Month: February 2016
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Why is something “hermetically” sealed?
As the 2016 presidential campaign heats up, so do the attacks. Campaigning for his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, days before the New Hampshire primaries, Bill Clinton characterized her opponent, Bernie Sanders, as so cut off from reality that it’s as if he’s living in a “hermetically sealed box.” Talk about feeling the Bern. Such…
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Broncos vs. Panthers
In Groundhog vs. Shadow, Punxsutawney Phil easily walked to victory: his shadow didn’t even show up for his wintry wrangling with the woodchuck earlier this week. But we’ve got a bigger animal fight ahead. No, I’m not talking about Donkey vs. Elephant – or, at this point in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donkey vs. Donkey…
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Chucking out the “wood” in “woodchuck”
This Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil may be feeling that those Iowa caucuses stole his thunder – er, shadow – with all the attention on political prognostication, not marmot meteorology. But caucuses and groundhogs have more in common than just calendars: both caucus, as we recently saw, and woodchuck, another name for the groundhog, derive from Algonquian languages. Woodchuck How much wood…
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“Caucus”: a smoke-filled etymology (repost)
Caucus Day has arrived at long last. Today, Iowans will cast the first votes of the 2016 race to the White House. This voting system is quite distinctive, as is the word caucus. So, in honor of the event whose results politicos, pundits, and campaign personnel will read like so many tea leaves, I am republishing an earlier…
Mashed Radish 