John Kelly

Still ask myself this every day lol

I know!!!

That's a great one! And agreed, such an expressive word.

Day 7, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

bald

Origin unknown.

Day 6, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

blight

Origin unknown.

Day 6, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

blight

Origin unknown.

Day 5, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

junk

Origin unknown.

Moten: "Vicious dismantling of what we hate and the careful cultivation of what we love—the shorthand for that is to tear shit up."

Fred Moten at a podium in the Elliston Poetry Room at the University of Cincinnati.

Poet/philosopher Fred Moten delivered an exceptional reading to a packed room at the University of Cincinnati tonight. Afterwards, in a way only he can, he connected the "in between of Heidegger and Derrida" to "tearing shit up in the club and church" to being "in the hold of the slave ship."

Wait, what's this I'm hearing about Pantone choosing Cloudflare as its Color of/for/whatever the Year?

Moten: "Vicious dismantling of what we hate and the careful cultivation of what we love—the shorthand for that is to tear shit up."

Fred Moten at a podium in the Elliston Poetry Room at the University of Cincinnati.

Poet/philosopher Fred Moten delivered an exceptional reading to a packed room at the University of Cincinnati tonight. Afterwards, in a way only he can, he connected the "in between of Heidegger and Derrida" to "tearing shit up in the club and church" to being "in the hold of the slave ship."

lol funny/horrifying because it's true

Day 5, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

junk

Origin unknown.

Day 4, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

pimple

Origin unknown.

This bad boy isn't just useful to look up words!

My wife: "I don't have a concept of how heavy ten pounds is."
Me, presenting the Twelfth Collegiate: "Here, this is five pounds."
My wife: "Wow, that's five pounds?"

Dictionaries ... is there anything they can't do?!

I think 'vodcast' offers a useful distinction to 'podcast'! But we collectively decided 'podcast' perfectly sufficed for video and audio. Maybe 'vodcast' sounds too much like a podcast about vodka? Corpus data shows 'podcast' appearing 1000x more often than 'vodcast,' found more often in non-AmE.

A screenshot of Merriam-Webster's Time Traveler, showing words that so far first appeared in print in a given year. This screenshot shows 2005 and features the following terms: Blue Alert, butt-dial, crate-dig, didymo, glamping, LARC, locavore, microblogging, mumblecore, pre-exposure prophylaxis, rage quit, ransomware, rock snot, sexting, truther, truthiness, unvaxxed, upvote, vaccine hesitant, vodcast.

Oxford's selection of 'rage bait' as its 2025 Word of the Year brought to mind, of course, 'rage quit.'

@merriam-webster.com dates that to 2005, which debuted some other words that, 20 years later, are more salient than ever—in concept if not in term.

I know Pantone is positioning this choice as "calm ... in a noisy world," but going from a shade of brown to white in 2025? Not a good look. Pantone should know a thing or two about looks. Trust me here: These are precisely the optics we considered at Dictionary.com in choosing the Word of the Year.

Yesterday, my Replay was showing no data at all. Similar messages to yours. This morning? Up and running. You might check back in.

Apparently I did a lot of work to Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" this year...

First off, love finding fellow Apple Music people. (Spotify to me has always centered the playlist when I'm still an album guy, and Apple Music's library for jazz and classical, where my rotations are heavy, I find more extensive and complete.)

Second, I think the Replay module has been glitchy!

Day 4, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

pimple

Origin unknown.

Day 3, Obscure Etymology Advent Calendar:

dollop

Origin unknown.

Ohio Rep. Troy Balderson is there laughing along with Trump's unadorned anti-Somali racism. His district runs adjacent to Columbus, the city with the second-largest Somali population in the U.S. Hey @dispatch.com, maybe worth reporting about this?

bsky.app/profile/just...

Why, you're welcome! Mean every word.

"Safety Last!" Yes, must be a contender for the earliest.

This is a veritable Capotorium!

And The Economist’s word of the year for 2025 is… An unappetising symbol of a messy year

It's time.
www.economist.com/culture/2025...

James's writing is rewarding in its own right, but I also recommend reading him for who he strikes me as a writer. Someone who writes because he can't help otherwise. As a way of being in the world, of processing being in it. Not for glory—though who turns down an audience? Who writes to write.

That's why it's "Capote." See, "Capote" is the Italian plural for "Capota." People forget his name was actually "Truman Capota" until 2006 released two—two—films about him.