Monthly Archives: June 2006

A Missed Opportunity

The BBC reports the discovery (or reclassification) of a huge underwater volcano off the south coast of Sicily, which scientists have named Empedocles. They explain the name in their last paragraph: The volcano was named Empedocles after the Greek philosopher … Continue reading

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Two (Non-Classical) Riddles

What fact connects the following words? cross, lane, return, rock, waltz How about the following series of words and phrases? amnesia, babe, baby, blues, crowd, gal, girls, hardwood floor, healin’, heart, husband, man, merry go round, moon, night time man, … Continue reading

Posted in Music, Orbilius | 4 Comments

Scholastic Humor

In Martial: Select Epigrams (Cambridge ‘green and gold’, 2003), Lindsay and Patricia Watson include 4.87 (71 in their numeration): Infantem secum semper tua Bassa, Fabulle,     conlocat et lusus deliciasque uocat, et, quo mireris magis, infantaria non est.     ergo quid in … Continue reading

Posted in Exegesis, Latin Literature | Tagged | 1 Comment

An Editorial Shipwreck

I’ve been reading the new translation of Sebastiano Timpanaro’s The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most and published by the University of Chicago Press (2005). Or rather, I have been trying to read it, but … Continue reading

Posted in Orbilius | 1 Comment

World’s Oldest Country Music Fan?

That would be 110-year-old Jutland veteran, Henry Allingham, “who once attributed his old age to ‘cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women’” (þ Harry’s Place). None of the first dozen or so commenters noticed that that was a direct quotation from … Continue reading

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An Unnecessary Gloss?

In Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), the subtitles quote the maid as telling the title character, Priape Boudu, “You behave like a Neanderthal”, but the last word is clearly audible as ‘troglodyte’. Was the gloss really necessary? Surely anyone likely … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Orbilius | 1 Comment