Category Archives: language

18th Century Mashup: White’s MISTRESS MASHAM’S REPOSE

Posted on May 7, 2025 by JE

I came to T.H. White’s brilliant fantasy Mistress Masham’s Repose (Putnam, 1946): immediately after reading two much inferior (but not worthless) books. One was by White himself, The Age of Scandal (Putnam, 1950), a social history of the later 18th … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures in the Public Domain, books, fantasy, history, language, sff, words | Tagged | Comments Off on 18th Century Mashup: White’s MISTRESS MASHAM’S REPOSE

King Leer

Posted on April 18, 2025 by JE

Reading some Middle English this afternoon, I came across the word lere, meaning “face”. ”That’s got to be where leer comes from,” I said, with the unwavering confidence of a folk etymologist, and then my confidence wavered a bit and … Continue reading →

Posted in books, language, words | Tagged | Comments Off on King Leer

Swords Against Style

Posted on March 31, 2025 by JE

For various reasons I’ve had a couple different essays under my eyes this afternoon: “Epic Pooh” (Moorcock’s Titanic body-slam against Tolkien and other “high” fantasists) and Tolkien’s “On Fairy-Stories”. All critical writing about fantasy needs to be taken with a … Continue reading →

Posted in books, comedy, language, music, sff, sword-and-sorcery, words, writing | 1 Comment

Surfing the Time Waves

Posted on March 29, 2025 by JE

I’m reading the minor declamations of pseudo-Quintilian in Shackleton-Bailey’s great Loeb edition. The idea is to briefly escape the current political nightmare by immersing myself in the weird little stories of these controversiae. It’s not going that well. For example: … Continue reading →

Posted in books, history, language, politics, review or meta-review, Roman history, Rome, television, words | Tagged , | Comments Off on Surfing the Time Waves

Endless Glove?

Posted on March 8, 2025 by JE

I reread more than I read. This has certain bad effects; e.g., the towering stacks of TBR books that constantly threaten to topple over and crush me, which are always growing taller, more numerous, and (if I’m not misreading their … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, art, books, dream, fantasy, fantasy art, language, Morlock, Myth & Legend, sword-and-sorcery, words | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Pseudoplumes, Nom de Nyms, Birds, & Oooze

Posted on February 28, 2025 by JE

I’m not a big fan of literary criticism in any field (although I have committed some), but one of my big books from my late teens onward was Le Guin’s The Language of the Night (1979), especially for the essays … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, art, fantasy, fantasy art, language, review or meta-review, sff, sword-and-sorcery, words, writing | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Pseudoplumes, Nom de Nyms, Birds, & Oooze

Nerves in a bundle? Fall into a morðcrundel!

Posted on February 22, 2025 by JE

I’m rereading Beowulf, preparatory to teaching it in a couple weeks to my Norse Myth class. This kind of thing always involves falling into the dictionary and getting swept away by a tide of weird words. This afternoon’s discovery is … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, art, books, fantasy, fantasy art, language, Myth & Legend, sword-and-sorcery, words, writing | Tagged , | Comments Off on Nerves in a bundle? Fall into a morðcrundel!

What Are the Óðs?

Posted on February 19, 2025 by JE

I was thinking the other day about Hengist and Horsa, the two Saxon chieftains/gangsters who show up to assist and then overpower the usurper Vortigern in the run-up to King Arthur’s origin story. Horsa (Horsus in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin) … Continue reading →

Posted in art, fantasy, fantasy art, language, magic, Myth & Legend, sff, sword-and-sorcery, words, writing | Comments Off on What Are the Óðs?

Garum + Chili = ?

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

I was trying to figure out why you couldn’t say this in Latin, then thought, “Well, it could only improve garum”, and finally realized: oh, they mean cocina latina. Some of these keywords for Bluesky feeds are deeply ambiguous. (“Conan” … Continue reading →

Posted in language, Roman history, Rome, sword-and-sorcery | Tagged , | Comments Off on Garum + Chili = ?

Kind of a Drag

Posted on January 10, 2025 by JE

Here’s the decoration for my office-door schedule this semester. In some ways I’m one of the volentes, in most ways I’m one of the nolentes, but am feeling the motion either way.

Posted in academia, cartoon, language | Tagged | Comments Off on Kind of a Drag