Balderdash and Piffle

11 May 2007

For those of you in the UK, the second season of Balderdash and Piffle starts this evening at 10 pm on BBC2. The show is a cooperative venture between the BBC and the Oxford English Dictionary and explores the histories of interesting words. It also invites the public to help contribute in filling in the gaps in words’ histories. The first episode, One Sandwich Short of a Picnic, explores words for madness. The eight-part series airs Fridays at 10 pm and repeats on Mondays at 11:20 pm, also on BBC2.

Ask The Pilot: Airline Glossary

4 May 2007

Every Friday, pilot Patrick Smith writes a column for Salon.com on commercial aviation. It’s a fascinating, insider’s look into the world of airlines. This week (and continuing next week) he is presenting a glossary of airline terms. If you’ve ever wondered the heck “cross check” was, click and find out.

Revisions Complete

29 April 2007

Well, I’ve just finished the revision of The Big List with the posting of the updated entry for Murphy’s Law a few minutes ago.

The revision took just over a year. (I started back on 8 April 2006.) Prior to the revision, some of the entries were nearly nine years old and badly in need of updating to reflect new research and improved research skills on my part. (Some of those early entries were embarrassingly bad.)

Moving forward, I’ll revise entries as they warrant it and I’ll be adding some of the old A Way With Words articles that are not currently on the site. These older articles will appear as “archived” versions under their original dates.

And I’ll be adding new items to the list at a greater rate than I have over the past year.

In Passing: Kelsie Harder

22 April 2007

Onomastician and toponymist Kelsie Harder died at this home on 12 April. He was 84. He was the editor of the Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names and numerous other works about names. His NY Times obituary is here.