Category Archives: language

Further, Deponent Sayeth Not

The joke, such as it is, doesn’t really come off in English. But the Latin means something like “‘I am Spoke/I have spoke<n>,’ spoke Spoke.” Live long and prosper, Spoke.

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Accidental Theology (or Zoology)

Typo of the day: amle (for an intended male). Amle looks like a real word, but I’m not sure what it’d mean. In OI ama is “to vex, annoy” so maybe Amlé would be like Purgatory for Norse Gimlé (“High … Continue reading

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Them Dry Bones

I misread an Old Norse word bœnhús (“begging from house to house”) as beinhús (“bonehouse”), and now I can’t get that wrong word out of my head. Maybe, in an upcoming story, Morlock will be trapped in a bonehouse. It … Continue reading

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Swords in the Mistletoe

I was reading Snorri’s Edda today, trying to sort out the story-differences between Snorri’s version and the poems in the Elder Edda. For instance, the famous story where Thor goes fishing and catches Jormungandir, Midgard’s Serpent, plays out differently in … Continue reading

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“Brain and Brain! What Is Brain?”

Some great demonstrations here of how chatbots don’t think. I especially like the bot’s explanation of why a pound of feathers weighs the same as two pounds of bricks. An entity that could think would recognize the issue there. The … Continue reading

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Human vs. Parrot

A great piece by Elizabeth Weil about Emily Bender, who is waging a war of ideas against stochastic parrots. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

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Invasion of the Stochastic Parrots

Apparently enough fatheads were taken in by the chatbot hype this winter to flood electronic submission portals with chatbot-written fiction. At last there’s an option for the person who’s too dumb or lazy to read but who thinks they can … Continue reading

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Southbound

Typo of the day is soughtward (for an intended southward). Seems like it ought to mean something—“in the direction of seeking”, maybe. “He never found what he was seeking soughtward; he only found it when he stopped looking.” Or maybe … Continue reading

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Goa, Going, Gone

I was scrolling through an electronic edition of a venerable Latin dictionary, which is a totally normal thing to do, and I was brought up short by the entry for superstitio: “excessive fear of the goas; unreasonable religious belief.” I … Continue reading

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To Peeve or Not to Peeve?

That’s easy. Don’t be a language peever. It generally violates Wheaton’s Law and there’s always the danger of exposing one’s own ignorance of language. Well, easier said than done for some of us. People who write are also frequently in … Continue reading

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