The Lexicographer's Rules

LanguageLog has converted its content into a book. Aha! Why didn’t I think of that? (wink) (Source Link)

While I think listing him as your favorite author is not to your credit and while I think he is somewhere on the spectrum between being the Bennet Cerf or the James Thurber of our generation—talented but never surpassing mere cleverness and doomed to be forgotten by all but people who buy Trivial Pursuit for the factoids—David Sedaris is still a funny man. Even funnier if you imagine his voice when you read his words.

Sorry, Elizabeth. : (

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My boss Erin McKean is guest-blogging over at Powell’s.  (Source Link)

My coworker Scott Gold is leaving Oxford University Press to write a book about meat. Some people get the best deals, don’t they? He’s started a blog on the subject, Shameless Carnivore. (Source Link)

A little more than a week ago I posted a list of all the books on my “want” list that I couldn’t find on Amazon.com. One of those was Le pornithorynque est un salopare by Alain Créhange. It’s a dictionary of French portmanteau words.

Today I received a package in the mail postmarked “Paris Saint Laurent.” It’s a copy of the book from the author himself, signed and everything! Alain writes in a note that he saw on this web site that I wanted it, so…

The book has an attractive cover featuring ink drawings of two platypuses doing it doggy-style.

Another victory for the Internets!

I find it interesting that four years after the last French Francs were withdrawn from circulation, La Poste still gives the price in Francs on the postage sticker under the price in Euros.