Update 12:15 PM: I’m a little behind in pointing to this, but I was ahead in saying it was a bad idea. When I visited Intel in January 2001, a few of us asked why Intel was in the business of making consumer MP3 players. The answer we got? “Well, we’re a really large supplier of memory chips, and this is a critical application for them.” Unsurprisingly, Intel has now announced it would phase out this product line. No “I told you so’s” from me. 🙂
Trying to be productive this morning. It’s hard. I picked up the Episode 1 DVD last night and I want nothing more than to go home and fall asleep watching it.
Some random links: Dave is the recipient of the top Wired Rave Award, the Tech Renegade Award, for his work on SOAP. I won’t argue–in terms of my blog’s hit count alone, Dave’s certainly been the most influential person around. Plus I’m working on a major project with MIT Sloan‘s Center for E-Business around the industry in web services that SOAP helped to start.
The white powder that was found in an envelope by an MIT lecturer in Foreign Languages and Literature tested negative for anthrax.
If language is a virus, is it contagious?
The Tin Man has a good comments string running from Wednesday’s post about journalism. Most of them are about his use of the word “y’all.”
Aside: I’ve been gathering unusual words and expressions from the North Carolina side of my family. I never thought much about the colorful language that they used until my undergrad years. Then I read in the excellent liner notes to the Robert Johnson boxed set that Johnson’s term friend-boy in “Cross Road Blues” was a typical Mississippi Delta expression meaning simply friend. “Gee, I thought, “my uncle says that all the time.” I came to realize that my family’s language placed them solidly in the unique linguistic history of the South.
Some other words and phrases:
- pert
- (pron. “peert”) for “pretty”
- It was so good, my tongue like to beat my brains out.
- (said about food)
- He’s a good businessman. If you shake hands with him, you better
-
- count your fingers.
- Put your money in your mouth and sew your tongue up tight.
- pottymule
- [v. intransitive] – to do nothing constructive. Generally used as “to pottymule around.” See also “blogging.”