Dr. Metablog

Dr. Metablog is the nom de blague of Vivian de St. Vrain, the pen name of a resident of the mountain west who writes about language, books, politics, or whatever else comes to mind. Under the name Otto Onions (Oh NIGH uns), Vivian de St. Vrain is the author of “The Big Book of False Etymologies” (Oxford, 1978) and, writing as Amber Feldhammer, is editor of the classic anthology of confessional poetry, “My Underwear” (Virago, 1997).

February 2023

  • I cannot think of a word that has undergone greater change during the course of my lifetime than the plain monosyllable "hack." "Hack" entered my language, like much of my early vocabulary, through the medium of baseball. "He took a good hack at that fastball;" "he's up there hacking away." A hack was a hard…

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  • In this one, I was lying in restless sleep in my own bed, when a figure, a man, came at me. He tried to get under my covers, and I cried out, "You can't get into bed with me. I'm a married woman!"  Very theatrical — and strange enough, but the details are even more…

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  • In the course of my lifetime, the telephone has gone from relatively rare to ubiquitous, from wall to pocket, and from rotary dial to cell. From no intelligence whatsoever to smart and then to very smart. Revolutionary changes. When I was growing up in Flatbush, our family was prosperous enough to have a telephone (not…

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