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Swearing
WARNING: This post contains strong language. Reader discretion is advised. Yesterday, I underwent an outpatient medical procedure meant to diagnose some issues I am having with my bladder. As it involved the doctor looking inside my bladder with a tiny camera attached to a scope, and as there is really only one way to accomplish that…
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It just sounded better
On October 26, 1945, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9646, redesigning the presidential seal. Among other changes, he proposed that the eagle should face away from the arrows, signifying armed conflict, in its left talon, to demonstrate a desire to avoid war. The first President to have a seal was Woodrow Wilson. Prior to…
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Mondegreens
The American writer Sylvia Wright, writing about how she misheard the words “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen” when her mother read her the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray as a child, created the neologism “mondegreen.” In a 1954 essay in Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” she wrote:…
Your mileage may vary.