Category: Books
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Insects engravings
John Obadiah Westwood (1805-1893), after obtaining a law degree, fell in love with entomology and archeology. Thanks to the Oxford Digital Library, volumes 1 & 2 of his ‘Arcana Entomologica‘ are now witnesses of his passion-filled activity (both scientific and artistic). Source: BiblioOdyssey.
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Manuscript decoration
I have always a little in love with old manuscript decorations. They form a nice example of a tightly codified elegance and of a technique serving art purposes. Thanks to BibliOdyssey, we can see a very nice sample of it. Source: Plimpton MS 296 from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University (in…
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Cretinoid coprocephalic
An excerpt from Julian May’s Orion arm (second book of the Science-Fiction Rampart Worlds series): Dr Crystal diagnosed Matsukawa as a cretinoid coprocephalic -helpfully translating the medical terminology into its Standard English equivalent of ‘stupid shithead‘- who was lucky to be alive. My own translation into French: “crétinoïde orchydocéphalique“.
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Hiroshige: One hundred famous views of Edo
A masterpiece of Japanese painting is now available online since the Brooklyn Museum published brilliant reproductions of these exceptionnal prints that deeply impressed the European impressionists. Brooklyn Museum – One hundred famous views of Edo
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Meaning and origin of phrases, sayings and idioms
It is often quite difficult to know where a language idiom is coming from (it is less etymology than social history). For English, I foudn the ideal web site: phrases.org.uk. In their own words: The meanings and origins of over 1,200 English sayings, phrases and idioms. Whether you want to resolve a friendly argument over…
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National Punctuation Day
The first National Punctuation Day was on September 24, 2006. OK. It seems that it was a hit in many different medias and among the US English teachers. This is now time to prepare the next one: Only one month left to collect the examples of the worse punctuation and to find ways to improve…