Clicker-training the cat
It’s been a long pandemic, and I know a lot of you have been trying to better yourselves, to find ways to lead fuller, more satisfying personal and professional lives. You’ve taken Excel classes, started novels, built a fly rod from scratch, learned woodworking or crochet. Good for you. Overachievers.
I have a beef with the Denver Post
When you’re creative, it’s important to have someone in your life who can tell you that what you think is clever is actually just stupid. How do I know? Because I’ve been lucky enough to know a lot of very smart people who’ve been more than pleased to tell me
The intellectual origin of dummy text
I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t know a lot of things. Today I discovered that Lorem Ipsum isn’t just fake Latin. It’s taken from Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (on the ends of good and evil), from 45 BC. Guess I’m not sure why, but I can’t
Musta been tuf to be a copy editor at the Chicago Tribune back in the day
Thumbing through a 1967 special section of the Chicago Tribune we found at an estate sale and noticed that they spelled through and though as thru and tho, like the kids do these days. Figured it was a mistake and moved on with my life. But it looks like they were
It’s a pity about this backpack’s name
I know. It’s supposed to sound like fuel. But that’s not what I see whenever I come across someone with one of these dumb backpacks. Instead, my brain reads it as fool. Then full. Only on the third mental correction does it land on the right way to say it.
Don’t like singular they? Tell Mike Tyson.
Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth. Obviously, this brilliant quote from Iron Mike works both literally and figuratively. But it’s a great and timely example of the value and utility of a singular they, which was just declared 2015’s Word of the Year by the
Hit the ground and just take it easy for a bit, you ninjas
You see this a lot in job advertisements: Candidates need to be able to hit the ground running. Hit the ground running. I guess what this really means is that once you plant yourself at your desk on your very first day, you need to know what to do. Without
Very curious.
There’s this regional bank in my, uh, region that uses the tagline: The curious bank. Every time I see it, though, I read curious as strange: The strange bank. I don’t want to bank at a strange bank. I want my bank to be super-normal. Boring, even. I don’t mind
‘In Dog We Trust’ isn’t the real blasphemy here
Remember that time the Vatican misspelled Jesus on a commemorative coin? Solid comedy gold. Now some sheriff’s office in Florida misspelled God on its office rug. But you know what’s a bigger blasphemy than misspelling a deity on a rug? This lede on the AP story, that’s what. LARGO, Fla.