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The institutional memory of survivors
One of the dominant undercurrents of reporting this last week has been the terror and outrage of journalists caught in the hurricane and its aftermath. The CNN and NPR reporters at the Convention Center yesterday were clearly witnessing as well as reporting, and I suspect most journalists in New Orleans right now will come out […]
The foreseeable burning of New Orleans
Signs are increasingly clear that, at some point in the near future—maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week—a significant portion of New Orleans will burn to the ground. Any reasonably-conscious social historian and civil engineer can tell you the consequences of a large city with significant petroleum on the ground (and fumes near the ground), […]
Online OED
Thanks to Piers Cawley: there’s an OED gateway that Tarrin Wills has set up at the University of Sydney. From the entry on drop-out, it’s clearly from the older edition (not the OED online for which you need a subscription). But it’s still fun.
Bulwer-Lytton failure
Alerted by Margaret Soltan, I found the winners of this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Alas, I did not earn any recognition for this scintillating entry: Leaning backwards over the balcony after three glasses of Merlot, the dean suddenly found himself dropping into the courtyard like a delinquent duck shot by a vigilante Supreme Court justice, […]
Fowler’s English
By Sherman Dorn on September 10, 2005
While Henry Fowler’s Modern English Usage (2nd ed.) is not available online (being reprinted by Oxford University Press—get the 2nd ed., not the 3rd), his brother H.W. Fowler’s The King’s English (1908) is available online.
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