Monthly Archives: January 2010

WHY IS UNEMPLOYMENT WORSE THAN EXPECTED?

WHY IS UNEMPLOYMENT WORSE THAN EXPECTED? Two good economists raised a similar question this week about why the unemployment rate is higher than economic models would have predicted. Arnold Kling posted here on January 15: “I would suggest that explaining … Continue reading

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A NIGHTINGALE’S SONG.

A NIGHTINGALE’S SONG. After watching Bright Star, it occurred to me that I had never heard a nightingale’s song and that I could find one on the internet. Here is one recording of a nightingale.

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DOES CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR SHOW TOO MUCH?

DOES CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR SHOW TOO MUCH? Christopher Ricks is a good and important critic, but he had a much different reaction to Jane Campion’s Bright Star than I did. Ricks objects to Campion’s showing images which are in Keats’s … Continue reading

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KEATS’S BRIGHT STAR.

KEATS’S BRIGHT STAR. BRIGHT STAR, WOULD I WERE STEDFAST By John Keats Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, … Continue reading

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CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR.

CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR. We loved Jane Campion’s Bright Star. Fanny Brawne has, I think, suffered the same kind of unjust scorn from scholars that Anne Hathaway has. It seems that there is an expectation that a spouse or lover should … Continue reading

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SAINT AGNES’S EVE.

SAINT AGNES’S EVE. January 20 is Saint Agnes’s Eve. Here is the poem.

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COMMARES.

COMMARES. Kids, you may have recognized the word “cumma’s” that I used in yesterday’s post as Neopolitan dialect. If so, you won’t be surprised that it comes from the Italian word “commare.” (The spelling is my own transcription of what … Continue reading

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A FLOOR COLLAPSES.

A FLOOR COLLAPSES. This article reports that: “Members of a Swedish Weight Watchers clinic said a floor collapsed from under a group of about 20 dieters participating in a weighing event.” Kids, I took note of the article because of … Continue reading

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DID PHOENICIANS IN DENMARK FORM THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?

DID PHOENICIANS IN DENMARK FORM THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? John McWhorter has a special interest in what happens when two languages collide. He argues that Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of English, was “deeply affected by adults of some extraction learning it as … Continue reading

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GRIMM’S LAW—A WEIRD CHANGE IN LANGUAGE?

GRIMM’S LAW—A WEIRD CHANGE IN LANGUAGE? Kids, Grimm’s Law is wonderful. It is useful; if you are trying to learn German it tells you how to remember lots of German words. It’s elegant; it works on so many words that … Continue reading

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