What I’m reading

Visualising word origins. Money quote:

I absolutely LOVE the fact that Caleb Gindl uses two Old Norse words to describe the weather conditions during the game. It provides a certain primal, unhinged quality to the situation and adds a third element — nature — to the contest.

Judge not lest ye be judged; copy-edit not lest ye be copy-edited. Money quote, in the comments:

Thank you, Doug, for reading our newsletter so closely.

Mathiness – statsiness? – from the Dim Post and in the comments. Elegant graph, too. Money quote:

I believe the Loess filter has an adjustable window-width parameter, and the default in R is to use one based on the data length, which tends to over-smooth.

Crotch funk as art via David Thompson. Money quote:

Hold still, goddammit. I’m nailing some culture into you.

Confessions of a Columnist by Mark Dapin in Meanjin. Money quote is from Lionel Shriver:

the unremitting revelation that so many readers cannot comprehend standard prose—that so many people prefer to make up what they wish you had written so they can object to it; that, not to put too fine a point on it, readers cannot read—[which] exposes the whole business of writing comment pieces as utterly pointless.

Don’t get me started…