I have been working on this post for several days and I just can’t get it into a form where I’m satisfied that I’ve said what I want to say. So I can either scrap it or just hurl it out into the ether and get it over with. I’ve decided to hurl it. Here … Continue reading Hamlet Act III Scene ii line 254
Words
Engine
As I was reading Asimov’s New Guide to Science, I came across this passage: The first person to translate this idea into a practical working device, however, was an English military engineer named Thomas Savery. His steam engine (the word engine originally denoted any ingenious device and comes from the same Greek root as ingenious) could … Continue reading Engine
These Are a Few of the Trivial Things
I enjoy reading about word origins, especially how words evolved to mean something very different from what they originally meant. While I get very annoyed as I’m living through the evolution of language, and many of my pet peeves have to do with people using words to mean something other than what they originally meant … Continue reading These Are a Few of the Trivial Things