkVlfLzHOon9GFjI4%3D&Expires=1707568293)
[untitled], 1975/1976 by Francesca Woodman.
Wikipedia has links to many of Woodman's (astonishing) photos. See also: The Long Exposure of Francesca Woodman and Searching for the real Francesca Woodman.
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
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Reader F. caught me out: “Tricky boy! A wonderful quote from Hesse that just happened to fall on his birthday?”
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Reader B. observes (correctly!): “Glass Bead Game is one of the strangest, deepest, most original and neglected books of all time.”
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