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Word to the breakaround, y’all.

Or something like that. —If there’s any blogger I’d ever want to be (aside from myself, that is), it’s the languagehat. The man’s polylingual like a fittstim, snarky like an illywhacker, he’s all-too comfortable brachiating happily through the madly glorious exfoliations of the liberal arts, and every time I think of him as the Rosetta stoner, I break out in a fit of Flight Lieutenant Biggles; if nothing else, he raises the bar for links to cool stuff you might otherwise never have heard of but now can’t imagine living without, you know? Which, for me (cue standard MeFi lament), is what the web is all about.

His write-up of the New York Times obituary of Robert K. Merton, for instance, which, in the course of firmly cementing another book into my teetering must-read-soonest stack, reminded me of the all-too-terribly cool word “anafractuous,” in the course of seeking a quickie etymology of which I stumbled over this lovingly detailed exegesis of John Bellairs’ “The True History of St. Fidgeta, Virgin and Martyr.”

In other words, today I had a good coffee break. —So. Thanks, ’hat. Look on this perhaps as sincere flattery, inspired if nonetheless inept; I just wanted to give a little something back. Yo.

  1. language hat    Feb 24, 05:06 pm    #
    Sir, you do me too much honor, and reduce me nearly to silence. But with the good offices of St. Fidgeta I retain enough voice to thank you for your kind words; I can only hope that the Merton book will give you sufficient enjoyment in recompense. May your coffee be always strong and good, and your exfoliations anfractuous. And in conclusion: jävla svenske! As my mother's family used to say, a Svede ain't nuttin but a Norvegan vit his brains knocked out.

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