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Richard Walker

What I'm Reading

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Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 27 Nov 2022, 12:32

SPEECH! How Language Made Us Human, by Simon Prentis. 

I've only just started but finding it very interesting. As a professional translator he provides many examples of how other languages may do something is a way that seems strange or unnatural so English speakers, only to flip the perspective and show us that from the others point of view we English speakers are the strange ones.

On Page 53 I found this wonderful joke. I don't know where it came from originally and it pops up in several places on the internet. I've reproduced it from memory, this is no a direct quote.

A mother mouse and her baby mouse were going for a stroll when they were suddenly attacked by a cat. The mother mouse shouted "BARK, BARK!" and the cat ran away scared. "See" says the mother, "how useful it is to learn foreign languages."

As an avid etymologist I was also fascinated by this fun fact: Chemistry is of course from Alchemy and that comes from Medieval French, and then from Arabic, which added the al meaning 'the' to a Greek word mean 'transmutation', and the latter comes ultimately from the Ancient Egyptian word for the fertile silt spread by the Nile when it floods annually.

It's all here in Wikipedia but I didn't know it before -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_chemistry


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Richard Walker

One Liner

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Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 18 Nov 2022, 21:15

Whatever happened to cloaks of invisibility? I don’t seem to see them nowadays.

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Richard Walker

Old English Saying

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“Learning is the power that lets us discover our ignorance.”  

Translated from Erne of Armingford, probably writing ca 700 CE.

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Richard Walker

Ant Joke

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Exorbitant: Ant that has returned from the International Space Station.

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Richard Walker

Dad Joke

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What day comes after Fry-up day?

Fatter day!

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Richard Walker

Solution to triangle problem

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Richard Walker

A triangle problem

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Given an equilateral triangle LMN, let X lie on ML extended, and Y lie on MN, such that LX = NY.

Show that the point P where XY and LN intersect is the midpoint of XY.

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Richard Walker

The Twins

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Richard Walker

Clever Bumble Bees

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Edited by Richard Walker, Monday, 7 Nov 2022, 12:11

In the last few years there has been a good deal of research into bumble bee behaviour. These astonishing insects are capable of quite complex learning, far more than was at one time recognised. For example they can learn to roll a wooden ball to a target in order to get a reward of dissolved sugar. An article very recent published reports that they also engage in behaviour that looks like playing; they spontaneously roll the wooden balls around even when no reward is associated.


For more about the research see

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347222002366?via%3Dihub




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Richard Walker

Sleeping Tablets

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Richard Walker

What I’m reading

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The Slowcoach, by Ivan Tupotitov. An early 19th century classic about a Russian nobleman, who, like Hamlet, struggles with procrastination.

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Richard Walker

New blog post

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Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 4 Nov 2022, 17:36

It was a beautiful autumn day this Friday. I managed to capture this magic moment when the sun just caught the weathervane on the clock tower at Wimpole Hall.


The name 'Wimpole' is an interesting one. In Domesday it is spelt 'Winepole' = Win's Pool and the pool in question is still there, although it is more of a lake. Of Wina nothing is known but perhaps it is the same name as Wynn. At the time of Domesday, 1086, there were only 13 households, a small place even by the standards of the time. The Lord was Count Alan of Brittany. Pre-conquest it had belonged to the rather poetically named Edeva the Fair.

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Richard Walker

Grandma Joke

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Gran refused to drive faster when we asked her to. She said she was putting her foot down.

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Wine Joke

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If you try to steal my wine, you’d better watch Shiraz.

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Richard Walker

The Metric Cistern

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My toilet takes 1,6 gallons to flush, that’s 7 litres in the metric cistern.

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Richard Walker

Grandad Joke

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I tried hard to shift Grandad from pounds and ounces to grams and kilograms. But I never got anywhere. He was just too set in his weights.

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Richard Walker

Dad joke

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They laughed when I checked my ruler against a head of broccoli.

But I explained; I need to calibrate, see?

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Richard Walker

Dad joke

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They laughed when I checked my ruler against a head of broccoli.

But I explained; I need to calibrate, see?

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Richard Walker

Clogs - A True Story

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I bought some clogs three or four years ago, but they were uncomfortable on me. So I gave them away, wouldn’t you?

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Richard Walker

4 Ps

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 20 Oct 2022, 20:45

‘Hippopotamus’ has three Ps in it. Can you think of a word with 4?

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Richard Walker

ma Belle Joséphine

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Richard Walker

Another Emotive Conjugation

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I am a skilled negotiator.

You know how to strike a deal.

They are corrupt.

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Richard Walker

Emotive Conjugation

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See

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation

Here’s an example that occurred to me.

  • I will avoid waste.
  • You will seek efficiency savings.
  • They will make cuts.
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Richard Walker

A Brendan Behan One Liner

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I saw a sign that said, “Drink Canada Dry”. So I did.

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Richard Walker

One Liner

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I bought some fossil wood 100 million years old. It was Jurassic bark.

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