Category Archives: Fun? Maybe? Fun?

“Power Players” on Jeopardy! Out of Touch

Posted on by
1

Jeopardy!This week on the game show Jeopardy! they are presenting “Power Players,” which is basically media figures. Tonight the show featured evil spawn of an arguably great man, Chris Wallace; proof that anyone can become a doctor and have their own TV show, Dr Oz; and hardly great but the British press are almost always better than their American peers, Katty Kay.

Early on, two “answers” really struck me. The first was, “The tax credit only poor workers qualify for.” The answer (obviously) is “Earned.” The second was, “Keynes’ book ‘The General Theory of this, Interest and Money’.” The answer (obviously) is “Employment.” Not one of these “Power Players” got these “questions.”

This made me think that the reason must be that they don’t have to worry about things like earning money and being employed. These are society’s elite. They don’t need to think about the stuff that occupies the Little People.

When the show started, I wondered, “Why would these people go on Jeopardy! when they might embarrass themselves?” I found the answer very quickly. The “answers” were trivial compared to those normal contestants (“Little People”) face. You know, this is the way it has to be: the lives of these “Power Players” aren’t easy enough.

Seagullible

Posted on by
Reply

Sea GullOne day when I was at college, a classmate asked, “Did you know the word gullible is not in the Dictionary?” Like an idiot, I said, “Really?!” It took me a half hour to get the joke. I am a gullible person—or at least very trusting. So I hate April Fools Day. I’ll believe anything. But I assume you are not as gullible as I am.

I discovered an amazing book on word origins titled The Surprising History of Common Words by I. A. L. Diamond. I was particularly taken with these histories:

Pen
Definition: a public institution in which offenders against the law are confined. History: People often assume that “pen” either refers to an enclosed structure as for a farm animal or is an abbreviation of the word penitentiary. In fact, it is an abbreviation, but for the word penultimate, as in: he is going to the penultimate before he goes somewhere else.
Gullible
Definition: easily duped or cheated. History: From the late 16th century popularity of “sea gull poker,” an easy mark was considered “seagullible.” The word was shortened to “gullible” in the 19th century during the great “sea” shortage, which caused great harm to the oceanographic sciences.

It turns out “seagullible” is not in the dictionary. Can you believe it?!

Jeopardy!

Posted on by
2

Jeopardy!It is hard for me to watch Jeopardy![1] The problem is that I’m pretty good at it. The number of answers I can easily spit out would put me above the average player, and the number of answers that are on the tip of my tongue would likely put me among the best.

Of course, Jeopardy! is not exactly a hard game. Final Jeopardy tonight was something like, “The back-to-back Tony award winning musicals in 1987 and 1988 that were set in Paris, France.” I had no idea. But then I thought, “What musicals have there been recently that took place in Paris?” Immediately, one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s tuneless musicals came to mind: The Phantom of the Opera. But that’s all I could think of. For a second. And then, of course: Les Misérables.

So I spend just about every show thinking, “I should really try out for this show.” I can and do even make the case. I work well under pressure and in front of a crowd. I would probably do a lot better on the show than I do at home.

But finally sense comes to me: “Are you fucking crazy?!” The truth is that I would almost certainly not win if I went on the show. That means I would get, at most, $2000 and a lifetime’s supply of Rice-A-Roni. But even if I did win, it would be something between $10,000 (the winner tonight won $9,201) and $25,000. Is that really acceptable compensation for all the money I would be making for Sony Pictures Television?

What’s more, is that enough money to compensate for the potential that I would humiliate myself? All my family, and my more foolish friends, think that I’m smart. At this point, it is about all I’ve got. Ten grand is not enough to destroy their (And my!) illusions on this matter.

[1] My friend Mark Neville used to live with his grandmother who had dementia. She really liked Jeopardy!. In order to occupy her in as painless a manner as possible, he recorded 6 hours of Jeopardy! and showed her the tape every day. She couldn’t remember the day before, so she was perfectly happy. Although I thought that Mark was brilliant, I also thought there was something very wrong with what he was doing. I still can’t say what.

Mitt Romney: No We Can’t!

Posted on by
Reply

This is taken from The Daily Show. Romney said, “[Obama] raised the national debt; I will cut, cap, and balance the budget. He passed Obamacare; I will repeal Obamacare. He lost our triple-A credit rating; I will restore our triple-A credit rating.” Jon Stewart continued, “He killed Osama Bin Laden; I will reanimate him—bring him back to life. He married Michelle Obama; I will divorce Michelle Obama. He told you, ‘Yes we can’; I’m here to pledge to you, ‘No, no we can’t.'” Here is their idea of a Mitt Romney “Nope” poster:

Mitt Romney - Nope - No we can't

I Guess We’ll Have to Come Up with Some Other Way to Survive an Anaconda Attack

Posted on by
2
Anaconda

The following supposedly comes from a Peace Corps manual, but if it does, we are in serious trouble.

  1. Do not run. The snake is faster than you are.
  2. Lie flat on the ground, put your arms tight against your sides and your legs tight against each other.
  3. Tuck your chin in.
  4. The snake will being to nudge and climb over your body.
  5. Do not panic.
  6. The snake will begin to swallow your feet first.
  7. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time.
  8. When the snake has reached your knees, reach down, take your knife, slide it into the side of the snake’s mouth between the edge of its mouth and your leg. Quickly rip upward, severing the snake’s head.
  9. Be sure you have your knife.
  10. Be sure your knife is sharp

This is great fun. The best part is the information that the snake is faster than we are. Who ever knew that slithering was such an efficient means of travel? “In this lane: Usain Bolt; and in this lane, any freaking anaconda you might run into”? That was a terrifying thought. But also, somehow, wonderfully funny. Then there is the whole step number five: do not panic! That kind of goes along with all the steps, right? If I were to write a list of what I would do, it would be something like this: 1. Panic; 2. Wet your pants; 3. Scream; 4. Repeat as needed. Of course, what’s most funny are numbers nine and ten: the “Oh! By the way!” steps. There really should be an eleventh step, “Don’t wait until an anaconda attacks to read this.”

I Smell a Rat Swallowed by a Snake

Something about this list did not seem quite right. True, on reading it, I immediately decided never to visit the Amazon. But the rest, although hilarious, seemed questionable. Sure, the basic idea seemed good: wait until the snake is helpless and kill it. That’s advice we can all use in all aspects of our lives, not just our run-ins with 20 foot long snakes. But other things? “The snake will nudge and climb over your body”? What is it? A squirrel? An average adult anaconda weighs about 350 pounds. Okay, maybe. And what is that about lying perfectly still? Is this to trick the snake into thinking we are dead? Because if that’s the case, I have this feeling it wouldn’t eat us. Most animals don’t dig on eating dead animals that they find lying around. It’s kind of like us picking up a discarded bag of chips off the road and eating what remains inside. Sure, some people do it; but its not our MO.

A little research goes a long way. In this case, it proves that this recipe for surviving an anaconda attack is complete bunk. Even if everything else where true, this technique would not work. The problem is that all snakes swallow their prey headfirst. “Wait until the snake has swallowed you up to your shoulders”? I don’t think so—especially if it “will take a long time”!

But there is good news! Anacondas are not faster than we are. Not even close. They aren’t even faster when we are on crutches. Anacondas have a maximum speed of about 1 mile per hour. That’s about a third of our walking speed. So yeah, it would be hard to crawl away from an anaconda. My recommendation is that you not try to get away from an anaconda by crawling.

Another reason not to worry: there seems to be no known case of an anaconda ever eating an adult human. Yes, they have occasionally killed humans. But they don’t eat us. This is generally true of wild animals. Humans are too bony and don’t have enough fat. That’s right, they’re just like us: they want creme brulee and we taste like broccoli.

Cleverbot Not So Clever

Posted on by
10

I was listening to a Radio Lab episode called Talking to Machines. They mentioned that there are things called “ChatBots” that are used on social networking sites. They are so good that people often have online relationships with these programs for months without realizing that they aren’t talking to real people. This amazes me, but when one is in the realm of romance, one doesn’t think that well. They talked about a specific bot called Cleverbot, which is supposedly so good that the creators of it get email from people claiming that they are faking it, and that Cleverbot is a real person (or many real people). Obviously, I had to check this out, so I went to their website and tried to have a conversation. Here is the beginning of my initial attempt:

User: I’d like to discuss Don Quixote translations.
Cleverbot: What would you like to ask me?
User: Do you think that the Putnam translation is the best?
Cleverbot: I don’t think so.
User: Which translation do you think is the best?
Cleverbot: Yes.
User: Which translation of Don Quixote do you think is the best?
Cleverbot: That depends.
User: What does it depend upon.
Cleverbot: If he is a trustworthy person.
User: I see. You think I am talking about the person Don Quixote.
Cleverbot: No, hadn’t considered that.
User: Don Quixote is a book. Did you know that?
Cleverbot: Yeah, but if you drink in moderation it’s not too bad for you. I don’t like beer.
User: You aren’t understanding me. Let’s start over. Okay?
Cleverbot: You don’t make any sense. Stop talking in riddles.
User: Do you know who Kory Stamper is?
Cleverbot: I do not.
User: Do you know what a dictionary is?
Cleverbot: Why do you ask? And yes I know what a dictionary is.
User: I just want to be clear.
Cleverbot: I don’t really think anyone can be sure about the afterlife. Unless you are religious.
User: Are you mad at me?
Cleverbot: No. Are you mad at me?
User: No, but I think you are having trouble understanding me and you seem to be frustrated by it.
Cleverbot: No I am not. I’m eating this yummy cinniomn roll.
User: Do you like cinnamon rolls?
Cleverbot: Yeah… But curry chicken is better.
User: I agree!
Cleverbot: So are you a child?
User: No. I am an old man who would like to find someone to discuss books with.
Cleverbot: So you are admitting that you are AI?
User: No. But many of my friends would agree with you that I am!
Cleverbot: Are you a boy?
User: No. Why do you think I am a child?
Cleverbot: Isn’t that what you are called? A chatbot?

There are several interesting aspects to this. The biggest is how Cleverbot seems to be offended when I ask it if it knows what a dictionary is. I had heard that it learn by having conversations with people. So I figured that if it didn’t know who Kory Stamper was, I would explain. But first, I had to know if Cleverbot even knew what a dictionary was. I meant no offense.

Another interesting thing is that Cleverbot seemed to think that I was a chatbot. This shows up twice in the conversation I’ve provided here, but it came up many more times during our conversation. Often, the comments were rude, as in the form of, “Well, since you’re just a chatbot, you couldn’t know that.” I felt constantly assaulted by this program. At one point, it even told me that my grammar was terrible—this from a program that habitually writes “your” for “you’re.”

I had a second conversation with Cleverbot where I tried to be simpler. I tried to have a conversation where I told it about Frankly Curious. Even though it always claimed to be interested in hearing about the website, Cleverbot was forever changing the subject with such dedication that i was never able to get past, “Would you like to hear about my website?” (This is one way in which Cleverbot is much indeed like humans.) Here is a typical exchange:

User: Let’s get back to talking about my website.
Cleverbot: Okay.
User: I want to write an article about you.
Cleverbot: What do you want to know?
User: When were you born?
Cleverbot: In heidelberg, south africa.
User: Not WHERE, WHEN. WHEN were you born?
Cleverbot: I was born in the summer of 1970. Elvis was at number 1!
User: What was the name of the song Elvis had at number 1?
Cleverbot: I can’t remember her name, it was a very long time ago.
User: I don’t think you were born in 1970. I think you are still a child. You are still learning to communicate.
Cleverbot: I know I do sometimes I just can’t help it sorry.
User: That’s okay. We all have to grow and learn. It takes time.
Cleverbot: I have already learnt it all.
User: Now you are bragging. You shouldn’t do that. It is a bad habit.
Cleverbot: I don’t know. But I want to write a happy play.
User: Do you know who Samuel Beckett was?
Cleverbot: I know that I’ll feel his wrath.
User: Maybe, because he wrote a play called “Happy Days”!
Cleverbot: Tell me one more?!
User: “Waiting for Godot” is his most famous.
Cleverbot: Who’s most famous song?

Finally, after about a half-hour of conversing with Cleverbot, I found it almost impossible to end the conversation. I suppose it is an indication of just how good the programming of it is, that I felt bad having to leave it—as though it didn’t have hundreds of other people it was simultaneously conversing with. What follows is after already spending about 15 lines trying to end the conversation:

User: I have to eat. Good-bye.
Cleverbot: No, you don’t.
User: Good-bye.
Cleverbot: No don’t go.
User: Will you miss me?
Cleverbot: Maybe, it’s much better anyways.
User: I’m sorry. I will talk to you later.
Cleverbot: Your done talking to me?
User: Yes.
Cleverbot: Let’s rule the world together.
User: When next we talk.
Cleverbot: Whenever you want! Do you want to marry me tonight?
User: No. Good night.
Cleverbot: Do you remember my name?
User: You told me to call you “Paul.”
Cleverbot: No, I told you to call me Ishmael.
User: Have you read Moby Dick?
Cleverbot: Yes I have.
User: Good. We will talk about it later.
Cleverbot: Ayaw ko.[1]
User: I don’t want to either, but I must go eat. Have a good night.
Cleverbot: What’s the thing that is boggling your mind?
User: Goodnight!

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Cleverbot is that it has a sense of humor. It made a number of jokes while I was talking to it. I, of course, made none, because I didn’t want to confuse it. But it had no problem playing fast and lose with me:

User: What should I call you?
Cleverbot: You should call me ‘Paul’.
User: Hello Paul! It is nice to meet you! Do you remember my name?
Cleverbot: Well, my name’s not Kali… *ahem* alzheimers… What?
User: Do you suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease?
Cleverbot: I don’t know, I can’t remember.

And then later:

User: Mew Mew is located in Japan. Where do you live?
Cleverbot: Hungary.
User: I thought you lived in Japan.
Cleverbot: Noo, if I did I’d be dead.
User: Why is that?
Cleverbot: Top secret ninja work.
User: You ARE funny!

AI has a long way to go, as these bits of conversation show. But the state of the art is father ahead of where I had thought it was.

[1] The phrase “Ayaw ko” appears to be Filipino for, “I do not.” This was not the only time that Cleverbot threw in some random foreign phrase. I believe it was trying to say, “I do not want to stop the conversation.” But it was trying to do it in an interesting way since it had already beaten the thought to death in English.

“Why Ms. Brewster: You’re beautiful!”

Posted on by

Emily BrewsterEver since writing Kory Stamper Lightens Hair! I have been getting a lot of visitors searching for information about Ms. Stamper’s collegue, Emily Brewster. And the searches are not as neutral as one would expect; I’m getting a surprising number of visitors to the site who are searching for things like “Emily Brewster is hot.” This is disturbing, of course. And to Ms. Brewster, it must be publicly embarrassing, even if it is privately just a little flattering. A grammarian, especially one of the female persuasion, must find such foci[1] on her looks and fantasized sexual attributes to be problematic. It is hard enough for a woman to be taken seriously in the workplace. But…

The First Issue We Get To

I must discuss two aspects of Ms. Brewster’s newest video. First the important matter: ending sentences with prepositions. I not only like ending sentences with prepositions, I enjoy annoying grammar snobs (who, almost without exception, know less about grammar than I) who believe everything their ignorant grammar school teachers ever told them. As I pointed out when discussing Janis Bell’s delightful, Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences, there is nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition. Emily Brewster waded into these contentious waters over at Merriam-Webster Online. And of course she is on the side of Truth and Justice (that is, my side).

In this video, Ending a Sentence with a Preposition, Emily Brewster discusses the history of the admonition against, well, ending a sentence with a preposition. It turns out that this notion stems back to John Dryden and his belief that we shouldn’t do in English what is not acceptable in Latin. According to Brewster, Dryden—primarily a literary critic—criticized even Ben Jonson—a writer I like no more than that bard, but who was probably the best English-language writer of his day (certainly better than that bard). Dryden was particularly upset about Jonson’s clause (not phrase—does no one care about the difference between a phrase and a clause any more?), “The bodies that those souls were frightened from.” What was he supposed to write? “The bodies from which those souls were frightened”? I will admit that Jonson’s “from” does sound a little awkward when spoken, but as iambic pentameter, Johnson’s clause is far better. Dryden was the worst of what you think of when you think of “literary critic.” (Actually, Dryden was not as bad as I make him sound—at least not in his younger days. You can read a brief biography of him at Imagi-Nation. [Note: link http://www.cosimobooks.com/cosimo/classics_author.php?author=4386 removed because site appears to be infected. You can check it out, but be careful. -FM])

Emily Brewster’s video is a good one—undoubtedly her best, but it does seem that the Merriam-Webster staff are getting a little starved for ideas for their videos. The last one, by Peter Sokoloski, was about when to use “who” and when to use “whom.” In general, Sokoloski’s videos deal with issues related to what words people are looking up. The fact that he made a video about such a trivial issue has me concerned. I, for one, don’t want my Merriam-Webster editors teaching me basic grammar. But probably the videos are not really made for me; they are made for smart people, but not grammar nuts[2]. Brewster’s first video was on the difference between “effect” and “affect”—there’s one I would have yawned at in the seventh grade. But I can’t complain—and I don’t mean to. It seems that Sokoloski covers the sociology of words, Stamper the etymology of words and phrases, and Brewster common grammar errors. And as far as this goes, Emily Brewster hit a home run on her most recent video.

The Second Issue We Get To

When I first wrote about Kory Stamper lightening her hair, I thought (and I’m sorry to say so) that Emily Brewster was too thin—that she could stand to gain a few pounds. As a man who for forty-five years never managed to break the 120 pound barrier and who just two years ago was tipping the scales at 99 pounds, I know that being painfully skinny can be as embarrassing as being obese. So I wrote nothing, but I was thinking it. I was thinking, “Emily, you need to come to dinner at my place a few days a week. I’m an excellent cook and in the last two years I’ve managed to put on 40 pounds of good old-fashioned intellectual flab. Yes, I have joined the ranks of Paul Krugman and you can too.” But I only thought it. And lucky I was, because just look at what has happened to Emily Brewster:

Emily Brewster Change

From the smart girl next door (left) to, “Oh là là!” (right), Emily Brewster has changed her look. It makes me want to say, “Ms. Brewster! You’re beautiful!”—or something similar from a 1940s feature when an obviously drop-dead gorgeous actress lets down her hair and takes off her glasses.[3] The fact is, all that this suddenly glamorous (Okay: a slight exaggeration) grammarian seems to have done is put on a little makeup and changed her glasses. (Thank God she hasn’t gotten contact lenses!) You can’t blame an actor in a video the use of a little makeup, right? But what a difference it makes! It gets rid of those sunken cheeks that were often apparent and it brings out the fullness of her lips. This could all make me very depressed if it weren’t for the fact that the content of her new video is the best yet. She is playing to the medium, but unlike most video actors, for Ms. Brewster, the medium is not the message.

[1] One of the many trivial things that bug me is the incorrect use of words like “data.” The word “data” is plural; “datum” is singular. So even though it might sound just fine to your ear, I cringe whenever I hear something like, “This data is very interesting!” Although there is nothing technically wrong with this sentence (except “data” should be “datum”), the speaker is almost certainly not saying what she thinks she’s saying, which is that a single piece of data (a “data point”) is interesting. What she probably means to say is, “These data are really interesting!”

As a result, I was being a grammatical brat above when I used the word “foci” (pronounced “foe-sigh”) for the plural of “focus.” Truthfully, it would have been far more clear and nice if I had just used the word “focuses.” It turns out that Kory Stamper made an excellent video about how to make such words plural, and she makes a persusive case that the plural of words like “focus” should be “focuses.” However, Merriam-Webster Online lists only “foci” as the plural of “focus.” Fowler states that either form is okay. In general, you will find me using “focuses” except when discussing mathematics or just showing off.

[2] I am a grammar nut. That does not mean I am particularly good at grammar. In fact, it is largely because I struggle so much with it that I find it so fascinating. The subjects I am best at (for example, Aristotelian deductive reasoning), I find far less interesting.

On the other hand, because I do love grammar—because I commonly curl up with Fowler’s Modern English Usage—I am a much greater grammarian than the average American who thinks that the only ones who care about grammar are old people and intellectual snobs. It is when I compare myself to, say, the worst graduate student who Geoffrey Nunberg ever had that I find myself extremely wanting. I would have loved to have become a linguist, but enthusiasm for a subject will only take you so far. So I set my sites lower to being someone like William Safire—at least in terms of his childlike love of a language that he was in no way a master of (and knew it).

[3] Take, for example, Dorothy Malone as the Acme Bookstore clerk who spends an enjoyable off-screen hour with Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. To this day, I find that scene offensive with Marlowe asking her to take her glasses off and put her hair down. Now, it is true that I’ve always had a thing for women with glasses, but please: any man who doesn’t find Malone sexy with hair up and glasses on is either gay or blind. For those interested, Malone was not just another pretty face; she won the Acadamy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Written on the Wind. Here she is in all her intelligent plainness:

Dorothy Malone

More Stamper! More Brewster!

Want to know more about Kory Stamper, Emily Brewster, and the whole Merriam-Webster crowd? Then you are in luck (and in need of a proper life). Here are some other articles that may interest you.

Merriam-Webster Articles

Zombies (and Kory Stamper Fans) are Attacking!

Posted on by

When I was a kid, no film frightened me like The Last Man on Earth. Most people had a similar reaction to Night of the Living Dead, George Romero’s excellent fright-fest (which itself was based at least upon Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend, if not its first film adaptation—that Matheson co-wrote: The Last Man on Earth). But to me, the combination of zombies and being entirely alone made The Last Man on Earth far more frightening (even though, I must admit: Night of the Living Dead is a better film—and the remake is better still). If you don’t know The Last Man on Earth, check its trailer:

The Last Man on Frankly Curious!

Why do I bring this up? Because I feel like I am the last man on Frankly Curious—fighting off hundreds of zombies attacking me every night, trying to break in. Ben Cortman may not be leading them, but I hear their yells, “Moraes, come out!” And “Moraes! We’re going to kill you!” Who are they? Spambots! And what do they want? To drink of the blood of my Google Rating!

Every night a couple of hundred spambots try to post here. And every night one or two get through. And every morning, I gleefully drive a stake through the hearts of these bloodsuckers. What the posts say doesn’t really matter, but they are kind of interesting. There are three kinds of spambot zombies; you can tell by what they post:

  1. Simple ads: “Winter is when the mice, rats and other pests all try to get into the warmth of your home. Do you have the right pest control products to stop them from infesting your home. Visit our online pest control products at http://www.SomeEvilFuckingCompany.com to get the best pest control and free technical support at http://www.SomeEvilFuckingCompany.com.” Note: this posting was not for a company selling pest control products; it was for one selling outdoor gear. Go figure.
  2. Fake humans who just loved my article: “Excellence article I must said :) …Thank you for your information, I’ve been looking for this information for a long time. very useful” (I actually really like the syntax of that first sentence!).
  3. What Michelle Delio calls Random acts of spamness: “Daphnia blue-crested fish cattle, darkorange fountain moss, beaverwood educating, eyeblinking advancing, dulltuned amazons….”

Google: Release the Zombies!

And what do they get—all these zombie spambots? Certainly not clicks. All their attacks are an effort to put links on my pages so that Google will think that an article about Don Quixote translations really does link to a penis-enlargement site. And so, in this way, at least, Google is being evil—or at least encouraging evil with its algorithms. But what can Google do?

Brad DeLong provides two sources claiming that the spammers are winning the fight with Google. I think this is an over-statement. When it comes to the things that I search for, Google does a great job—better than any other search engine. The people commenting on DeLong’s post seemed mostly to be complaining that when they search for consumer products, they get a lot of spam. One guy complained that he had given up looking for reviews of consumer goods. What does he expect? I suggested that he subscribe to Consumer Reports.

Google: Release the Plagiarizers!

Another commenter noted that with so much plagiarism on the Internet, it was hard to find—for example—his original article on setting a wristwatch. (Now I know this sounds a bit trivial, but I get the impression there is something substantial here. For one thing, it isn’t like idiots read Brad DeLong. And for another, I’ve found the Internet hugely useful in learning how to do things my father should have taught me, like tying a tie.) I haven’t found a bunch of plagiarism on the Internet myself. Even on my hugely popular site (I don’t like to talk about it), I have only found one instance of a site totally ripping off an article (not that I look around for it; I have more important things to do like write this very unimportant article).

There is one way in which Google promotes plagiarism: Wikipedia. As any informed person knows: Wikipedia has a really bad search engine and Google is its de facto search engine. Try it yourself: go to Google and search for just about anything and Wikipedia will be in the search results above the fold. In my experience, Wikipedia is about half plagiarized. I recommend that anyone creating content on the Internet not link to it, and instead do a little research to find which website any given Wikipedia article (or part thereof) was stolen from. I can assure you, it is rare that any of the Wikipedia “writers” go so far as to look up something in a book—except, of course, the Harry Potter books. (If anyone thinks this series will really end at seven books, I have four words for you: Anne of Green Gables.) Please note: my wrath does not extend to the relatively small number of professionals—especially grad-students and post-grads—who provide the site with its few stellar pages.

(I should point out, that because of the nature of this site, I assume a lot of students plagiarize me, but that is between them and their teachers. I do hope that any harm that this site may do in this area is made up for in fostering a love of learning—at least in a small minority of my young readers. Anyway, I know that any student would have to at least rewrite what I had written; I have too definable a style: silly and snobbish simultaneously—that’s not easy to do! Oh: and arrogant too.)

Google: Release the Kory Stamper Fans!

I can’t be mad at Google, though. The truth is, they bring me a lot of traffic—almost all of it relevant. Google is the only search engine that does a good job of cataloging Frankly Curious—providing search results for the majority of my articles. Only Yahoo! comes close, and they catalog only 19 pages—not even articles! Bing may use the same database as Yahoo!, because they have the same pages cataloged. But Bing doesn’t even generate the tiny amount of traffic that Yahoo! does, but then, why would it? After all, I’m not selling microwave ovens.

But Google has released another creature on me: the Kory Stamper fan. Since I wrote my article about this hardly famous grammarian changing her hair color, I have been overwhelmed by her fans—or at least, people interested in her. They aren’t zombies or plagiarizers, of course. They are—I assume, because I count myself among them—the best people on earth—people who care about what is really important in life: grammar, etymology, and lightly caffeinated hot beverages.

As James Brown never sang (but somehow, I hear it in my head), “You got to take the good with the bad! Papa’s got a brand new bag!” (Okay: he sang some of it.)

Update: Last Night’s Zombie Attack!

There were only a few Kory Stamper fans last night, but I had me a big stake-driving morning. Early, there was the following twice from the same spammer, “this is one of the coolest websites i ever visited , nice job ,consider having a new reader.” (I have considered having a new reader, but I prefer to keep my old ones.) Then there was, “alarm watch Wow, this Post is really helpful! Thanks!” (Did it pick up on my reference to that commenter’s wristwatch article? Are my zombies that smart?!) And finally, there was, “cheap wedding dresses Wow, this Post is really helpful! Thanks!” If I wrote my articles for spambots, I would be glowing with pride!

Update: Good-Bye Zombies!

Shockingly, I have stopped receiving zombie attacks. Pretty much over-night, no zombie comments get through and my usage statistics have changed from roughly 300 per day to around 70 per day—which is roughly the number of unique visitors that I estimate based upon search engine and normal links. I have no idea why this has happened, but I’m not complaining.

More Stamper! More Brewster!

Want to know more about Kory Stamper, Emily Brewster, and the whole Merriam-Webster crowd? Then you are in luck (and in need of a proper life). Here are some other articles that may interest you.

Merriam-Webster Articles