Re Mark Liberman’s post, I don’t know of any prior examples–the nearest I can think of are C16th Dutch usages like Poortegaal for the smallest room (but speaking Portuguese isn’t, unfortunately, mean speaking crap) and Scythen/Schijten = Scythians/shitting–and Thomas Watson’s “A perjured person is the devil’s excrement” is attractive but too late. Saint Augustine doesn’t…
The novel is progressing. I’ve hit the 50K mark and plot and characters are showing signs of improvement, partly because I’m putting a bit more time into research and a bit less into peripatetic weird shit collection. One of the puzzles I’m working through at the moment is the lack of a sub-Saharan chiliastic movement…
“And as we find in a book of laws called Digesto that city used to be called Guiris because it was created by Garfeus, son of Canaan and grandson of Noah.”
Sad and strange: Helmut Simon, the guy who, with his wife, found Ötzi, the prehistoric iceman, has disappeared while walking at somewhere in the region of 2,400m. Rescue teams have given up hope of finding him alive, and Margaret Marks tells me visitors to Der Standard are already speculating (now I scroll down, I can…
If the gentleman opposite were to imitate Stefan@MemeFirst’s excellent unlicensed extension of the 1776ft Freedom Tower scheme, he’d be able to give his building two names: for official purposes, The Tiberias Building Building, and in recognition of the illegal storey he has balanced on top, The Fidenae Stadium Collapse Building.