Category Archives: General

The Gramophone has put much (all?) of their archives on-line, but the texts have been OCR’d, and the results are as one would expect: often erroneous and sometimes unintelligible. My favorite typo so far is from the review of one … Continue reading →

Absinthe, of course, which recently appeared at the state liquor store down the hill. They have four different brands, all priced from $42.95 to $59.95, so I need to do a bit of research before trying one out. Not to … Continue reading →

I know very little about meteorology, but tomorrow’s National Weather Service forecast for my town includes what must be a quite unusual combination: “Patchy frost / Hi: 70o F”.

It should be known that Akaky Akakievich expressed himself mostly with prepositions, adverbs, and finally, such particles as have decidedly no meaning. If the matter was very difficult, he even had the habit of not finishing the phrase at all, … Continue reading →

What’s it like living in one of the hillier parts of the Shenandoah Valley? Like living in a Grandma Moses painting, but with slightly duller colors and much better perspective. I really like driving past cows on the way to … Continue reading →

InstaPundit is duly impressed that Amazon sells bacon-flavored jelly beans. I’m more astonished by the last two things listed under ‘customers who bought this item also bought’: the bacon wallet (imitation bacon, I presume) and the Mr. Bacon vs. Monsieur … Continue reading →

I gather from various English novels read over the years that public-school boys routinely called each other by their last names (perhaps still do), and that brothers were called (e.g.) ‘Smith major’ and ‘Smith minor’. I’ve always wondered what they … Continue reading →

If I fail to say what lies on my mind it gives me a feeling of flatulence; I shall therefore give my brush free rein. Mine is a foolish diversion, but these pages are meant to be torn up, and … Continue reading →

Laudator Temporis Acti has an amusing post on ‘comical construes’. Here is another, as I heard it from one of my professors in grad school: In Satires 1.4.120, Horace uses the phrase nabis sine cortice, “you will swim without a … Continue reading →

                              However many books Wise men have said are wearisom; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek) Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep … Continue reading →

. . . a middle-schooler — not one of my students — who was amused and even a bit pleased that the first three grades on his report card were A, D, and D.

When you see a review of a book entitled Ius Latinum and think “Mmmmm . . . gravy”.

A month ago I posted about Liver Pudding, a Carolina delicacy whose very name makes me shudder. Last week, Ann Althouse reminded us that her readers once paid her $200 to eat something she has always despised, an egg salad … Continue reading →

Over the last month or so, I have added quite a few Classics titles to the list of Books for Sale (link in left-hand column), including several that are, so far as I can determine, not available elsewhere either new … Continue reading →

If we’re going to give our students texts in which v is used for consonantal u, shouldn’t the enclitic conjunction be -qve, not -que? The latter confuses some students in their scansion exercises, since they try to take the u … Continue reading →

If anyone reading this will be attending the A.P.A. meeting in Chicago this week, I would dearly love to get copies of the 20%-off sales catalogues from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Walter de Gruyter and would be glad to reimburse … Continue reading →

While looking for lard at Food Lion for my Christmas baking (in the oven right now), I ran across a shelf (just above the bacon) with a row of products from Neese’s Sausage: country sausage, liver pudding, souse, and “c. … Continue reading →

Winter begins . . . . . . . . now. So how about some snow for Raleigh?