Swans on Tea

The Pop Vs Soda Map
One thing I usually forget when I go on vacation to western New York is that I’m in “pop” country; “soda” means club soda. If it comes up, I make the mistake once, and then I remember … until the next trip. I grew up on the other side [...]

Sat-nav for flappers
Sat-Nav wristwatches have been around since 1920.
OK, the idea of a small chart scrolling on one’s wrist is clever, but the “sat” part of “sat-nav” stands for satellite, as in artificial satellite. What artificial satellites are involved here?
Yes, I have a peeve about using acronyms and abbreviations where one obviously doesn’t know [...]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Absurdly Implausible Excess in the NY Times discusses “Nuking the Fridge,” the expression spawned from some inanity in the latest Indiana Jones flick.
Jason Nicholl, a 37-year-old high school teacher who runs one of the sites, said he went to a message board shortly after the new “Indiana Jones” film [...]

Thoughts on Conferences at Faraday’s Cage is where you put Schroedinger’s Cat
The second case was a conference where the only requirement for approval was an abstract. I realize that some of the more “cutting edge” conferences proceed this way so that people can present their latest results. I don’t like them, however, because many people [...]

Technically, phrases. New vocabulary (to me) at Cosmic Variance. Symmetry Breaking

The use of symbols to represent swearing actually has a name: grawlix
[I]t looks to have been coined by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker around 1964. Though it’s yet to gain admission to the Oxford English Dictionary, OED Editor-at-Large Jesse Sheidlower describes it as “undeniably useful, certainly a word, and one that I’d [...]

Sometime you have to let art flow over you. But apparently, this is not one of those times. How To Win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest
Should you make a pun or, perhaps, create a visual gag about a cat surreptitiously reading its owner’s e-mail? Neither. You must aim for what is [...]

Kerning is the adjustment of the spacing between letter pairs in printing. Improperly done, (overkerning?) this can make letters run together, and e.g. “rn” is difficult to distinguish from “m,” especially for those of us with less-than-perfect eyesight. (And take care not to shove your “L” too close to your “I” since that [...]

I was very recently reminded of a one-page story that appeared in the New Yorker some years ago. It drops the prefixes or otherwise negates the meaning of some common words and phrases. The bridled style is very settling.
Thanks to the wonder of the intertubz, it appears online.
How I Met My [...]