I’ve been busy over the past week, what with teaching last Friday, and reading books about mermaids, so I haven’t blogged. As always I have n ideas to blog about, but for now I just want to recommend this lovely little post on Language Log, which is really about a love of words. The challenge for Drs. Gee and Clarke is to get either ‘lant’ or ‘midlenting’ into a future issue of Nature. Extra marks for sneaking ‘redeless’ in there in such a way that it’s clear what it means (just getting it in should be easy: find a story about politicians or managers).
And whilst I’m giving links, some wonderful photos here (via Carl Zimmer)
Bob, I highly recommend one of my favourite children’s books if you need a present for anyone! And I thought upchuck was a perfectly normal word.
These words can certainly appear in Nature – if an author provides them in the right context. Our subs’ bench is pretty erudite and very open to well-educated authors 😉
Surely Henry’s new challenge has to be to get unbepissed into a N&V article in Nature?
Beautiful set of photos on your other link, by the way.
Unrelenting – refusing to continue the fast after being fed sandwiches by your folks while midlenting.
But science has been using nes and obscure words for a long time!
“Two quarks for Mr. Mark”.
The quantized unit of strangeness.
Unbepissed – the state when you wear superhydrophobic Y-fronts made from carbon nanotubes.