Silmarillion’s got a post over at Après moi, la déluge about tinkers and Jenisch and … quinquis. Here the following perfectly reasonable explanation of “kinky” is given: Kink, nautical term, from Du. kink “twist in a rope” (also found in Fr. and Swed.), probably related to O.N. kika “to bend at the knee” (see kick).…
If the sentence “Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever” does actually mean a cessation of drug dealing, beatings and other criminal activity, then the IRA have scored today’s big news. However there are still plenty of bad people in the world. Pedalling along this afternoon, on my way to see hear fellow-biker…
The nationalist mayor of Guecho in the Basque Country, Iñaki Zarraoa, wants to introduce badges for Basque speakers, he says to enable them to figure whether their conversation partner is capable of speaking with them in Basque. This would be somewhat less disturbing if an estimated 200,000 people hadn’t been driven into exile in the…