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All contents herein (except the illustrations, which are in the public domain) are Copyright © 1995-2020 Evan Morris & Kathy Wollard. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited, with the exception that teachers in public schools may duplicate and distribute the material here for classroom use.

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Neologism of the week

Please tell me it’s not just a stupid typo:

Another cost often attributed to foreclosure is ‘neighbourhood blight’, that is, negative externalities associated with foreclosures and the associated repossessions and evictions. The value of neighbours’ properties goes down and pretty soon the weeds are growing through the cracks in the pavement, homes are boarded up and the entire neighbourhood risks going down the snytgard.

via FT.com | Willem Buiter’s Maverecon | Home loans in the US: the biggest racket since Al Capone?.

First Man of Letters

Interesting review of two biographies of Samuel Johnson:

… Intellectually, too, Johnson pointed toward a new sensibility. His Dictionary of the English Language (1755) marked a revolution in English letters by being descriptive rather than prescriptive: In other words, he gave up on the project of creating a dictionary that would purify the unruly language by fixing meanings and pronunciations (as the Académie Française had recently attempted across the Channel) in favor of simply describing the state of English as it was spoken at that time and had been in the past. His philosophy and achievement cleared the path for the Oxford English Dictionary begun a century later. “Language,” Johnson wrote, “is the work of man, of a being from whom permanence and stability cannot be derived.” Of words, he said that “like their author, when they are not gaining strength, they are generally losing it. Though art may sometimes prolong their duration, it will rarely give them perpetuity.”

more via First Man of Letters.

A Message from Harry the Cat.

harrykeyboard

Hiya.  Sorry for the interruption. Did you know that your keyboard smells like potato chips?

Anyway, in 2009, The Word Detective is celebrating its 15th year as a free resource for the internet community. Yay!

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