I haven’t read any of the “geeking it up” sites in my Google-reader this week, because I have been busy. If I had, I’m sure one of them would have mentioned the nerdalicious celebration of Pi Day on March 14th. As usual, dinosaurs explain it better than I ever could.
February 14, 2007 • 11:11 pm 0
David and Margaret are back
And David Stratton suavely used “meretricious”* in the most appositely contemptuous fashion. How delightful when one’s favourite film review show appeals not only to one’s inner geek but also to one’s inner vocab nazi.
* A long, long time ago, on a USENet newsgroup far, far away, I once used “meretricious” injudiciously (because I had somehow gained the impression that it was to do with theft, as I had never actually looked it up). I was gently corrected, in verse even, by an elegant personage fondly ‘nymed “ice weasel”. I miss her rapier work. No-one skewers sloppiness like she could.
Filed under: pedantry, performance
November 3, 2006 • 9:44 am 4
oh, and by the way
“The suspect has only one hand“.
This was tagged on at the end of a standard description (medium height, short brown hair etc etc) of a con-artist the police are looking for, as read out on the radio while I was driving the kids to school. I couldn’t help it, I snorted and giggled. It sounded somehow Pythonesque.
“I want to confess! I done it!”
“Now, now, sir. Sir knows very well that we’re looking for a one-handed man.”
“I got better!”
Wouldn’t saying “we’re looking for a one-handed man” be better to put at the front of the description?
Filed under: pedantry
