Have you ever heard of the Darwin Awards? As the website www.darwinawards.com explains: “The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it… For example, one of the 2014 awards was a double for two men who tried to take a selfie with a wild elephant
Previously I’d mentioned the importance of learning new words. And the fascinating thing about language is it’s always evolving. New words are created, meanings change, and new meanings are added. How many words in English have only one meaning? Not many, I would guess. My favorite example of how a word’s meaning can change is
Have you ever felt you were being controlled by someone else? Be glad you’re not a ladybug. These little aphid predators can fall victim themselves to a parasitic wasp in a particularly gruesome way. These wasps sting ladybugs, leaving one egg inside. When the egg hatches, the larva eats its host from the inside out.
I’ve mentioned earlier about encouraging students to use a dictionary. February 1st was the anniversary of publication of the first part of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884. According to the February 1, 2015 email from The Writer’s Almanac, It covered from “A” to “Ant.” The Philological Society of London had conceived the
Some time ago, I decided my life’s ambition should be to become so important that I would never have to wait on anyone again. Boy, do I have a long way to go. Actually, my President’s Weekend trip to Southern California for the Disneyana Fan Club Expo went pretty smoothly. And the 80+-degree temperature upon
I’ll admit I’d never thought of this before. but the “Verbal Energy” column in the Feb. 9, 2015 issue of the Christian Science Monitor takes this on. It seems the word “ketchup” comes from Chinese, or more specifically Hokkien, which is the language of southern Fujian and Taiwan. Ke means “preserved fish” and tschup means
When I started teaching, I told the kids they had the hard part — I expected them to make me feel young(er). I got a good example today which serving as an aide in 8th grade science class. Have you ever heard of an Oobleck? It’s a non-Newtonian fluid that was the creation of Dr.
When I worked at Tomart Publications as a book and magazine editor, one of our specialties was radio-premium collectibles — those prizes people sent in for during the Golden Age of radio. For awhile, the Illustrated Radio Premium Catalog and Price Guide was one of our best-selling books. Many collectors fondly remembered special treasurers they had as
Last night I saw the play Pride and Prejudice at Wright State University. That got me to thinking about marriage. As part of my training to become a teacher, I read the book Marriage, a History for a Sociology course. It was a real eye-opener and one of the more interesting books I’ve ever read.
For the past two days I’ve been working with special-needs students. This reminded me of a poem I wrote about them for my book Some Poems About Life. Drawing A Short Straw Sam sits at his school desk on a typical winter day. He’s working at his lesson, the first lesson of today, as
