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Saturday, December 28, 2002

Nyekulturni, Russian for uncultured, w

Nyekulturni, Russian for “uncultured,” was how that nation’s chess grandmasters thought of Bobby Fischer as a boy, and would still be an apt description of him now. Currently, Fischer hosts a bizarre show on a Manila radio station, which often includes him singing along to classic R&B records and ranting about vast international conspiracies.

Friday, December 27, 2002

Sweet potato hornworm ca

Sweet potato hornworm caterpillars, black with a horn-like marking on the back end, are now infesting the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i. Up to 90 percent of the eggs are usually killed by the parasite Trichogramma, but this year there are more than 300,000 of the insects per square acre.

Monday, December 23, 2002

Hump-shunting is when a ra

Hump-shunting is when a railway locomotive propels rail cars to the summit of an artificial hump in the track, where the locomotive stops and the cars, propelled by gravity, roll into a number of sidings.

Glocalization is a t

Glocalization is a trend in which global culture is given a distinctly local spin as it is adapted, either spontaneously or through planned marketing.

Arobase was approv

Arobase was approved for use by the French Government’s General Committee on Terminology as the name of the @ symbol.

This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...

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