Book Ratings

Book ratings explained:

* I didn't like it | ** It was OK | *** I liked it | **** I really liked it | ***** I loved it

Friday, September 30, 2016

Word of The Day

testudinal
  \te-STOOD-n-l, -STYOOD-\

 adjective
1. pertaining to or resembling a tortoise or tortoise shell.

Quotes
Once Mrs. Buckland found herself being shaken awake in the middle of the night, her husband crying in excitement: “My dear, I believe that Cheirotherium’s footsteps are undoubtedly testudinal.” … Mrs. Buckland made a flour paste, which she spread across the table, while the Reverend Buckland fetched the family tortoise.
-- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, 2003

Origin of testudinal 
Testudinal derives from the Latin word for "tortoise," testūdō. It entered English in the early 1800s.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Word of the Day

eristic \e-RIS-tik\

adjective
1. Also, eristical. pertaining to controversy or disputation; controversial.

noun
1. a person who engages in disputation; controversialist.

2. the art of disputation.

Quotes: Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When does it collapse into the Babel of trolling, the pointless and eristic game of talking the other guy into crying “uncle”?
-- Mattathias Schwartz, "The Trolls Among Us," New York Times, August 3, 2008

Origin of eristic: Eristic can be traced to the Greek adjective eristikós meaning "fond of wrangling" and further to the Greek noun éris meaning "discord." It entered English in the 1630s.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Another car park, another King: 'Henry I's remains' found beneath tarmac at Reading Gaol

Archaeologists have discovered what could be King Henry’s remains languishing beneath a Ministry of Justice car park on the site of Reading prison.

A series of graves has been discovered by archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), during an exploration of the site containing the ruins of Reading Abbey.

They came across the graves, along with a number of other potentially significant archaeological finds, while scanning tarmacked land close to the Abbey’s High Altar.