Following Victoria Coren Mitchell‘s gentle correction during last night’s Only Connect:
It was good of John Gruber to remind us this morning that it was 25 years ago that The Onion reported William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior
Words
Platonic rhythms
The latest splendid offering from SoundDust is called Plato. It comes with some Plato sounding quotes, all unsourced, and, as is the way of such things, many probably not found in Plato’s works. But there is no harm in repeating a good thing…
cheque checks
A piece by Greg Morris the other day and now an article from The i Paper talking about checks:
What is going on? That obnoxious American fellow said he was making English the official language so we might be able to persuade them to start using the correct spelling – he seems like a reasonable chap.
And another think
An article from the New Statesman today included the passage:
I stopped reading after “she had another thing coming”. What was coming? A promotion? A cup of coffee? Surely what was meant was that her rumination would require further thought – she had another think coming. The Ngram view (for what that is worth) shows the ‘thing’ form taking off from around 2000 and becoming the more usual form today.
It is a curious phrasing. The folksy etymology is often attributed to American usage but one suspects that anyone who thinks that has another think coming.
Doing the Spotty Dog
Watching the David Byrne dance routine in today’s Open Culture post reminded me that what he describes as Puppet Leg, where an imagined puppet string is pulled to raise the leg,
was part of a ‘dance‘ (I use the word in its loosest interpretation) routine known as the Spotty Dog that we did in the 1960s resulting in much merriment.
Upon a search for a Spotty Dog clip I discovered that it is, bizarrely, an actual exercise these days. But as Miss Cox confesses she, and I suspect many others, has no idea why it is called the Spotty Dog.
Well let me enlighten you.