Libraries loaning “things” isn’t a new concept. They were part of the sharing economy before it was cool. You could check out at the Newark (N.J.) Public Library back in 1904. The oldest continuously operating toy library began in 1935, when a dime store owner decided that instead of chasing kids for stealing toys, he […]
You probably know the phrase “Pigs Might Fly” or “When Pigs Fly”. Today I discovered that the world of sarky disbelief is rife with toothy chickens, mustachioed frogs, and coughing cows. We can trace the phrase “Pigs Might Fly”back to the 17th century when mutton was mutton and pigs few “in the air with their […]
Finally we can have an answer to the question: can bats have library cards? Yes, when it’s a Library bat. The Museum of Modern English Rural Life recently fluttered at the chance to utter the words ‘…does anyone know anything about bats?’ In their treasure trove of lovely books, they found something that was not a […]
The very first author whose name we have on record was a woman. And she’s been compared to Shakespeare. Her name was Enheduanna (?????) and she lived from 2285 to 2250 BCE. Enheduanna was installed as High Priestess of Ur (now in Iraq) by her empire-building father Sargon 1, King of Akkad. So she was […]
Ancient Celtic dogs are in stories and proverbs, protected in laws, and even used to name other animals. There are nine breeds of dog that are native to Ireland: four terriers, three gun dogs, and two hounds. At least one, the Irish Water Spaniel, legendarily descended from the dobhar-chu-a Celtic spirit. Cú Chulainn is the […]
Back in 2003, Plymouth University students received £2,000 from the Arts Council to give six monkeys one computer for a month. After six months, the Shakespeare monkeys had failed to produce a single word of English, broken the computer and used the keyboard as a lavatory. They pressed a lot of S’s,” researcher Mike Phillips […]
In the internet debate on whether the H in IMHO stands for Honest or Humble, I go with neither. Believe it or not, there’s a poll on Buzzfeed right now and honest is leading humble at about a 60-40 split. Honestly, I have to humbly side with The Atlantic on this one. “We all know […]
Just as the tin-opener was invented 50 years after the tin can, the e-book came before the e-reader. We can thank one man unreasonable enough to spend nearly 20 years sitting alone at a keyboard, manually entering text into one e-book after another in his spare time. The e-book Jump to 1971 and a sugar-pizza loving […]
Milkshake Duck – The phrase so famous you never heard of it. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary has awarded “milkshake duck” its 2017 word of the year. On June 12, 2016, Australian cartoonist Ben Ward tweeted it to describe our tendency to foist instant celebrity on some person and its inevitable backlash. In Ward’s tweet, the cuddly duck is accused […]
Called someone a smart aleck lately? Well, you just compared them to a 19th-century pimp. Turns out that Smart Aleck was a real person – and not one you’d like to meet down a dark alley. Or any kind of alley. Missouri professor Gerald Cohen writes that the term is derived from a real-life person. Alexander Hoag was […]
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