The letter ‘p’ changed my life. I was a junior in high school, and I was attending a science fair at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. Like most science fairs, this one was dominated by exhibits and presentations about physics and chemistry and biology, but I saw that a professor from the department of linguistics … Continue reading The Letter “p”

I first saw the word “vote-a-rama” a week ago Wednesday, when it appeared in a CNN headline, after the covid relief bill passed in the Senate: “Bill Passes After All-Night Vote-a-rama”. I knew that the process of voting had been delayed and took many hours, and I supposed that the word “vote-a-rama” must refer somehow … Continue reading Vote-a-rama

After I posted “Things and Actions” I had a couple of afterthoughts. First, I mentioned that one way to turn a noun into a verb or a verb into a noun is just to do it. Then I came across the following passage from another of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, “Too Many Clients” (p. … Continue reading Second Thoughts on Things and Actions

Just by chance I was looking through a popular science book about quantum physics (don’t ask me anything, I don’t understand it), and I came across this passage: “Here’s one way to describe what physics is all about. It’s about what is (things) and what happens (actions).” [Kenneth W. Ford. The Quantum World: Quantum Physics … Continue reading Things and Actions