There she goes, my beautiful world
I thought it meant one thing, when it really meant something else.
I hate being wrong. Probably no one likes it very much. I know that being wrong is part of the scientific process and that many scientists delight in being wrong. I can relate to that. I tend to love new discoveries. But new discoveries also tend to be something I’ve intentionally questioned, perhaps even knew I did not know. I get frustrated when I discover that something I was absolutely certain was true simply is not so.
In the case of … Read the rest
When I took French in high school I came across the concept of transitive versus intransitive verbs. Perhaps this distinction was made in my studies of English, but what I recall is a specific conversation in French class.
While trying to grasp what my teacher was telling me, I asked whether a transitive verb was one that required a direct object. I hoped that was a different way of saying what she had been telling us, and that she would
Mr Lanier strikes again.
When I came across the sentence, «The strangeness is being leached away by the mush-making process» in *You Are Not A Gadget* I thought at first that I’d stumbled across a typo that had escaped the editor’s eye. I expected that he meant *leeched* as in, sucked away as though by a parasite. While this would have made enough sense, Lanier’s choice indeed seems more appropriate.
Fortunately, I thought for a moment about who was more … Read the rest
Came across this while I was looking up the definition of Carapace. I’d always assumed it was pronounced with a soft ch sound and a short i. In actuality it’s a hard ch and a long i. Instead of rhyming with kitten, it rhymes with Titan.… Read the rest
I guess I’d always assumed that would be heaved. I came across this in Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space.… Read the rest
Luckily I looked this up before using it, rather than after. I was going to use it as a near-synonym for *credibility*.… Read the rest
The word I wanted [here]([canonical-url:/2007/03/29/daring-doesnt-make-it-good/]) was «betray» not «belie.» And it is spelled with an «ie» at the end, not with a «y».
Thanks, Dad!… Read the rest