Thursday Links
As the result of a spectacular case of cosmic alignment, it appears that Miss Mussel’s summer is going to be sehr super fantastische. While this is naturally very exciting news, there is still much emailing, finishing of existing projects, organizing and packing to be done before departure day.
There are several posts on “issues of great importance” brewing in the OM draft folder but time is running out. So, while the clock tick tocks and mild panic builds, it’s just going to be links and amusing videos from now till the end of the month.
Here’s what caught Miss Mussel’s attention in recent days:
- Via Terry Teachout – the NY Times has published a list of 50 words that its readers routinely look up. Rather than wring her hands about the apparently stunted nature of an average readers language skills, Miss Mussel is turning her thoughts to the difference between active and passive vocabulary. Of the fifty, there are eight completely new words and 22 for which a synonym could be immediately supplied ohne pause. The rest are recognizable from repeated viewings in context but formulating a definition without seeing the word in a sentence is a challenge. You?
- Free tickets turn into paying customers. Our evil cable and satellite overlords* have known this for years. Miss Mussel is happy that musos are finally catching up.
- Ever thought of giving it all up and becoming a plumber? The OM camp leans towards carpentry…mostly in an dreamy, abstract sense. If newspapers continue to shrivel up like spinach in a hot pan, this space might become the online home of the New Yankee Workshop. (too late)
*One year free cable and then it gets cut off the day before the Olympics started. Honestly. Crooks, the lot of them.
