Flackette called Amazon and got my Kindle fixed. Back up and running after months…
Here are some interesting vocabulary words I ran across…
Continue reading about SAT words in context after the jump
Category: wordplay
Stuff about words or phrases
Klein takedown
“He’s not a public intellectual—he’s a fucking wind sock. And he knows it.”
Beware the Man has a nice summary of a Joe Klein takedown.
Continue reading about Missing setup if you don’t know the players after the jump.
Fail-safe never is
“He reassured me by telling me that when he looked back on his career, all the work he was most proud of was done under circumstances just like that, where it seemed impossible, where there wasn’t enough time, there wasn’t enough money, and everyone had set the bar really high for themselves.”
From a Variety article on Pixar (via Flackette).
Taibbi
“His description of the root causes of this financial crisis are about what you’d expect from a man who invoked The Great Gatsby to explain the mentality of the murderer of 4,000 people.”
— Matt Taibbi, on Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria
You have to admire Taibbi for his liberal outrage. Even if you don’t agree with him, his turns of phrases is a mastery of the intellectual smackdown.Then again, maybe I should admire Zakaria for carrying the kool-aid for his corporate masters.
History, after all, will not be kind on the latter.
Mild dementia
Reading this article on the new Voigtländer 50mm f1.1 Nokton, I was surprised to find out that the English translation of the Japanese word bokeh is “mild dementia.”
Definitely a Backstroke of the West moment there.
Check out the “mild dementia” on these two:
Mark Trammel
Citizen Spaces, South of Market, San Francisco, California
Citizen Spaces, South of Market, San Francisco, California
Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/16 sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)
Creamy smooth mild dementia
Scolding Veronica
Citizen Spaces, South of Market, San Francisco, California
Citizen Spaces, South of Market, San Francisco, California
Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/16 sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)
The mild dementia created by people in the background is busy but still manageable.
Will
I have a friend and web developer who thinks I’m really smart, but he doesn’t think much of his own abilities. During a particular coincidence of both opinions, he asked me if I’d hire him if I was in a position to make such a judgement:
Me: Of course.
Me: Why do you ask this?
Him: I was just thinking that one day you will be atop the web
Him: And I want to be part of it
…
Me: In general, the thing I find is the #1 thing necessary for success is will. And you have will.
Me: Smarts is a result of will, not vice versa.
Me: So sure I’d hire you.
He tweeted that and someone liked that.
As someone who has leaned on his “smarts” a number of times to the detriment of his own personal development, I truly believe what I said. Every day, I’m starting to realize my inner Socrates:
It seemed to me … that the people with the greatest reputations were almost entirely deficient, while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much better qualified in practical intelligence…
I reflected as I walked away: Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems to me that I am wiser than he is to the extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.
Obama’s Notre Dame commencement
I remember watching the second presidential debate in 2004, pissed with John Kerry. “Why?” someone asked.
“Because his answer to the abortion question fits right in line with the image of him as a flip-flop.” I replied. “He doesn’t have to answer the question about spending itself, and sure there are nuances to that issue you can’t address in the debate, but he can answer with strong language the morals that guides his decisions; the commonality we all have to minimize unwanted pregnancies. Some pro-lifer is going to see that answer and their perception of Catholicks and think he’s a hypocrite.”
Four years later, we have Obama:
bromance
I’m sorry I missed this word.
From DoubleX:
I agree that the Kirk/Spock dynamic was the richest in the film. But there’s another key relationship that I thought was even more fascinating—the one between Spock and Lt. Uhura. First off, it’s fantastic that Uhura finally feels like a major character, even though she still hasn’t graduated to wearing pants, and even though much of her role here is to provide romantic relief from the bromance and the action scenes.
(The rest of the article is similarly hilarious.)
From Star Trek Motivational Posters
If he got rid of the bromance, then J.J. Abrams would see some really outraged Trekkies.
Vee-oh-la
Voilá!
I am forever reminded of the French section of my Latin I class when reading the first lesson, J— pronounced this “Vee-O-La!”
If it isn’t obvious from the repeated mentions of me almost failing French I, I’m glad J— was called to read that day.
Dirty
Some words sound dirty.
For instance did you know that you can’t spell socialism without cialis?