Category: words

“I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies … but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore … and experience being others. Saying this upset some men. Many among that curious gender are easy to upset, and when they are upset they don’t know it (see: privelobliviousness). They just think you’re wrong and sometimes also evil.”

“The point of the tale is this: Most people are irritating and selfish, especially around Christmastime. They march around in gaudy cheerfulness, braying good wishes to everyone within earshot, repeating the tiresome pieties of the season—Happy Holidays!—and pestering friends and relations and employers for all sorts of favors and boons and cash gifts.”

“Well before tensions between France’s Muslim and non-Muslim populations rose in response to the terrorist attacks last month, the Islamic world had been looming large in French literature this season — a sign of the powerful influence the Middle East and North Africa play in the nation’s cultural imagination.”

The folks at the OED chose an emoji; their Stateside counterparts went for – a suffix.

“Considering marginalia have been found in texts for as long as there have been books, scrolls, or writings on papyrus, it seems odd to say that now is the moment. But indeed it may be. There is an obvious reason for this, and a less obvious one.”

Linguist John McWhorter explains the phenomenon of “multiethnolects” such as Kiezdeutsch, developed by adult immigrants from various countries – and how their European-raised children and grandchildren will hang on to their multiethnolect and code-switch to and from the standard language the way many African-Americans do.

“By giving control back to the booksellers, we were telling the publishers, ‘We know what sells better than you.’ That’s never a pleasant message,”

“We asked nearly 150 booksellers from 20 bookstores across America to send us their favorite books of the year. The result: 750 suggestions, nearly 100 of which were recommended more than once. Following some very complicated math, we determined the 25 most bookseller-beloved books of the year.”

“I’m torn between making broad sweeping statements and getting at a truth that’s practical and mundane, truth in the trenches, sort of, which is much closer to how I experience the actual act of writing an essay.”

“While the pattern looks simple—release the book, get a bunch of sales—it appears candidates who publish while they’re riding high in the polls get an additional boost. But sales trail off rather quickly.”