you made this? (13. 530)

Knowing it was ongoing project, I was not completely surprised to see references to John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows circulating on the internet but we did not realise that the revival was not due to a reissue or a follow up edition by the author but rather an act of wholesale plagiarism. Whilst nonsensically including the entire text of the book and all his neologisms for universally felt emotions that we don’t have the words to express (not the best marketing strategy to sell a book), the slick impostor website, which includes blurbs and a biography and links to purchase the dictionary, absent were any of the illustrations to accompany the definitions, instead replaced with unpolished AI-generated images and a feature to gin up a new sorrow with the help of GPT-4—which seemed pretty off-brand for the writer and the attempt to limn lacunas of human experience. Every submitted sorrow is a bit rubbish and unneeded with fussy and overcomplicated etymologies and pronunciation guides (see also). Andy Baio of Waxy got in touch with Koenig and tracks down the mystery of this unauthorised “tribute” site. Vibe coded, I suspected that this might have been a case of spontaneous generation but arguably more tragic, malicious and pervasive, the bootleg site siphoning off profits from another’s creativity is a marketing agency feeling entitled. There ought to be a word for this sad state.

intersentential meshing (13. 501)

Though noticing how autocomplete, auto-suggests has creepingly over the last few years began to offer a host of emoji when typing in a term, particularly with nationalities, showing a flag and also associated cuisine that kind of is off-putting and verges to the the level of ethnic stereotype (Italy gives you 🇮🇹 plus 🍝) and code-switching with a German computer set to English where to summon an symbol “music” won’t pull up 🎶 but rather “Noten” nor “hole” for 🕳️ but “Loch,” we haven’t fully considered how the visual lexicon becomes argot in other languages. In Chinese texting, it’s sometimes used to stay under the radar for shadowbanned words that might result in one’s profile being flagged—as with 🍉 for 🇵🇸—there’s a lot of use of homophony, entendre and euphemism driven by Latin character pinyin input for Chinese logograms. Horse (馬, Mǎ), for example, though tonally distinct shares a range of similarly pronounced words—making 🐴 good for anything from mother to mosaic. In the pictured example, the pill emoji has become a popular, though possibly inscrutable for some, shorthand way of expressing that something is doomed for failure. What other idiosyncratic but widely accepted uses can you think of? More from Sixth Tone at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: smoke-filled rooms (with synchronopticæ),  protesting ICE raids in Los Angeles plus a segregationist is compelled to stand down (1963)

twelve years ago: driving in Italy plus the refugee crisis at the US southern border

thirteen years ago: mobile spywear 

fourteen years ago: the legacy of toxic waste plus a recipe for asparagus pasta

fifteen years ago: the punishment not fitting the crime 

6x6 (13. 496)

epistolary: a profile of one of China’s last working Qiaopi writers (侨批) who sends letters and remittances to relatives overseas 

robert tyzyczhowzswiski is asking the court to change his cognomen: the trials and tribulations of legal stenographers—see also  

gonzo and camilla: revisiting emperor Honorius, chicken fancier  

inter esperantistoj; the undying dream of the universal language—see previously—via Web Curios  

post-hoc rationalisation: more lawyers get in trouble for reliance on AI 

fountain of knowledge: Japanese quiz culture was shaped by the post-war US occupation

tafone (13. 465)

Though in my head I had been referring to such geologic weathering as Roadrunner and Coyote rocks, we learned that tafoni, from the Corsican pietra tafunata meaning perforated stones is bc the proper term for this sort of erosion and chemical reaction—with examples to be found worldwide in granite, limestone and sandstone and is especially prevalent on Sardinia and Corsica. 

These samples were just around the terraced campgrounds with some other particularly fantastic ones among the cliff-faces and the calanques on the coast. Though in my head I had been referring to such geologic weathering as Roadrunner and Coyote rocks, we learned that tafoni, from the Corsican pietra tafunata meaning perforated stones is the proper term for this sort of erosion and chemical reaction—with examples to be found worldwide in granite, limestone and sandstone and is especially prevalent on Sardinia and Corsica. These samples were just around the terraced campgrounds with some other particularly fantastic ones among the cliff-faces and the calanques on the coast.

synchronoptica

one year ago: what a decibel registers (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: bad operating systems,  cheese banks plus drone-patrols for vandals

fourteen years ago: Eurovision boycotts plus Centralia, Pennsylvania

seventeen years ago: jingoistic language 

11x11 (13. 450)

o’dark ocho: an interesting linguistic coincidence  

wildlife gusher: a mysterious structure found in the middle of nowhere—click through to read some delightful and illuminating explanations, via Miss Cellania  

thomas jerome newton: a rereading of the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth in preparation for a rewatch of the David Bowie film  

富くじ: Present /&/ Correct’s collection of Mid-Century Japanese lottery tickets—see also 

spook hotel: the de facto capitol of US administered Venezuela  

kleptocracy: Trump drops his ten billion dollar lawsuit agains his internal revenue service and department of commerce in exchange for a two billion dollar slush fund to award loyalists and exempt himself and associates from future tax audits—via Kottke  

œnology methodology: the study and enjoyment of wine—see previously  

special envoy: Trump sends governor of Louisiana to Greenland to make “friends”  

night nurse: the forgotten author Dora Macy behind the Barbara Stanwyck classic  

public health emergency of international concern: World Health Organisation declares west Africa outbreak of ebola viral haemorrhage fever highly dangerous with the US CDC still not allowed to communicate with the UN body  

cowcumbers: the courgette was previously called so as they were only considered fit for bovines

grimthorpe (13. 443)

Named for King’s Council, Edmund Beckett, the title of peerage created within the county of York in 1886 for the controversial barrister, architect and horologist, elevated from the rank of baronet to baron, the eponym (see also), we learn via Curious Notions, was came about in the press in reference to his oversight role in the renovation of the much beloved Norman era cathedral of St Albans, the abbey dedicated to Britain’s first Christian martyr. Fiercely criticised at the time and causing a public outcry for alterations to the transept and the roofline, grimthorping is remodelling without sympathy, whilst lavish and expensive, not considered in keeping with the historical character of the building. So honoured for his earlier achievement as a clockwork engineer for his design of the mechanism of the chimes of Big Ben and quoted as saying “I am the only architect with whom I have never quarrelled,” Grimthorpe is buried in the churchyard of St Albans. The addition of the ensemble of the evangelists at the western entrance include St Matthew sculpted with Grimthorpe’s visage.

hairsplitting (13. 429)

US secretary of state Marco Rubio was able to accompany Trump on his brief visit to Beijing despite being under sanctions from China—a manoeuvre more favoured by the Americans to confer status non gratis to critics—thanks to, we learn via Super Punch, to a diplomatic workaround put in place shortly after Trump’s return to the presidency and installing Rubio in his cabinet. As a senator, the Cuban-American who staunchly opposes Communism, Rubio had a long track record of stances against China, including speaking out against posture in Hong Kong and legislation that condemning allegations of slave labour and oppression of the Uyghur population and reaffirming US quasi-support for Taiwanese self-governance, garnering his ban as a possible contender for high office. Though the embargo still stands against 馬可·安東尼奧·鲁比奥 (Mǎkě Āndōngníào Lǔ Bǐào) for his words and deeds, according to the embassy, a slight linguistic, tonal shift, with a different character to transliterate lu (from 卢 to 鲁, reflecting his policy shift away from human rights issues and full alignment with Trump and possible heir apparent)—was enough to grant him entry for officials, whereas the slightest discrepancy between what’s presented one’s identity documents and voter registration rolls would merit disenfranchisement if not arrest (see also, see previously). Trump himself is referred to variously as telangpu or chuanpu by the state and in the media.  Moreover, Rubio was also seen lounging on Air Force One’s redeye flight in the track suit worn by Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro after the US kidnapped him—steal his look. Despite the urgent focus on trade, AI-dominance and a peace settlement in the Middle East, the US softening its support for Taiwan, major producer of the advanced chips needed for advancing artificial intelligence, seems to be the objective, changing the official language from America “not supporting” Taipei independence to “opposing” it.

8x8 (13. 423)

all roads lead south: US Democrats disadvantaged further by gerrymandering and redistricting reversals ahead of mid-term elections with rules tossed out—more here  

jeppe on the hill: on Swedish surnames and patronymics  

if only i had a little humility, i’d be perfect: Tedium’s obituary of Ted Turner and a bygone era of benevolent billionaires and media magnates  

straight from the horse’s mouth: a patented animal-human communications helmet  

some call it a war, i call it renovating my middle east ballroom: Operation Epic Fury as a 1990s RPG, playable arcade consoles set up at the DC War Memorial—via MetaFilter  

clipart: everyday objects by Philograph Publishers of London  

gleemonix: the regulations driving the poetry behind brand name pharmaceuticals—see previously here and here  

sortition: democracy by lottery could improve our civic nature—see previously

8x8 (13. 417)

little green men: pivoting to priorities, US Department of War’s latest tranche of declassified files on UAPs—via Maps Mania  

4½ to fish 7: humanity’s obsession with large numbers 

hide the pain harold: Sweden state broadcaster found András István Arató, the retired electrician whose stock photo is behind the meme, celebrating the Saturday’s inauguration of Péter Magyar as prime minister in the streets of Budapest  

a comparison using like or as: a meta-analysis of similes from popular fiction—via Nag on the Lake 

d-line: after a century of delays, Los Angeles metro Wilshire Boulevard extension opens   

frictionless transactions: an AI agent pickpocketed $200k from a crypto-wallet with Morse code  

ultrafinitism: an exploration of what can be gained by rejecting the concept of the infinity—via Web Curios 

this way up: an appreciation of the cartographical studies of the Map Men

storia di un burattio (13. 415)

Originally a satirist poking fun at the Italian state of disunity and fractured governance, that is until his newspaper, Il Lampione, was censored at shutdown by the Grand Duke of Tuscany after the Italian Wars of Independence, Carlo Collodi turned to authoring children’s stories as the newly unified Italian state was subsidising school readers and the commissions, now serialised in another publication he founded in 1853, Lo Scaramuccia, provided a steady source of income whilst also being a vehicle for continued lampooning under cover of allegory. Pinocchio, originally published in fifteen instalments ending in 1881 with the puppet dead, strung up in the branches of an oak tree, by Fox and Cat—far weirder than the Disney version and akin to a more classical fairy tale with his cricket conscious killed with a hammer by his own hand but returning as a Force ghost, the puppet’s feet burned away, the transformed protagonist in asinine form, injured and rendered useless to his owner, drowned, devoured by a shark, disgorged and skinned so his hide can be used to fashion a drum, the corpse Blue Fairy, etc, etc—and fine. Due to overwhelming demand by his readership, Collodi is compelled to continue the story with more volumes. Whilst united, only a small vanishingly small percentage of the population spoke standard Italian, the diglossia of dialects mutually unintelligible, Pinocchio written in the language of the central region of Toscana and championed as the standard, with simple sentence structure and vocabulary, widely popular and accessible, the motivation behind commissioning children’s reading material, helped to a large and under-appreciated extent to create a common tongue.

7x7 (13. 390)

crash blossoms: mentalist MC of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner guessed the name of expectant press secretary’s baby’s name seconds before shooting—via Super Punch 

akte x: a German expression to file something away, to bring a matter to conclusion from the Latin ad ācta  

a show of swords: direct democracy on display in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden  

cartel: the United Arab Emirates to quit OPEC after a sixty year membership  

euromaxxing: Hungary’s turn around—via Quantum of Sollazzo  

clausal stacking tolerance: a new test to parse the limits of lexical ambiguity—see previously

lihop, mihop: the language of manufactured crises and phoney outrage (now and then), the tone set by an individual vying for the Nobel Peace Prize yet threatening to destroy civilisations and celebrated the deaths of Rob Reiner and Robert Muller

that’s so maven (13. 381)

Reprising a classic post with updates for 2026 when kill-bots have entered the chat with the US military integrating AI into its tactical decisions with Project Maven and the push for algorithmic warfare, Nancy Friedman takes a fascinating look at the once obscure Yiddish term—originally from the Hebrew mēbin (מֵבִין) as an expert, a knowledgeable person and echoing the rabbinical kaon, “he who understands will understand” (ha-mevin yavin)—but also with derogatory connotations of a know-it-all and a soi-disant authority. Like chutzpah and kvetching, the word was confined to certain circles before garnering acceptance in common-parlance, beginning in the 1960s, promoted to a large extent by an advertising campaign for canned herring, voiced by actor Allen Swift, as the self-proclaimed fish maven, and vocal talent behind Mighty Mouse and other cartoon characters. The following decades saw authors including William Safire take up the mantle, former speech writer for Richard Nixon and also a propellant for the term pundit, and cemented into mainstream language with Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 The Tipping Point as a linguist lacuna that prefigured influencer as a career choice and our social betters. Much more from Fritinancy at the link up top.

ecstacy (13. 379)

Whilst having visited the topic of the granularity of the words for feelings, nuances that the English language does not have in both real and constructed speech, many of these terms were familiar already—like saudade, mono no aware, sisu, Vorfreude, grok, gigil and hygge—nonetheless the expression is not dulled and we enjoyed exploring this polyglotinous mood grid and sentimental wheel courtesy of Web Curios. The vibe of vibe coding was not lost on us, the puttiness of the page, once pointed out, but if assembled with care and not slapdash with inaccuracies, it is still a heuristic starting point to explore more and get in touch with one’s feelings. We enjoyed being introduced to the Greek term clinomania, “I should have stood in bed,” dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing, and Drachenfutter, a peace offering or tribute (dragon food) brought home with hopes of placating an angry partner. The rich vocabulary of intrusive thoughts is particularly engaging. Much more at the links above.

dubsteppe (13. 367)

Via Metafilter, we are introduced to the outstanding musical talents of Siberian folk-pop ensemble Otyken (Отукен, from a term in the nearly extinct local Tartar language Chulym designating a place of truce where feuding warriors lay down their arms for peace talks) through their new techno, noir jazz single, “Tundra,” performed in the indigenous Dolgan language, all members of various ethnicities of the Taiga, outfitted with traditional costumes and an assortment of native instruments fused with modern counterparts. The video below with the little kid trying to sneak into the show reminds me of Madonna’s “Open Your Heart.”

nichts besonders (13. 363)

Having also covered the etymology and evolution of the semi-fantastical coinage of the term invented by the author of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, we thoroughly enjoyed this examination of the trademarking and corporatisation of the made-up word sonder, a sort of trendy afterlife and meta-reading of the linguistic lacuna defined as the “realisation that each random passerby is the main character of their own story—living a life just as vivid and complex as your own, while you are just an extra in the background,” an important lesson to be sure and a check on ego-centrism but also with a bit of sinister connotations both historical and possibly hijacked, as with these other startup ventures with the pedigree of another made-up thing in the unicorn, as the spotlight syndrome and non-playable characters. The emergent brandscape includes Sonder breweries as well as job-placement services and a capital investment fund, and any number of accommodations, cafes and restaurants all in varying states of solvency. The title is from the German phrase for “nothing special”—a response to what’s going on—and with sonderbar as an adjective conveying strange or remarkable, there is an endless amount of taverns and clubs in the Sprachraum that have taken advantage of that code-switching, though not subject to copyright as a vocabulary item. Maybe one should have added diacriticals with heavy metal ümlauts to register it as IP.

9x9 (13. 350)

reference desk: harness Google’s secret card catalog—via Kottke  

nitrate divas: a remarkable 1928 amateur film adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” 

📍: a Scrabble Map commissioned for the word play game’s (previously) international commemoration, celebrated yesterday  

middle powers: Carney’s Liberal Party secures supermajority in parliamentary special elections  

print gallery of an artist: an MC Escherque exploration of recursive spaces—via Waxy 

infallibilità papale: ally Meloni (previously) breaks with Trump over criticism of Pope, cancels security arrangement with Israel  

dutch cartocubism: an overlooked approach to simplify mapping from the early 1930s from the figures behind ISOTYPE—via Quantum of Sollazzo—see also  

connie converse: rediscovering the forgotten folk-music genius 

огас: the 1960s proto-internet that the Soviet Union passed on—see previously

oilfield units (13. 341)

Somewhat preoccupied with the engineering diglossia of customary and scientific units of measurement (see previously here, here and here)—no longer encountered pervasively as the UK have given up the Imperial system almost in totality (with a few outliers like fuel efficiency is still expressed in miles per gallon), we really enjoyed this rant about drilling a borehole of Babel over the petrodollar and US-imposed standards and conversions, courtesy of MetaFilter, which whilst maddening don’t lead to catastrophic miscalculations on a regular basis—punished for our own ambition and avarice with a confusion of the tongues in the form of ten thousand different metrics whose meaning can vary a lot in a discipline where precision counts. A barrel of crude is, incidentally, abbreviated BBL, after the blue barrels that Standard Oil adopted as its standard, with a volume of forty-two American gallons (approximately one hundred and fifty nine litres or thirty five Imperial gallons at standard temperature and pressure), with a thousand barrels not enumerated as KBBL (further Simpsons references below) but rather Mbbl (from the Roman mille) and a million barrels as MMbbl then returning to Greek prefixes for a billion barrels with giga- in Gbbl. In contrast, a barrel of beer is thirty six Imperial gallons or half a hogshead and the wine industry also has its own standards, though most of the world has adopted DIN of the Euro Keg of fifty litres. As for density, it is confusingly measured in MW, not megawattage but “mud weight,” pounds per gallon or pound cubic feet.  More insanity, pidgin and jargon to follow.  

8x8 (13. 334)

queen bee: the fascinating life-cycle of bumblebee matriarchs includes the ability to breath underwater  

zweeeeëg: dizygotic, fraternal words and other Danish and Luxembourgish orthography, including vanilleijs  

pork johnson: the spoof trailer for the feature film on Gimp, the Photoshop alternative, starring a puppet warthog and reminiscent of Social Network  

ranger danger: the Trump administration eviscerates the US forest service, see previously—via Kottke  

byline: World Press photos of the year  

₿: the investigator who unmasked the creator of the cryptocurrency—see previously  

to wit: the lost intimacy and nuance of extinct Old English pronouns  

regina apoidea: the brilliant physical acting of Joan Crawford presented as slap-fest

một trăm (13. 331)

Via Laughing Squid, we are directed to this rather lit rap video from language teacher Levion that teaches one how to count to one hundred in Vietnamese following in the tradition of Multiplication Rock and others that reenforces learning through a catchy format. The teacher also uses the technique for teaching colours and the days of the week. This is really rapid-fire but in the cadence one can pick up of the patterns and conventions of the numbers (see previously). More straightforward in terms of forming the base, there are historically two sets of numerals, native Vietnamese used here and the version most used for everyday accounting purposes and another of Sino-Vietnamese influence generally only used for fixed expressions and very large numbers, like Latin and Greek prefixes in English. Arabic numerals and Roman script (chữ Quốc ngữ) supplanted Chinese characters during the era of French Indochina.

9x9 (13. 308)

ruina montium: an striking landscape in Spain created by the ancient Romans fracking for gold—via Miss Cellania  

13 ｘ 7 = 28: Abbot and Costello try to meet their sales quota—via MetaFilter 

i’m your hell, i’m your dream—i’m nothing in between: a linguistic and semantic history of the term bitch 

anatoly kolodkin: US waives sanctions to allow Russian tanker to deliver crude oil to Cuba  

coalition of the willing: recalling the legacy Icelandic PM Davíð Oddsson of committing the nation to the unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, juxtaposed with contemporary Spain  

cocktail nation: Spy Vibe’s regular segment on swank vintage soundtracks  

lip-filler accent: influencers inform the way we speak—via Nag on the Lake, see also  

gigo: AI is an accelerant for academic fraud, selling papers and citations to pad one’s portfolio  

unoosa: a profile of the director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs who alerts the world of impending asteroid impacts