Where oh where can they be ?

Where can i get a good deal on my next magic carpet ?

I'm not dead

And I will prove it by handing out some useless/precious facts (I'm going from memory here and not checking the facts, so beware):

I grew up saying "kitty-corner" to describe two items diagonally opposed from each other. When I was in high school, I heard a teacher refer to two such items as "catty-corner." This sounded absolutely ridiculous (see also, "Duck, Duck, Goose"). Everyone knows what a kitty is, but what on earth is a catty?

Further research showed, however, that "catty-corner" is the older form of this expression. The "catty" has nothing to do with cats, but is descended ultimately from the French quatre, pronounced by Americans as "cater," whence "catty" and finally "kitty." Quatre means four, particularly in America as in the square of dots on the four side of a die; the expression cater-corner thus implies the relationship between opposite corners of the square. No folk-etymologies about how cats tend to ignore straight lines and walk in diagonals are needed!

This example illustrates a principle of historical linguistics which has application in many fields, like Textual Criticism, for example: the more difficult variant is more likely to be original. My teacher's "catty-corner" was more opaque than my "kitty-corner"; it seemed to be composed of a meaningless element and a meaningful one. My intuition was to hold my pronunciation as original, because both elements of the compound were meaningful, but my intuitions were wrong.

whY - oh whY ?

and once again we have to ask: whY has Chaka died?

...

oh, i mean um, whY has Ask Chaka died again?

- sorry for the dramatic confussion to all of yoU that thought Chaka actually died there for a second.

Franny and Tranny

What are the qualifications for a good nickname? All guys I know seem to have one, and yet they are the most random and meaningless names ever! So last night my friends and I made nicknames for our friends Francisco and Orlando 'the transformer' (aka Chino Latino) that they rapidly abhorred and rejected. What could possibly be wrong with Franny and Tranny?!?

Linus, if you can't fix Scrubs...

Can you at least fix this website?

Quel horreur

Linus, what's this I hear about Zach Braff thinking he's too good to do another season of scruBs? I expect you to take decisive action.

aRe we still alive out here ?

or have we all given up ?

As we approach our garbology unit...

I'm on an intense reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink kick right now, so I'm continually noticing how much garbage I produce and how wasteful I am with every possible resource. On that note, in your expert opinion, can the wrappers for the Dove chocolates be recycled? They are made out of aluminum foil (so I'd say, "yes!"), but there are words and a coating which may interfere with the recycling process.

Also, for any of you who have athletic shoes that you were thinking of throwing away, DON'T! Drop them off or send them to a program called NikeGrind. They reuse them to create sports surfacing products, thus preventing them from taking up space in our landfills. For more details, see http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=27&cat=reuseashoe

This ones for everyone!

since you've now been turned into a pumpkin, aRe yoU going to become friends with the yard gnomes ?

Querida Special K

Muchas gracias para los discos de musica latina. Los recibimos el semana pasada. Desafortunadamente, !ninguno de los dos funciona! Trate de tocarlos en la computadora y tambien en el CD player (?como se dice? ?tocador de discos?) y nada. !Que lastima!

Rumors of my demise...

...have been chilling in their accuracy. I am in fact dead, killed off by three things, nay, four: 1) Teaching 2) The student newspaper 3) my classes (oh, yeah, I have to read these books!) and 4) traveling to see family on the weekends. As I fritter away precious minutes on this post, I am getting deader and deader. Got to admit I'm getting deader, getting deader all the time .

Does the Chaka still live?

vote now !

Pronounciation train

Chaka, without looking this up, how would you pronounce the word "provolone." As in the cheese?