Tag: English
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loot
Some etymologies drive the point home perfectly–and others have a way of bringing it all together. Such is the case with the word loot, which has surfaced–and I think in an insidiously racialized manner–amid the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. Its origin, however, is far, far away from the American Midwest. Loot Loot derives from the Hindi lut, meaning “spoil,”…
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Ferguson
Sometimes etymologies just drive home the point perfectly. Ferguson, Missouri is named for one, William B. Ferguson, who allowed a railroad to go through his land in 1855. A train depot thereafter built there was named for him as part of the deal. The city–and now central station of an urgent debate on police militarization and racial inequality in the…
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Punctuation..?
A Review of Punctuation..? I was recently delighted to receive in the mail a copy of Punctuation..?, an illustrated guide to punctuation marks, published in 2012 by UK book designer, User design. At 35 pages, it concisely treats 23 distinct punctuation marks, from the everyday comma to the more arcane interpunct (inter·punct). If at times imperfect, its explanations are accessible and helpful. Its illustrations are…
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vaccine
Vaccine For every deadly virus, we hope there is a vaccine. The word, it turns out, milks a very old root. In 1796, British scientist Edward Jenner is credited with inventing the first vaccine by inoculating patients with cowpox in order to protect against smallpox. That’s the nice way of putting it. The story is…
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virus
For so many of us, a virus might spell the end of our computer–not our lives, as we are witnessing so tragically in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Sometimes a viral video is precisely what is needed to distract us from today’s feverish crises. Too often, though, a viral video may be distracting us from them. But…
Mashed Radish 