Watch this Space

I’ve been thinking about my watch a lot lately. Well, maybe not a lot, exactly, but more than normal.

You see, my watch has recently started losing some of its batons. Continue reading

Venetian Blinds

I was reading an Italian short story the other day (in an edition with English translations on the right-hand page) when I saw an interesting word: la persiana. Continue reading

Sshhh!!!

OK, now we can begin.

I’m not sure what got me thinking about this word (or, ejaculation at least, I’m not sure it merits being considered a word). It’s certainly not one I like to use much. Still, it’s curious. Continue reading

I am a Human Being!

Have you ever thought about how strange that term, human being, really is? Continue reading

Joker

This morning, perhaps influenced by the current anticipation for the upcoming Joker film, it occurred to me that the word joker sounds very similar to the Italian verb giocare. Continue reading

Copy and Paste

I was writing an email at work today (I’ll spare you the details) which included a pretty basic phrase. As soon as I’d written it however, I immediately deleted it and rewrote it, changing it only slightly, but in a way that, to me in the moment, made it correct. What was that phrase?

Copy and pasted. Continue reading

Amazon

If you’re reading this shortly after publication, then I don’t need to tell you about the horrific tragedy of the fires deliberately set in the Amazon Rainforest.

Focusing just on the name Amazon, I’ve often briefly wondered why the name was shared by the South American river and rainforest, as well the Ancient Greek all-female warrior tribe. Continue reading