"Kisses -- why do we stop 'em / when a million feels so few?"

[larryhammer]

Offered without comment -- tyop of the day: "spearapting" for "separating".

Which looks like a good excuse for a link salad:

• Anyone up for a round of Noun: the Gerunding? (via)
  
  
• An analysis of the chatroom/forum problem as it applies to Facebook. (via)
  
  
• The Big Picture has had some good recent entries:
  1. First, it takes on the five-day camel-trading fair of Pushkar Mela, with bonus award-winning mustache. Warning: excellently camelicious.
     
  2. Then there's Mars seen from HiRISE, with bonus Google Mars links for every shot. I suggest a fresh cup of coffee or tea before starting this one.
• The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected antimatter in terrestrial lighting. (via)
  
  
• An alternate history of the Beatles. (via)
  
  
• A twitter feed that's exactly what it says on the tin: http://twitter.com/big_ben_clock. (via)
  
  
• A blog that's exactly what it says on the tin: how to write badly well. I'm especially fond of the object lesson in syllepsis. (via)

---L.

Comments

[maryosmanski.livejournal.com]

I love photo #2 at the camel fair!

[larryhammer]

I'm also fond of the last one -- the expression on his face.

---L.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

Discussion from my high school English class:

Mrs. Lamont: "Would someone like to give an example of a common verb?"
Josh: "Brocolli!"
Mrs. Lamont: "...Brocolli... isn't... a... verb... Josh."
Josh: "Not yet! But you can toilet paper a house or egg a vehicle, so it's a trivial step from there to brocolling things."

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

And, ohmygodthatistheBESTtwitterfeedEVER.

[larryhammer]

Even better than FakeAPStylebook?

---L.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

Gerunding a verbed noun is completely unremarkable in Hungarian. "teazva", for instance, is the gerund form of "tea".

[larryhammer]

In Japanese, it's also trivially easy -- verb the noun (add "to do" after it) and then conjugate the continuing form. I'm more shaky on the reverse process, nominalizing verbs.

---L.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

Nominalizing verbs is also easy in Hungarian; just add -ság or -ség, in accordance with the principles of vowel harmony. Although the results are not always intuitive: "tesz" means to put, but it can also mean to do something; the -hat/-het suffix on a verb means you have the ability to take that action (so, for instance, "teazhatok" means "I can drink tea"); so "tehetség" is the Hungarian word for "talent".

[larryhammer]

Ah, the joys of non-intuitive compounding ...

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I thought "elaborate on your metaphors" (http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/2009/11/elaborate-on-your-metaphors.html) was pretty funny over at that blog on writing badly.

[larryhammer]

That? is excellent.

---L.

[octopedingenue]

(Off-topic) Look, look at the cuuuute!

[larryhammer]

Heeeeeee!

Thanks for brightening my morning.

---L.