November 2005
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Bushlingo is rich in malapropisms. The simplest occurs when an intended word is displaced by one that is similar in sound or cadence, as in the wannabe-stirring pronouncement that "we cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile." The word "hostile" is similar, kind of, to "hostage," but unfortunately it is opposite in…
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In the Black Sea just off the Bulgarian coast lies Nessabar, an island (nowadays artificially an isthmus) that has been a trading center for several thousand years. Still standing in the old city are churches and fortifications that date from the 8th and 9th century. It's authentic and it's intriguing, but it's also one of…
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A: Do you remember how we met? B: We met at the August picnic. In 1969. I insulted you. A: You insulted me? That's hard to believe. What did you say? B: I don't remember. A: If you don't remember, how do you know that you insulted me? B: You told me so. A: I…
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On the library's shelf of new books a few days ago there was a biography of Gaius Valerius Catullus (Aubrey Burl, Catullus, a Poet in the Rome of Julius Caesar, 2004). I’ve had a warm feeling for Catullus since translating, line by line as a schoolboy, the great erotic epithalamion written for the wedding of…
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Abkhazian has fifty-eight consonants. By contrast, English, a language which is not consonant-poor, has twenty-three: the ones for which there are the alphabetic letters such as b, d, f, etc. plus sh, ch, dz, ng, the occasional trilled r, and the two sounds that are indicated by th (voiced in 'soothe' and unvoiced in 'sooth').…