The Wisdom of Edgar Allan Poe

06/02/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf wisdom Edgar Allan Poe is recognized as not only the master of the morbid and the macabre, but also as a masterful short story writer and the inventor of the detective genre. But he also wrote poetry, essays, letters, and nonfiction. (As an aside, the story of Poe’s death is truly puzzling — as if lifted right out of one of his short stories. More than 160 years later, Poe’s death remains one of the most mysterious deaths in literary history. You can read about here.) Recently, the editors of Poe Knows: A Miscellany of Macabre Musings, reviewed the Poe canon to present some of his best musings. In the introduction, they wrote, “Poe was a master of the bon mot… This volume collects more than 200 quotes, aphorisms, and Poesque displays of verbal virtuosity, culled from his [work]… If the quotes compiled for this volume show anything, it is the scope of Poe’s intellect and the brilliance with which he commented on everything from the character of genius to the complexity of coincidence, the speciousness of spirituality, and the perversity of human nature.” Here some notable musings from the master:

That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. (from The Philosophy of Composition)

Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design. (from Mesmeric Revelation)

The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? (From The Premature Burial)

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream. (From Marginalia)

In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. (From Berenice)

There are chords in the hearts of most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. (From the Masque of the Red Death)

Near neighbors are seldom friends. (From Metzengerstein)

Most writers — poets in especial — prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy. (From The Philosophy of Composition)

Upon mankind at large the events of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. (From William Wilson)

It is a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and the ready, for the far-distant and equivocal. (From Loss of Breath)

To the substance of terror he was sufficiently alive, but of its shadows he had no apprehension. (From The Sphinx)

What you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses (From The Tell-Tale Heart)

Poetry and truth are one. (From Eureka)

I make no exception, even in Dante’s favor — the only thing well said of Purgatory, is that a man may go farther and fare worse. (From Marginalia)

The greater amount of truth is impulsively uttered; thus the greater amount is spoken, not written. (From Marginalia)

The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not every thing that should be said. (From Marginalia)

No thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result. (From The Power of Words)

In the few furrows upon his check I read the fables of sorrow, and weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a longing after solitude. (From Silence — A Fable)

ENJOY THE BOOK. If you love reading Atkins Bookshelf, you will love reading the book — Serendipitous Discoveries from the Bookshelf. The beautifully-designed book (416 pages) is a celebration of literature, books, fascinating English words and phrases, inspiring quotations, literary trivia, and valuable life lessons. It’s the perfect gift for book lovers and word lovers.

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Best Commencement Speeches: Tom Hanks

05/27/202306/02/2023 / Alexander Atkins / Leave a comment

On May 25, 2023, American actor, director, producer, and writer Tom Hanks delivered the 372nd commencement speech at Harvard University to more than 9,000 graduates. Hanks, who is the fourth-highest-grossing actor in America, received an honorary doctor of arts degree and a Wilson volleyball with the Harvard logo as a homage to his beloved friend, “Wilson,” in the film Castaway (2000). Forefront on Hanks’ mind was the assault on truth that is dominated the United States over the last decade. His speech is set against the backdrop of memorable news stories like Trump’s never-ending claims of a stolen Presidential election, fake news, and witch hunts; the debut of “alternative facts”; the Fox News-Dominion settlement for reporting the falsehoods that conservative viewers wanted to hear, the devastating opioid crisis that falsely promoted “nonaddictive” drugs, George Santos’ outrageous campaign of lies, and so forth. Perhaps Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer back in 2018, summed it up best during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press (August 19, 2018): “Truth isn’t truth.” A few days earlier Guiliani told Chris Cuomo on Cuomo Prime Live (August 15, 2018): “[Facts] are in the eye of the beholder.” When Cuomo responded, “No, facts are not in the eye of the beholder,” Giulani stated, “Yes it is — yes they are. Nowadays they are.” Think on that: nowadays they are. Hence, Hanks laments that it has come to this — truth has lost its value in modern society: “For the truth to some is no longer empirical. It’s no longer based on data, nor common sense, nor even common decency… Telling the truth is no longer the benchmark for public service. It’s no longer the salve to our fears, or the guide to our actions. Truth is now considered malleable, by opinion and by zero-sum endgames.” Later he notes, “Truth is mined at the intersections of our chosen behaviors and our fixed habits in our personal boundaries… The truth is sacred, unalterable, chiseled into the stone of the foundation of our republic. ” James Comey, former director of the FBI, said it this way (August 19, 2018): “Truth exists and truth matters. Truth has always been the touchstone of our country’s justice system and political life. People who lie are held accountable. If we are untethered to truth, our justice system cannot function and a society based on the rule of law dissolves.”

Here are some excerpts from Hanks’ commencement speech:

“We all have special powers and abilities far beyond the reach of other mortals. Some of us can repair a screen door with ease. Some of us can take care of a five-year-old kid and a toddler for 24 hours a day and never stop loving them. Some of us make sense of physics and economics and global policy. Some of us survive somehow on minimum earnings. Some of us graduate from colleges despite years of lockdowns and Zooms. Now these achievements are all stellar, even though yes, we are all but human. Still, we’d like to look up in the sky and see not a bird, not a plane, but well, someone who is young and strong and super who will fight the never ending battle for truth, for justice and for the American way. Someone who will take on that work…

Veritas. The language of telling the truth. It is the in the vision quest for truth that we look to you newly incorporated members of the Justice League of Avengers to come to the rescue. For the truth to some is no longer empirical. It’s no longer based on data nor common sense, nor even common decency. Telling the truth is no longer the benchmark for public service. It’s no longer the salve to our fears or the guide to our actions. Truth is now considered malleable by opinion and by zero-sum endgames. Imagery is manufactured with audacity and with purpose to achieve the primal task of marring the truth with mock logic, to achieve with fake expertise, with false sincerity, with phrases like, ‘I’m just saying. Well, I’m just asking. I’m just wondering.’

Now, literally you cannot believe your eyes and your ears will help others lie to you. Someone will report the world to you exactly as you wish it were full of alternative facts, of conjured narrative meant to buttress the status quo and deny its offenses or rejig the rules and muddy the playing field, depending on where one is on the food chain and the moral spectrum. The American way can be demonstrated without ceasing as a perpetual prayer by every big shot in any plain Jane or Joe Blow. Justice can be an everyday pursuit case by case, with both lightning speed and the slow inevitable effect of gravity. Truth though Lord, truth. Truth feeds up in the high country as elusive as serenity, yet as certain as the North Star and the Southern Cross. Truth is mined at the intersections of our chosen behaviors and our fixed habits in our personal boundaries.

Truth has synonyms such as honesty, honor, transparency. And yet, the common practice of so many is to play fast and loose with those very words, to create enemies, to claim victimhood, to raise the mediocre into merit and to make cloudy a vista that is actually crystal clear. Likewise, truth has opposites. Omission. You don’t need to know that. Distraction. That’s not the real story, this is. Opinion. Masquerading as clairvoyance. ‘Oh, here’s what is going to happen.’ And influence pedaling. A lot of people are saying truth too has a nemesis equal to any colored kryptonite. That lack of feral hound is never too far off the path in the weeds and in the shadows, lying in wait for the lethal opportunity to bring truth down. And that beast is indifference, which will make moot all the permanence found in truth. Indifference will rust away the promise of our promised land. Propaganda and bald face lies will erode over time. Idolatry and imagery lose luster in effect. Ignorance and intolerance can be replaced by experience in the wink of an eye, but indifference will narrow the vision of America’s people and make dim the light of Lady Liberty’s symbolic torch. Indifference make citizens into indentured servants held in labor by the despots and tyrants whose default setting is cynicism, who outlawed dissent and banned art and dialogue and books. Who grab power any way they can enabled by the subterfuge of their co-conspirators, rewarding their rationale of the complicit, and surging into the vacuum caused by the indifference of a people who have been made weary by struggle, so weary that they lose hope and are left to yearn to be saved by the fiction of superheroes. Every day, every year, and for every graduating class, there is a choice to be made.

It’s the same option for all grownups who have to decide to be one of three types of Americans, those who embrace liberty and freedom for all, those who won’t, or those who are indifferent. Only the first do the work of creating a more perfect union and nation indivisible. The others get in the way. And the never ending battle you have all officially joined as of today, the difference is in how truly you believe and in how vociferously you promote, and how tightly you hold to the truth that is self-evident, that of course we are all created equally yet differently. And of course, we are all in this together. If we do the work, justice and the American way are within our grasp, no matter our gender, our faith, our station, our heritage or genetic makeup, the shade and hue of our flesh, or the continental birthplace of our ancestors.

Why is that truth so hard for some to accept, much less respect? If you live in the United States of America, the responsibility is yours, ours. The effort is optional, but the truth. The truth is sacred, unalterable, chiseled into the stone of the foundation of our republic. All of us, none of us are super. We are the Americans. Liberty and justice is for us all because yes, we have specific names and we have lived every year of our ages. But when it comes to race, we are all uniquely, magnificently, simply human…

May goodness and mercy follow you all the days, all the days of your lives. God speed. Congratulations.”

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For further reading: http://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/tom-hanks-gives-2023-harvard-commencement-speech-transcript

Intriguing Connections: Oscar Wilde and JFK

05/25/202305/26/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf trivia How is it possible that Oscar Wilde and JFK living almost a half-century apart are connected? The most unlikely connections between two people, of course, can occur when certain events fall on the same day in the calendar. Take today, May 25. In May 25, 1895, at the height of his popularity, Irish playwright Oscar Wilde was convicted of “gross indecency” under British law that deemed homosexuality as a criminal offense. At his sentencing, the judge stated, “I shall pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for two years.” The famous author served two years at London’s Pentonville Prison, where he picked oakum, a substance used to seal gaps in ships. Wilde suffered in prison from the harsh life and poor diet. After his release, his health continued to decline. He spent his final years, adopting the name Sebatian Melmoth, living destitute and in exile in France. There he composed his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died on November 30, 1900, at the age of 46. The epitaph on his grave reads: “And alien tears will fill for him/ Pity’s long-broken urn, / For his mourners will be outcast men, / And outcasts always mourn.” Over a century later, in 2017, Wilde was pardoned for homosexual acts that were decriminalized under the Policing and Crime Act 2017.

Fast forward 66 years, to May 26, 1961. President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress to declare that the United States “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” It wasn’t until a year later, September 12, 1962 to be precise, when JFK declared this ambitious goal to the world. This time, he was speaking before a larger audience at Rice Stadium located at Rice University (Houston, TX): “We choose to go to the Moon… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.” That goal was met triumphantly on July 20, 1969, when at 10:56 EDT, astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon and proclaimed, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

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For further reading:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oscar-wilde-is-sent-to-prison-for-indecency
http://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/oscar-wilde-trial
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html

Adventures in Rhetoric: Gish Gallop and the Trump Torrent

05/23/202305/23/2023 / Alexander Atkins / Leave a comment

Although most rhetorical terms are based on Greek words (eg, aphaeresis, anabasis, catachresis, and dieresis), a few are eponymous — like the Gish gallop. The Gish gallop is a rhetorical device utilized in a debate when the speaker uses a rapid-fire approach, presenting a torrent of arguments (regardless of their strength or accuracy) and changing topics quickly to overwhelm an opponent, thus preventing an effective rebuttal of the arguments. The term was coined in 1994 by Eugenie Carol Scott (born 1945), a physical anthropologist and executive director of the National Center for Science Education. Scott named the term after Duane Gish (born 1921), a biochemist and leading member of the creationist movement that rejects scientific explanations (eg, Big Bang Theory, evolution) for the origination and development of the universe, the planet, and all life forms. Creationists believe that the universe and all life forms were created by God, consistent with a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament). Although an entire library can filled with books about the history of the Bible, most Biblical scholars believe that the Book of Genesis was an interweaving of fragmentary texts from three separate authors (Yahwist: 950 BC; Elohist: 900-750 BC; and Priestly: 5 BC) drawing on creation myths passed on through generations by oral tradition that began as early as 1,500 BC. These legends are hardly scientific or historical fact — they are age-old myths that were created by people from ancient civilizations (eg, the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Persians) to explain some of the world’s mysteries. But we digress…

Journalists keenly noted that Gish relished the confrontations of formal debates with well-known evolutionary biologists at college campuses because he would eschew formal debate principles and consistently overwhelm his opponents with the Gish gallop. Moreover, creationists recruited as many sympathetic students to create a friendly, rally-type audience for Gish to frustrate and demoralize his opponents. In an essay titled, “Debates and Globetrotters” (July 7, 1994), Scott wrote: “Now, there are ways to have a formal debate that actually teaches the audience something about science, or evolution, and that has the potential to expose creation science for the junk it is. This is to have a narrowly-focused exchange in which the debaters deal with a limited number of topics. Instead of the ‘Gish Gallop’ format of most debates where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn’t a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate, the debaters have limited topics and limited time. For example, the creationist has 10 minutes to discuss a topic on which creationists and evolutionists disagree (intermediate forms, the nature of science [with or without the supernatural], the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution, the inadequacy of mutation and selection to produce new “kinds”, etc.) The evolutionist then has a 5 minute rebuttal, followed by a 2 minute reprise from the creationist. Next, the evolutionist takes 10 minutes to discuss an agreed-upon issue, with the creationist taking the next five minutes, and this time the evolutionist gets the final 2 minute follow-up.”

If you watched CNN’s Town Hall (New Hampshure) with former President Trump on May 11, 2023, you had a first-row seat into the master of the Gish gallup. During the 70-minute broadcast, Trump unleashed a torrent of lies, half-truths, disinformation, insults, and boasts — egged on by an adoring and cheering audience on stage and encouraging advisors backstage. Axios reported, “Backstage during the first commercial break, Trump adviser Jason Miller — as if psyching up a boxer in his corner or egging on a bully — showed Trump moments-old tweets from Democrats blasting CNN and saying Trump was winning… Adviser’s advice to Trump in break: Keep doing what you’re doing.” CNN’s host, Kaitlan Collins, who tried to factcheck him in real time in front of a hostile audience, was overwhelmed, and judging by the expression on her face, clearly frustrated.

Critics of the broadcast were not kind, viewing the Town Hall as a disaster for the network and the country. CNN’s media reporter, Oliver Darcy, wrote: [It was] hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN… Trump frequently ignored or spoke over Collins throughout the evening as he unleashed a firehose of disinformation upon the country, which a sizable swath of the GOP continues to believe. A professional lie machine, Trump fired off falsehoods at a rapid clip [textbook example of Gish gallop!] while using his bluster to overwhelm Collins, stealing command of the stage at some points of the town hall.” Linda Qiu, a journalist for The New York Times, wrote: “Former President Donald J. Trump almost immediately began citing a litany of falsehoods Wednesday night during a town hall-style meeting in New Hampshire broadcast on CNN.”

In addition to a wide range of criticism about the disastrous Town Hall from American journalists and media pundits — British journalists were also alarmed. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly wrote: “CNN bosses have defended their decision to host a primetime town hall with Donald Trump, after triggering widespread outrage by allowing the former president to spout lies and disinformation on subjects from sexual assault to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.”

Given this extraordinary performance, the term Gish gallop should be updated with a synonym that is truly fitting: the Trump torrent. Although Scott was clearly going for alliteration, the metaphor — the galloping of lies — is not as powerful or evocative as a torrent of lies. Perhaps this term gets some traction during the 2024 Presidential election.

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For further reading:
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Genesis-Old-Testament
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis
bigthink.com/thinking/how-old-is-the-bible/
http://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/media/cnn-town-hall-donald-trump-reliable-sources/index.html
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/11/cnn-chris-licht-trump-town-hall
http://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/us/politics/trump-cnn-town-hall-fact-check.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/debating/globetrotters.html

The Best Graduation Advice: 2023

05/11/202305/11/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf quotations It’s that time of year when excited graduates don their cap and gown and patiently sit on folding chairs on an expansive lawn to listen to the sage advice of the guest speaker invited to their commencement ceremony. Book publishers are very aware of this annual event and publish books that they hope will be purchased as keepsakes of graduates’ academic milestone. Although most books in this category contain complete commencement speeches or long excerpts, Clarkson Potter took a different approach with their recent book, Carpe Every Diem: The Best Graduation Advice from More Than 100 Commencement Speeches. The beautifully-designed, small-format book contains 100 quotations and short passages from speeches of famous academics, actors, athletes, authors, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, poets, politicians, and poets. The book poses the question: “Okay, you’ve graduated. Commencement is over. But how will the rest of your life commence? I should note: advice from real people should be truly cherished because it is only a matter of time when commencement speeches will be written by ChatGPT. Without further ado, here are some pearls of wisdom from true mortals:

Michael Dell: “As you start your journey, the first thing you should do is throw away that store-bought map and begin to draw your own.”

George Saunders: “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded… sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly… As a goal in life… Try to be kinder.”

Toni Morrison: “You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without wealth. What it feels to be human without domination over others, without reckless arrogance, without fear of others unlike you, without rotating, rehearsing, and reinventing the hatreds you learned in the sandbox. And even though you don’t have complete control over the narrative… you could nevertheless create it.”

Anna Quindlen: “Don’t ever confuse the two: your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “Life is short really means do something… Life is short really means have a purpose. And purpose does not need to be grand. I think that the smaller the purpose, the more meaningful. To be kind. To have empathy. To avoid sanctimony. To think of the humanity of other people — to try.

Steve Jobs: “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions down out your own inner voice.”

Billy Collins: “The corollary to carpe diem is gratitude, gratitude for simply being alive, for having a day to seize.”

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Do You Place Marks of Ownership in Books?

05/02/202305/02/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf books One of the most famous quotations about lending books is by French author and man of letters, Anatole France (born François-Anatole Thibault, 1844-1924), who advised, “Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.” [from La Vie litteraire (The Literary Life), 1888]. So how did France know that these weren’t his books? They must have had obvious marks of ownerships.

So how do book owners mark their books? Soon after Gutenberg introduced printed books in the mid 15th century, book owners began using bookplates, also known as “ex libris” (from the Latin, “from the library”) labels. Some of these were very ornate with heraldic elements and fancy borders. Another common method is a blind emboss stamp indicating the owner’s name in the middle of a circular pattern. A variation of the blind emboss stamp is the reliable ink stamp, the most common method used by libraries — before the introduction of electro-magnetic (EM) barcodes in the 1970s. Beginning in the late 1980s, EM barcodes were replaced by radio frequency identification (RFID) barcodes and labels.

Of course, all of the methods mentioned above require the purchase of materials and specific technology. What does the average book owner do to place a mark of ownership in his or her book? The most common way of marking a book is by writing or signing one’s name in the book, typically the paste down end paper or the free end paper. Recently, I came across a very unique way of marking ownership. This book, a reference book from the 1960s, arrived in the mail and as I flipped through its pages, something stood out. There on page 68, the owner signed his name, followed by his date of birth: 3/22/68. Clever eh? His system worked well, since most books have more than 68 pages. I suppose if he owned a book with less than 68 pages, he could place his mark of ownership on page 22. A different method, which I have only encountered a half dozen times, is when a person writes his or her name, followed by the date (and sometimes place) of where they bought the book, followed by the date of when they read the book. Sometimes there is an inscription that explains where and how the book was purchased, e.g., while on vacation, or on a special day or event.

Perhaps one of the crudest methods, often used by high school and college students, is to write one’s name in large block letters on all three sides of the text block. Most of the books I have seen only display the surname. Whether is displays the full name or surname, it makes quite a bold statement: “Dude! This is MY book — so don’t even think of stealing it and pretending its yours!”

One variation of the bookplate mark of ownership that I see from time to time is the adhesive address label. This might be quite foreign to Millennials and Gen Z. Back in the 1970, it would be very common to receive solicitations in the mail for 1,000 custom pre-printed return addresss labels (measuring about .5 x 1.5 inches) for a few dollars. People would order them so that they could simply peel off a label, lick it, and place it in the upper left hand side of an envelope to pay a bill or send a letter via snail mail. Very quaint.

There are purists who believe that a book should never be marked or written in; but there are many who believe that an elegant bookplate denotes that the owner is an important part of a book’s history, or using bibliophile lingo, it’s provenance.

How do you mark your books? Have you ever encountered a very clever mark of ownership?

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There’s A Word for That: Hygge

04/19/202304/26/2023 / Alexander Atkins / Leave a comment

alex atkins bookshelf words A trip to an Ikea store will introduce you to all sorts of home products with odd-looking and odd-sounding Danish names seemingly taken from a Netflix fantasy epic — Kallax, Vihals, Brimnes, Tjillevips, Pansartax, to name a few. However, the most important Danish term that is so critical to Ikea’s success is not found on a specific shelf but rather a feeling that is evoked by many of their showrooms — hygge. Hygge is one of those wonderful loanwords that means, as a noun, a cozy quality that makes a person feel comfortable and happy. As an adjective, it means invoking a sense of contentment, coziness, and well-being. The word has several pronunciations: “HUE ga” or “HU ga” or “Ho ga.” Hygge was particularly important during the pandemic — millions of people around the globe desperately sought hygge when they were forced to shelter in place for weeks or months at a time. Although the shelter in place orders are largely a thing of the past, working remotely has stayed with us. Hygge is just as important today, then, as people must separate their work space from their relaxing space at home. So, how is the hygge in your home?

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How To Read and Recognize a Great Book

04/13/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf books “The method I should advise in reading great books is a simple one. I should try, first of all, not to be awed by their greatness. Then I should read without any other preparation than life has given me-I should open the pages and find out how much they mean to me. If I found my experience reflected in some parts of the book and not in others, I shouldn’t worry about those blind spots. They may be the fault of the book in those places-it may be out of date. But it is more prudent of me to suppose, what is just as likely, that my own experience is perhaps a little thin in the regions those parts of the book dealt with. To find out which is so, I should read the book a second time, and a third. Whether or not the repeated readings clear up the difficult pages, they will show me new meanings in the part I already understand.

When we encounter these dead spots in books sup posed to be masterpieces, and when we are humble enough to explain them by some insufficiency in ourselves, the impulse is to go for help to other books, to works of criticism. It is much more profitable to go directly to life. I won’t say that no aid can be had from other people; I couldn’t believe that and keep on teaching literature, or even write these papers. But the best teachers of literature, in my opinion, try to suggest the experience which such passages are designed to reflect; they remind their hearers of experience mislaid for the moment; they can only remind-they can’t impart it. We do as much for each other, far from classrooms, whenever your casual enthusiasms open my eyes to a beauty in art or in nature which I overlooked, but which I am ready to admire. Sometimes I ask a student in class to tell me the plot of the book we are about to discuss. I have never listened to an honest summary of that elementary sort without learning something new about the story; I have seen it now through another person’s life. In fact, there’s no better way to measure personality than to ask for the outline of a story you know well. But most of this experimenting we can do on ourselves. We can c1verhaul our experience, to find the material needed to understand the book; we can open our eyes to life about us, and find the material there. It is fatal to suppose the great writer was too wise or too profound for us ever to understand him; to think of art so is not to praise but to murder it, for the next step after that tribute will be neglect of the masterpiece.

It is advisable to sample as many of the great books as we can, for the first ones we come to may not be those which reflect us most completely. But once we have found our author, we have only to read him over and over, and after a while to read out from him, into the authors who seem kindred spirits. When the reader has found himself in two great authors, he is fairly launched.

But the books should be read over and over. Until have discovered that certain books grow with our maturing experience and other books do not, we have not learned how to distinguish a great book from a book.”

From The Delight of Great Books (1928) by John Erskine (1879-1951). Erskine was an English professor at Columbia University, where he developed the General Honors Course focused on the classics of Western literature, later becoming “Masterworks of Western Literature.” This course was later taught by Mark Van Doren and Mortimer Adler. Their work on teaching this course over many years inspired them to develop the Great Books of the Western World program and the Great Books Foundation. Years later, Mortimer Adler taught the course at the University of Chicago. Alder collaborated with Robert Hutchins, the president of the University of Chicago to develop The Great Books of the Western World. The set of books was first published as a 54-volume set in 1952 by Encyclopedia Britannica. The second edition published in 1960 contained 60 volumes. The criteria for inclusion in the Great Books set was threefold: (1) the book must be relevant to the present; (2) the book must be rewarding to read and re-read; (3) it must be part of the “great conversation about the great ideas.” At a publication event in 1952, Hutchins explained the value of the Great Books: “This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education. Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being. Here is our heritage. This is the West. This is its meaning for mankind.”

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What is the Origin of “Close, But No Cigar”?

04/03/202305/04/2023 / Alexander Atkins

Most people have heard the idiom, “close, but no cigar” or its variant “nice try, but no cigar” and instantly understood its meaning: to fall just short of accomplishing a goal or getting something nearly, but not completely, correct. The idiom is a contraction of “close, but you do not win a cigar.” So when you stop to think about it — while smoking a cigar is largely frowned upon for health and social reasons, why would someone want to win a cigar? That is a very good question, indeed. Let’s take a brief journey through history to learn how this idiom came about.

When we step into the time machine, let’s set the destination to the late 1700s to arrive in London, England where we will first meet the two men who share the title “father of the modern circus”: Philip Astley (1742-1814) and Charles Dibdin (1745-1814). In fact, Dibdin coined the word “circus,” derived from the Latin word circus, derived from the Greek kirkos, meaning “a circle, a ring.” The Romans used the term to refer to enclosures without roofs that were used for races and performances. Both Astley and Dibdin built very popular shows around elaborate equestrian demonstrations and performances, eventually adding other forms of entertainment. Astley, for example, was inspired by the acts that appeared at fairs and pleasure gardens of London and Paris; so he added clowns, jugglers, rope dancers, and acrobats to his shows in the late 1700s. Because these shows were inexpensive, they drew huge crowds which was great for business. By the mid 1800s, there were hundreds of circuses in England. The traveling circus (or the “tenting circus”) was introduced in the late 1830s. The development of the railroad allowed large circuses to travel further and reach the remotest towns. By the end of the century, British and American circuses were touring across Europe and the United States. By the late 1800s, circus owners began expanding their entertainment and added games of skill and chance that were held in side stalls. These included games like ring toss, tossing games, target-related games (dart games, shooting galleries), etc. that looked easy to win but were actually very difficult. The next person we will meet will shed some light on the type of prizes that participants won.

Robert Machray wrote about life in London at the turn of the century. In his book, The Night Side of London, published in 1902, Machray describes the side stalls games located in London’s East End. In a chapter titled “Not In Society,” Machray writes: “All around the capacious yard, except on the side where stands the menagerie, and the other side which drives the hobby-horse arrangement, are ranged various devices for extracting pennies from your pockets. They are mostly of the three-shies-a-penny variety, and a spice of skill (or would you call it luck?) enters into them all. If you are successful, a prize rewards you. You are anxious to enter the spirit of the thing, and you begin by investing a penny in three rings, which you endeavor to throw in such a way to land them round the handle of a knife stuck in a wall. It looks easy, and you go into the business with a light heart. But — you don’t succeed. Another penny — you try again, and again you are defeated. What O! Another penny — and this time you accept defeat, and move on to the next stall, where another penny gives you the privilege of trying to roll three balls into certain holes with numbers attached thereunto. Should you score twenty you will win a cigar. But you do no more than score nine. Undiscouraged, or perhaps encouraged by this fact, you spend another penny, and another, and another — but you don’t get the cigar, and it is well for you that you don’t! For there are cigars and cigars. On you go, and next you try your hand at the cocoa-nuts, or the skittles, or the clay-pipes, or in the shooting-alleys. And so on and on—until your stock of pennies and patience is exhausted.” What Machray is alluding to here is that circus owners knew that the most lucrative circus games were the ones where players overestimated their chances of winning. Those who experience a near miss (or almost win) will continue to play believing that a win is inevitable, which is completely irrational in a game of chance. In modern psychology this is known as the “near miss effect.” Several studies have indicated that gamblers who experience a near miss in a game interpret that as a sign that they should keep on playing because a win is “just around the corner.” Brain scans (PET and MRI) of gamblers show that a near miss activates the same reward systems in the brain as an actual win. Moreover, studies show that even though gamblers perceive near misses as more aversive that traditional losses, the near misses are more encouraging for continued and prolonged play. The near miss effect can be increased when the time to placing a bet and starting a new game is decreased. In short, the more you lose, the more you believe you will win soon. The near miss effect is not only employed in games of chance at gambling casinos, circuses, and carnivals — it is a key ingredient in video games. But we digress…

Let’s return to Machray’s description of the circus games in London’s East End, specifically his description of the game prize: “If you are successful, a prize rewards you… Should you score… you will win a cigar.” Naturally, the followup question to this is: why a cigar? Let’s hop back across the band and visit young America. The practice of marking important occasions with unique gifts was adopted by early American settlers in the early 17th century. This practice, known as potlatch, was borrowed from the indigenous people of North America who bestowed gifts to one another on special occasions. One such gift was the primitive version of the cigar. Over time, this tradition become widely accepted both in American and Europe. During the Victorian era, smoking a cigar was a way of celebrating not only a birth but any achievement, like winning a tournament, or celebrating an important personal or business milestone. And compared to the cost of other circus prizes like liquor, hats, or chalkware (porcelain dolls), cigars were relatively inexpensive (a few cents) and easy to store (cigars could be packed in boxes of 200).

It is very likely that about this time, circus workers would use the phrase “close, but no cigar” when a contestant came close, but failed to win the cigar as a prize; however, there is no written documentation about when the phrase first began being used. On the other hand, because the actual idiom does not appear in print in the U.S. until the early 1920s, many sources on the web mistakenly assume that this idiom originated in America and there are conflicting origin stories. For example, there is this entry from Wiktionary: “Apparently from the practice of giving cigars as prizes at carnivals in the United States in the 20th century; those who did not win would fail to receive a cigar, even if they came close.” In 2009, idiom and quotation detective, Barry Popik, wrote: “A cigar was traditionally one of the rewards at carnivals for winning at games of skill or chance. Coney Island offered many such games in the early 1900s. Most people did not win a prize; for them, the carnival barker would declare: ‘Close, but no cigar!’” An article on the website Today I Found Out (September 2013) states the following: “This popular idiom, which means ‘to fall short of a successful outcome’ or ‘close call,’ was first coined in the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. While it can’t be proven definitively, it’s likely that the phrase originated at fairgrounds around this time.”

Conflicting origin stories also exist printed idiom reference works. Take a look at this entry from Brewer’s Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable (2nd Edition) by John Alto & Ian Crofton: “The allusion is to the Highball, a fairground “try-your-strength” machine with a pivot that the contestant hits with a hammer in the hope of sending a projectile up high enough to hit a bell. Those who succeed are awarded a cigar by the proprietor. The expression, like the machine itself, derives from US carnivals.” Turning to the authoritative Facts on File Encyclopedia Word and Phrase Origins (Fourth Edition) by Robert Hendrickson provides this entry: “Not quite correct. This appears to be an American phrase from the late 19th century, possibly of carnival origin, where the mike man running a game of chance advises that a player has not won the cigar prize.” The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (Second Edition) by William and Mary Morris states “[The idiom] originated at traveling carnivals and sideshows. When the barker spun the wheel of fortune, the winner was customarily rewarded with the gift of a cigar. When he wheel stopped just short of the player’s number the carney barker would offer as consolation: ‘Sorry. Close — but no cigar.'” Allen’s English Phrases by Robert Allen writes: “a good but unsuccessful try; a near miss; a metaphor from US fairground games in which the prize was a cigar. Late 20th cent.” And finally, The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by Elizabeth Knowles simply defines the term but offers no origin story.

So we see that there is little consensus around the origin story and certainly no definitive evidence about its origin — either in the UK or in the US. Since Machray’s book is the first to discuss the stall games and the prizes, it is more likely that this idiom originated in England and traveled across the pond, since many British circuses traveled throughout America (and vice-versa). Nevertheless, the first time the idiom appears in print is in the headline of an article in the Long Island Daily Press (Jamaica, NY), dated May 18, 1929: “Close, But No Cigar” about an individual who lost a two consecutive presidential races. The next printed reference is from The Princeton Alumni Weekly (July 2, 1929): “The long distance trophy, an appropriately inscribed silver cigarette case, was awarded to Em Gooch who had made the trip from Lincoln, Neb. for the occasion. Several other members came close, but no cigar, and we trust that all those in New York and Philadelphia who failed to show up, without reason, will read these lines with a quiver.” Interestingly, using Google’s Ngram Viewer, we see that the use of the word “cigar” steadily rose from 1820, peaked in 1908, and started a sharp downward trend that lasted until 1979.

Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the phrase probably originated in England in the late 1800s, was used by barkers at traveling circuses in Europe, and through cross-pollination, made its way to America, but was not popularized, for whatever reason, until the early 1920s. Since cigars are no longer popular, perhaps the phrase should be updated to replace “cigar” with a more generic term, for example: “close, but no prize”; or “close, but no reward”; or “close, but no jackpot.” What would you suggest?

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For further reading:
The Night Side of London by Robert Machray
http://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-story-of-circus#slideshow=58613815&slide=0
http://www.theidioms.com/close-but-no-cigar/
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/close_but_no_cigar
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/09/the-origin-of-the-phrase-close-but-no-cigar/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2861872/
/hyperallergic.com/259052/the-19th-century-affordable-artworks-that-were-the-original-carnival-game-prizes/
/cigarhistory.info/Cigar_History/Cigar_Prices_1883.html
victorian-era.org/victorian-era-circus-performances.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Great_Britain
torchcigarbar.com/cigars-to-welcome-baby/

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

What Was the First Book Sold on Amazon?

03/30/202303/30/2023 / Alexander Atkins / Leave a comment

It’s hard to imagine how people survived in the BA (Before Amazon) Era. I suppose anyone who grew up in the late 1990s just assumed that Amazon had always existed. It’s like the Big Bang of retail: one moment there was the Void — then BANG! there it is was — a portal to the world’s largest store. You just log in, search, scroll, click, and a few days later, there’s your stuff on the doorstep. But no, Amazon had a humble beginning in the early 1990s. Taking a page from some of the most famous startups in Silicon Valley, Amazon was founded in the garage of the parents of Jeff Bezos’ home in Bellevue, Washington. Like many young companies, Amazon did not start out as Amazon. The first name that Bezos came up with was “Cadabra” — derived from magic incantation “abracadabra.” He soon learned that it sounded too much like “cadaver,” so the next name for the company was “Relentless.” It wasn’t until he met Leonard Riggio, the irascible founder and chairman of Barnes & Noble, that Bezos learned that he was choosing names that simply didn’t resonate with his target audience: readers and book lovers. A while later, while perusing a dictionary, Bezos came across the name that stuck: “Amazon,” named after the world’s largest river located in South America. Amazon began selling only books in early July 1995. In its first year, Amazon sales totaled $511,000. Naturally, that invites the question: what was the first book that Amazon sold?

Before we get to the book, let’s meet the person who bought it: John Wainwright. Wainwright is a computer scientist who was one of the key developers of object-based computer languages ScriptX and MaxScript. Back in early 1995, he was an employee of Kaledia Labs (1991-1996), a joint venture between once arch-rivals Apple and IBM, located in Mountain View, California. One of his friends, Shel Kaphan, was an early employee at a startup named Amazon, sent him an invitation to their beta site to purchase a book. He wrote: “Create an account and order some books.” The book that Wainwright ordered on April 3, 1995 (although Amazon dates the sale to July 1995 when it officially opened) was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter and the Fluid Analogies Research Group published by BasicBooks in 1995. The price he paid for the 518-page hardcover book: $27.95. In an interview, Wainwright said that he still has the original packing slip (with the original Amazon logo inspired by the Amazon River and the note “Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com!”) and the book is still in his order history. Unfortunately, Amazon did not have the book in the inventory they had access to; Wainwright explains “… the story goes that Jeff Bezos didn’t want to delay the fulfillment and he went charging around [local brick-and-mortar] bookstores himself to find a copy to send it off in time. Whether that’s true or not, it’s a small testament to his energy and drive that he got it.”

So why did Wainwright order this particular book, especially since Hofstadter’s more popular work is Godel, Escher, Back. Wainwright explains in an interview with MarketWatch: “[Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies] was a work on artificial intelligence and human cognition modeling. It seemed like a reasonable way of catching up with what was going on around the 1990s. It’s a collection of articles and essays documenting research that Hofstadter and his students were doing at the time, modeling human form.” The Amazon review states: “Readers of earlier works by Douglas Hofstadter will find this book a natural extension of his style and his ideas about creativity and analogy; in addition, psychologists, philosophers, and artificial-intelligence researchers will find in this elaborate web of ingenious ideas a deep and challenging new view of mind. A lucid, highly readable exploration of the computer models of discovery, creation, and analogical thought developed by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gödel, Escher, Bach and the Fluid Analogies Research Group. The book features anagram and number puzzles, analogy puzzles involving letter strings or tabletop objects, and fanciful alphabetic styles.”

For his contribution to Amazon’s amazing success story, Amazon named one of the buildings on its corporate campus the Wainwright building (535 Terry Avenue North). Pretty cool, huh? Incidentally, if you want to buy Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, it is still available. As of this writing, a hardcover copy costs $56.52 and a paperback costs $17.29. If you have deep pockets, you can purchase a first edition on ABE for $275 (although there are several more reasonably priced at $40 and $35).

Bonus question: what was the second book that Wainwright bought on Amazon? The First Thousand Words in Russian by Heather Amery (current price for a used hardcover copy $2.33). Wainwright explains: “We were just in the throes of adopting a daughter from Russia and we thought we should learn some Russian. We adopted [a girl] in April 1995.”

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For further reading: http://www.quora.com/What-was-the-first-book-ever-ordered-by-a-customer-on-Amazon
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/here-is-the-first-book-ever-ordered-on-amazon/264344/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-was-the-first-book-ever-ordered-on-amazoncom-24406844/
http://www.triviagenius.com/answer-what-was-the-first-book-sold-on-amazon/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/meet-amazons-first-ever-customer-2015-04-22

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

The Wisdom of Mothers

03/23/202303/23/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf books When you hear the words National Geographic, what do you think of? If you are like most people, you instantly think of the scholarly journal with the iconic yellow border featuring stories about geography, history, nature, and archaeology, right? Well imagine my surprise when I was at an independent bookstore and picked up a copy of A Mother’s Book of Blessings: A Treasury of Wisdom for Life’s Greatest Moments by Natasha Tabori Fried that was featured on a table of “wisdom” books — a topic I feature often on this blog. Typically a book like this is published by Sterling, Chronicle Books, Random House, or Adams Media — but no, this small tome was published by National Geographic. It is a beautifully designed book, measuring only 6.75 by 6.75 inches, running 352 pages and filled with time-honored wisdom in the form of proverbs, parables, quotations, and short poems. These pearls of wisdom are organized into 12 themes: motherhood, new baby, mealtime, bedtime, birthdays, holidays, travel, nature, graduation, wedding, housewarming, and gratitude. In the introduction, Fried writes about the meaning and importance of blessings: “A blessing is like a wish, but a wish for some else. In the context of this book, blessings are wishes mothers offer their children throughout their lives, in moments big and small.” Here are some selected blessings:

Chinese proverb: One generation plants the trees / Another gets the shade.

e.e. cummings: You are my sun, my moon and all of my stars.

Native American blessing: When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced / Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.

J. M. Barrie: You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I will always love you, that’s where I will be waiting.

Rainer Maria Rilke: And now we welcome the new year; full of things that have never been.

C. S. Lewis: There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Henry David Thoreau: If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Confucius: Wherever you go, go with all your heart.

St. Ignatius of Loyola: Go forth and set the world on fire.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Arabic proverb: Gratitude takes three forms: A feeling in the heart, an expression in words, and a giving in return.

Native American Ten Commandments:

Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
Remain close to the Great (Creator) Spirit.
Show great respect for your fellow beings.
Work together for the benefit of all mankind.
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.
Do what you know to be right.
Look after the well-being of mind and body.
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
Be truthful and honest at all times.
Take full responsibility for your actions

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What Do You Call Compound Words Formed by Two Rhyming Words?

03/13/202304/22/2023 / Alexander Atkins / 4 Comments

Compound words like wishy-washy or mumbo-jumbo, or any words that contain two separate rhyming words are called tautonyms (from the Greek tauto, meaning “the same” and -onym, meaning “name”). In many cases, the first word of a tautonym is a real word while the second part, often nonsensical, is invented to create a rhyme and to create emphasis. In linguistics another term for a word made up of two identical or similar parts (a segment, syllable, or morpheme) is a rhyming compound, a subclass of a larger class of words known as reduplicatives. A reduplicative is a word created by reduplication, defined as the process in which the entire word or the stem or root of the word is repeated exactly or with a small change. There are four types of reduplication:

ABLAUT REDUPLICATIVES: Partial reduplication of the base word, with only a change in the first vowel (e.g., chit-chat, hip-hop, knick-knack). In general, the order of the vowel sounds in these words follow a rule: they move from the front of the mouth to the back — short “i” to “a” to “o” (e.g., we say tick-tock, not tock-tick; or we say ding-dong, not dong-ding.”) Note how the vowel sounds move from the back to the front of your mouth when you say these words out loud: bit, bet, bat, bot, but.

EXACT (OR SIMPLE) REDUPLICATION: Full reduplication of the base word (e.g., bye-bye, choo-choo, da-da, ma-ma, night-night, no-no, pee-pee, poo-poo). Linguists refer to these words as “motherese,” “caregiver speech,” “child talk,” or “child-directed speech.”

RHYMING REDUPLICATION: Partial reduplication of the base word, with only a change in the first consonant (e.g, hokey-pokey, razzle-dazzle, super-duper). A variety of rhyming reduplication is SHM REDUPLICATION (or ECHOIC DISMISSIVE SHM): Originating in American English Yiddish, the word base is repeated with a copy that begins with “shm-” or “schm-” (e.g., fancy-shmancy, sale-schmale).

CONTRASTIVE FOCUS REDUPLICATION (OR LEXICAL CLONING): Repetition of the word with stress to distinguish its literal meaning from its intended meaning (e.g., John is rich, but he’s not RICH-rich” or “I don’t need a safety pin, I need a PIN pin”).

Speaking of reduplicatives, linguists differentiate between REAL DUPLICATIVES — compound rhyming words that contain one or two nonsensical base words (e.g., dilly-dally, hoity-toity, or mumbo-jumbo) — and FALSE DUPLICATIVES — compound rhyming words that contain two meaningful word bases (e.g., claptrap, cookbook, copshop, or payday).

Most rhyming compounds begin as hyphenated words and through common usage eventually drop the hyphen to become single words. Regardless of their hyphenation, they underscore the playfulness of the English language. Below are some common tautonyms (many function as nouns and verbs) in addition to some rare or obsolete tautonyms from two fascinating archaic word reference books: Suffolk Words and Phrases (1823) by Edward Moor and A Collection of English Words Not Generally Used (1768) by John Ray. Please contact me if you know of any rhyming compounds that should be added to this list.

airy-fairy: foolishly idealistic; impractical

argle-bargle: nonsense; heated argument

argy-bargy: heated argument

arsy-varsy: head over heels

boob-tube: television

boogie-woogie: blues-style music with a strong, fast beat; a dance to pop or rock music

buddy-buddy: very friendly

chick flick: a movie primary for women

chiller-killer: a refrigerated heat exchange system

chit-chat: conversation about trivial matters

clip-clop: the sound of horse hoofs on a hard surface

crawly-mauly (rare): to stir or move about

crincum-crankum (rare): full of twists and turns; excessively elaborate or intricate

crinkle-crankle (rare): winding in and out, zigzag; a serpentine wall

crisscross: intersecting straight paths or lines

dibber-dobber: a tattle-tale; a snitch

dilly-dally: to waste time through indecision or loitering

dimber-damber (rare): leader of a group of vagrants or thieves

ding-dong: the noise made by a bell; in the UK, slang for a woman’s breast; a noisy argument; an idiot

easy-peasy: simple, achieved without difficulty

fancy-schmancy: elaborately decorated to impress

fiddle-faddle: trivial matters; nonsense; a trademarked name for popcorn; as a verb: to fuss

fingle-fangle (rare): trifle; something whimsical or unimportant

flimflam: nonsense; to swindle

flip-flop: a light sandal; backward handspring; abrupt reversal of a position or policy

fuddy-duddy: a fussy or old-fashioned person

gewgaw: cheap, showy jewelry or thing

gibble-gabble (rare): meaningless talk; nonsense

hab-nab (rare): hit or miss, succeed or fail; however it turns out, anyhow; at random

handy-dandy: convenient and useful

hanky-panky: improper behavior, typically sexual in nature

harum-scarum (rare): impetuous, reckless person

heebie-jeebies: a state of nervous fear, anxiety

hee-haw: the loud cry of a mule or donkey

helter-skelter: disorder or confusion; in disorderly haste

higgledy-piggledy: in a disorderly manner

hinchy-pinchy (rare): a child’s game (1890s) where children pinch one another with increasing force

hip-hop: a style of popular music featuring rape with electronic backing

Hobson-Jobson: Anglo-Indian words which came into use during British rule in India. More generally, assimilation of the sounds of a word or foreign words into new words or already existing words

hobnob: to mix socially, particularly with those of high social status

hocus-pocus: meaningless activity or talk, often to draw attention away from something

hodgepodge: a motley assortment of things

hoity-toity: snobbish

hokey-pokey: trickery; a song that describes the movements of a dance performed in a circle

hootchy-koochy (or hootchie-kootchie, hoochy-koochy): a dance featuring suggestive twisting and shaking of the torso performed by women who worked in carnivals.

hotchpotch (rare): a motley assortment of things; a mutton stew with vegetables

hubba-hubba: a phrase to express enthusiasm or approval

hubble-bubble: a hookah, an oriental tobacco pipe with a long flexible tube connected to a container where the smoke is cooled by passing through water

hubbub: chaotic noise created by a crowd of people; a busy, noisy situation

hugger-mugger (rare): disorderly; secret

hullabaloo: a commotion

humdrum: routine, monotonous

hum-strum (rare): music badly played; an instrument out of tune

humpty-dumpty: a rotund person; a thing or person that once overthrown cannot be restored

hurdy-gurdy: a musical instrument that makes music by rotation of a cylinder that is studded with pegs

hurly-burly: busy or noisy activity

hurry-scurry (rare): to hasten along hurriedly

I-Spy: a game in which player names the first letter of an object that he or she can see, and the other player tries to guess it

itty-bitty: very small

jibber-jabber: worthless or foolish talk; nonsense

jingle-jangle: the sound that metallic items make

joe Shmoe (or joe Schmo): an average person; no one in particular

kim-kam (rare): crooked

King Kong: a giant ape

Kit Kat: trademarked name of a chocolate-covered wafer bar

knickknack: a small object, often a household ornament, of little or no value

lovey-dovey: extremely affectionate or romantic

matchy-matchy: clothes, patterns, colors, or decorations that are the same color or very similar

mingle-mangle (rare): a confused mixture; hodgepodge

mishmash: a random assortment of things

mumbo-jumbo: language or ritual causing, or intending to cause, confusion

namby-pamby: weak in willpower, courage or vitality

niminy-piminy: very dainty or refined

nitty-gritty: the most important details about something

okey-dokey: OK

pall-mall: a 16th century game in which a wooden ball was drive through an iron ring suspended at the end of an alley

pell-mell: in a rushed or reckless manner

ping-pong: table tennis

pitter-patter: the sound of quick light steps; to move or make the sound of quick light steps

prime-time: the time period when most people watch television

prittle-prattle (rare): trivial or idle talk

ragtag: disorganized, untidy

rantrum-scantum (rare): disorderly, careless

razzle-dazzle: showy, noisy activity designed to impress

riffraff: undesirable people

roly-poly: plump

sale-schmale: doubting that something is actually on sale

shilly-shally: failing to act decisively; to vacillate

singsong: the repeated rising and falling of a person’s voice as they speak

skimper-skamper (rare): to hurry in a state of confusion

skimple-skamble: senseless, gibberish, rambled and confused

so-so: neither very good nor very bad

splish-splash: to make a splashing sound

super-duper: very good

teeny-weeny: very small, tiny

teeter-totter: a seesaw

Tic Tac: trademarked name of a hard, rounded mint

tick-tock: the sound of a clock ticking; making a ticking sound

tighty-whities: snug white briefs worn by males (variant: tight-whiteys)

TikTok: a popular social media app that allows users to create, watch and share 15-second videos

tip-top (or tiptop): excellent, of the very best quality; the highest point

tittle-tattle (rare): light informal conversation for social occasions

tohubohu: utter confusion, chaos

tootsie-wootsie (also toots-wootsy): a term of endearment

topsy-turvy: upside down; in a state of confusion

ugly-pugly: extremely unattractive

voodoo: followers of a religion that involves witchcraft and animistic deities

walkie-talkie: portable two-way radio

wibble-wobble: to move unsteadily from side to side, to tremble lightly, to quiver,

wiggle-waggle: to move jerkily back and forth; shilly-shally

wigwag: to move to and fro

willy-nilly: whether one likes it or not; without any order

wingding: a lively party or event

wishy-washy: weak, feeble, lacking character

yada-yada (or yadda yadda): used as a substitute for a longer predictable story; boring language

zigzag: a line or course with abrupt right and left turns; veering alternatively to right and left

zoot suit: a men’s suit popularized by jazz and jump blues singers in the 1930s, characterized by high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers and a long coat with padded shoulders and wide lapels

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For further reading:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/254220098_Just_a_Load_of_Hibber-Gibber_Making_Sense_of_English_Rhyming_Compounds
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/4079596.bit-reduplication-chuck/
https://owad.de/word-show/higgledy-piggledy

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

New Words Added to Dictionary.com in 2023

03/04/202303/05/2023 / Alexander Atkins

Each year the editors of dictionary.com add new words to their online dictionary as well as revise word definitions to keep up with the English language that is always evolving. In late February, the editors added 313 new words and revised 1,100 definitions of existing words. In general, lexicographers add words to the dictionary that meet these four requirements: (1) the word is used by many people; (2) the word is used by those people with a similar meaning; (3) the word is likely to have longevity; and (4) the word is useful for a wide audience. Speaking about the new word additions for 2023, senior director of editorial John Kelly elaborated in a press release, “Language is, as always, constantly changing, but the sheer range and volume of vocabulary captured in our latest update to Dictionary.com reflects a shared feeling that change today is happening faster and more than ever before. Our team of lexicographers is documenting and contextualizing that unstoppable swirl of the English language—not only to help us better understand our changing times, but how the times we live in change, in turn, our language.” Below are some of the new words added to Dictionary.com this year, broken into general topic categories:

THE MULTIVERSE

cakeage: (noun) a fee charged by a restaurant for serving a cake brought in from outside.

digital nomad: (noun) a person who works remotely while traveling for leisure, especially when having no fixed, permanent address.

nearlywed: (noun) a person who lives with another in a life partnership, sometimes engaged with no planned wedding date, sometimes with no intention of ever marrying.

hellscape: (noun) a place or time that is hopeless, unbearable, or irredeemable.

antifragile: (adjective) becoming more robust when exposed to stressors, uncertainty, or risk.

liminal space: (noun) a state or place characterized by being transitional or intermediate in some way. Informal: any location that is unsettling, uncanny, or dreamlike.

MODERN PROBLEMS

rage farming: (noun) Informal. the tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster.

trauma dumping: (noun) unsolicited, one-sided sharing of traumatic or intensely negative experiences or emotions in an inappropriate setting or with people who are unprepared for the interaction.

pinkwashing: (noun) an instance or practice of acknowledging and promoting the civil liberties of the LGBTQ+ community, but superficially, as a ploy to divert attention from allegiances and activities that are in fact hostile to such liberties.

cyberflashing: (noun) an act or instance of sending someone unsolicited, unwanted, sexually explicit images or video using digital platforms.

IDENTITY

WOC: (abbreviation) woman of color: a woman of color; a nonwhite woman.

latine: (adjective) of or relating to people of Latin American origin or descent (used especially by Spanish speakers in place of the anglicized gender-neutral form Latinx, the masculine form Latino, or the feminine form Latina).

native language: (noun) a language that a person acquires fully through extensive exposure in childhood.

heritage language: (noun) a language used at home and spoken natively by the adults in a family, but often not fully acquired by subsequent generations whose schooling and other socialization occurs primarily in a different language, usually a dominant or official language in the surrounding society.

GENDER

sexual minority: (noun) a member or members of the LGBTQ+ community, used especially in the context of discrimination against or advocacy for a minoritized sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

abrosexual: (adjective) noting or relating to a person whose sexual orientation is fluid or fluctuates over time. The prefix abro- comes from the Greek habrós, meaning “graceful, delicate, pretty.”

multisexual: (adjective) noting or relating to a person who is sexually or romantically attracted to people of more than one gender, used especially as an inclusive term to describe similar, related sexual orientations such as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, etc.

mixed-gender: (adjective) of or relating to two or more people of different genders.

folx: (noun) people; a variant spelling of “folks” (spelled with x not only as shorthand for the /ks/ sound, but also in parallel with other gender-inclusive spellings, like Latinx).

POP CULTURE AND SLANG

petfluencer: (noun) a person who gains a large following on social media by posting entertaining images or videos of their cat, dog, or other pet.

fan service: (noun) material added to a work of fiction for the perceived or actual purpose of appealing to the audience, used especially of material that is risqué or sexual in nature.

climate fiction or cli-fi: (noun) a genre of fiction, encompassing both speculative and realist works, in which climate change and other environmental concerns are major themes. Also called cli-fi.

tifo: (noun) chiefly soccer; a coordinated display, including large banners, flags, and sometimes signs or cards, executed cooperatively or performed in unison by the most fervent supporters and ultra fans in the stadium. The term comes from Italian, in which it literally means “typhus (fever)”— leading to the figurative sense of “fevered, impassioned support.”

deadass: (adverb) Slang. genuinely, sincerely, or truly; in fact.

bedwetting: (noun) Informal. A disparaging term for exhibition of emotional overreaction, as anxiety or alarm, to events, especially major decisions or outcomes.

grundle: (noun) Slang, vulgar. the region between the anus and the genitalia; perineum.

POLITICS AND CURRENT EVENTS

self-coup: (noun) a coup d’état performed by the current, legitimate government or a duly elected head of state to retain or extend control over government, through an additional term, an extension of term, an expansion of executive power, the dismantling of other government branches, or the declaration that an election won by an opponent is illegitimate.

woke: (adjective) disparaging term of or relating to a liberal progressive orthodoxy, especially promoting inclusive policies or ideologies that welcome or embrace ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.

cakeism: (noun) the false belief that one can enjoy the benefits of two choices that are in fact mutually exclusive, or have it both ways. The first records of the term come from 2016. It is derived from the well-known expression “to have one’s cake and eat it, too.”

ecofascism: (noun) a right-wing ideology that blames environmental harm mainly on poorer nations and on marginalized groups, such as immigrants and people of color in richer nations, and that consequently advocates remedial measures that unfairly target or even attack people who are already oppressed.

burn pit: (noun) US Military. an often expansive area, at or adjacent to a base of operations, used for the uncontrolled, open-air burning of military waste, including plastics, chemicals, rubber, paint, fuels, munitions, human and medical waste, metals, and electronics: generative of toxic smoke and fumes that have been associated with a number of short- and long-term ailments suffered by exposed military personnel and civilians.

forever chemicals: plural (noun) long-lasting chemicals, including PFAS and hydrofluorocarbons, used in the manufacture of common household items such as refrigerators, nonstick cookware, and flame-resistant furniture, that remain in the environment because they break down very slowly, and subsequently accumulate within animals and people. See also biological accumulation.

microtransaction: (noun) a relatively inexpensive payment for part of a product or for an upgraded service or experience: often at the core of an alternative sales and revenue model for businesses to maximize profit with a very large volume of piecemeal or à la carte sales, rather than a single lump sum transaction for each full product sold.

family office: (noun) a financial advisory firm for extremely wealthy private individuals that is designed to offer comprehensive management of all assets, especially one that serves a single family.

HEALTH

988: (noun) the telephone number in the U.S. for a mental health crisis hotline staffed by licensed counselors and other staff trained in suicide prevention. The 988 hotline was launched in 2022, while the 911 system dates back to 1968.

subvariant: (noun) Microbiology, Pathology. a genetically distinct form of a virus, bacteria, or other microorganism, which arises when a variant of the original strain mutates.

superdodger: (noun) Pathology. anyone who, for unverified reasons, remains uninfected or asymptomatic even after repeated exposure to a contagious virus.

naloxone: (noun) Pharmacology. an opioid antagonist, C19H21NO4, used to reverse the acute respiratory depression that occurs with opioid overdose.

microdosing: (noun) the practice of taking or administering very small amounts of a psychoactive drug, such as cannabis, LSD, or psilocybin, to improve mood or enhance cognitive functioning, without hallucinogenic or other disorienting effects.

IDENTITY

WOC: (abbreviation) woman of color: a woman of color; a nonwhite woman.

native language: (noun) a language that a person acquires fully through extensive exposure in childhood.

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For further reading:www.dictionary.com/e/new-dictionary-words-winter-2023/

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

New Book: Serendipitous Discoveries From the Bookshelf, Hardcover Edition

02/25/202302/25/2023 / Alexander Atkins

My first book, Serendipitous Discoveries from the Bookshelf, is now available in hardcover. It is the perfect gift for a booklover, literature aficionado, word lover, student, teacher, or writer. Serendipitous Discoveries from the Bookshelf was written and designed by a bibliophile for bibliophiles. It is a beautifully designed and eloquent homage to books, reading, and lifelong learning. The book presents over 100 thoughtful and witty essays filled with fascinating insights, inspiring passages and parables, eloquent quotes about books and reading, valuable life lessons, fascinating rare English words, and arcane literary facts. I take the reader on a captivating and inspiring guided tour — through the world of books, literature, words, phrases, wisdom, education, quotations, movies, music, and trivia — to share fascinating serendipitous discoveries from years of book collecting, reading, and research to inspire critical thinking and lifelong learning. I hope you take a moment to browse the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon and consider purchasing it for yourself or as a gift for a book lover in your life. If you purchase it, please accept my deepest gratitude for choosing my book and supporting my labor of love. And please drop me a note and share your thoughts about the book. The book can be ordered here.

Conversation: The Most Gratifying Response to Literary Creation

02/22/2023 / Alexander Atkins

“Reading is a privileged pleasure because each of us enjoys it, quite complexly, in ways not replicable by anyone else. But there is enough structural common ground in the text itself so that we can talk to each other, even sometimes persuade each other, about what we read: and that many-voiced conversation, with which, thankfully, we shall never have done, is one of the most gratifying responses to literary creation, second only to reading itself.”

From The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age (1989) by Robert Alter. Alter is a professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at U.C. Berkeley. Alter is a world-renown scholar of the Hebrew Bible, having published 23 books, including many critically-acclaimed translations, including The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (2018) and The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (2004). His work, The Art of Biblical Narrative won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought in 2009. Another popular work is The Literary Guide to the Bible (1987) that is frequently assigned in college literature courses.

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Why Humans are Poorer than the Bees

02/19/202302/20/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf wisdom “In Tibet we say that many illness can be cured by the one medicine of love and compassion. These qualities are the ultimate source of human happiness, and need for them lies at the very core of our being. Unfortunately, love and compassion have been omitted from too many spheres of social interaction for too long. Usually confined to family and home, their practice in public life is considered impractical, even naive. This is tragic. In my view point, the practice of compassion is not just a symptom of unrealistic idealism but the most effective way to pursue the best interest of others as well as our own. The more we — as a nation, a group or as individuals – depend upon others, the more it is in our own best interests to ensure their well-being.

Practicing altruism is the real source of compromise and cooperation; merely recognizing our need for harmony is not enough. A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir — a constant source of energy, determination and kindness. This is like a seed; when cultivated, gives rise to many other good qualities, such as forgiveness, tolerance, inner strength and the confidence to overcome fear and insecurity. The compassionate mind is like an elixir; it is capable of transforming bad situation into beneficial ones. Therefore, we should not limit our expressions of love and compassion to our family and friends. Nor is the compassion only the responsibility of clergy, health care and social workers. It is the necessary business of every part of the human community.

Whether a conflict lies in the field of politics, business or religion, an altruistic approach is frequently the sole means of resolving it. Sometimes the very concepts we use to meditate a dispute are themselves the cause of the problem. At such times, when a resolution seems impossible, both sides should recall the basic human nature that unites them. This will help break the impasse and, in the long run, make it easier for everyone to attain their goal. Although neither side may be fully satisfied, if both make concessions, at the very least, the danger of further conflict will be averted. We all know that this form of compromise is the most effective way of solving problems – why, then, do we not use it more often?

When I consider the lack of cooperation in human society, I can only conclude that it stems from ignorance of our interdependent nature. I am often moved by the example of small insects, such as bees. The laws of nature dictate that bees work together in order to survive. As a result, they possess an instinctive sense of social responsibility. They have no constitution, laws, police, religion or moral training, but because of their nature they labour faithfully together. Occasionally they may fight, but in general the whole colony survives on the basis of cooperation. Human beings, on the other hand, have constitutions, vast legal systems and police forces; we have religion, remarkable intelligence and a heart with great capacity to love. But despite our many extraordinary qualities, in actual practice we lag behind those small insects; in some ways, I feel we are poorer than the bees…

To me, it is clear: a genuine sense of responsibility can result only if we develop compassion. Only a spontaneous feeling of empathy for others can really motivate us to act on their behalf.”

Excerpt from The Global Community and the Need for Universal Responsibility (2015) by The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. The excerpt also appears in A Conversation with The Dalai Lama on Money, Politics, and Life As It Could Be (2016) by The Dalai Lama with Fabien Ouaki. In 1989, The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for advocating peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people. The Dalai Lama has developed his philosophy of peace from a great reverence for all things living and upon the concept of universal responsibility embracing all mankind as well as nature… The Dalai Lama has come forward with constructive and forward-looking proposals for the solution of international conflicts, human rights issues, and global environmental problems.”

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For further reading: http://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/the-medicine-of-altruism

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The World’s Greatest Love Letters: Mark Twain

02/14/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf books Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Union Square & Company has published The World’s Greatest Love Letters: 800 years of Literary Romance. “Many famous men and women of the past are remembered today almost exclusively for the love letters they wrote, or that were written to them… The World’s Greatest Love Letters celebrates the love letter as a literary form, and love itself as an emotion that draws out from the lovestruck humor, pathos, poignance, charm, wit, and other attributes that distinguish and define humanity. The letters [in this volume] represent… many of the greatest expressions of love ever committed to paper,” writes Stephan Dziemianowicz in the introduction. The letters have been organized into the following sections: refined love, unrequited love, playful love, reverential love, adoring love, married love, married couples, long-distance love, mad love, bad love, love on the rocks, and the world’s greatest lover.

Below is a selection from the book, a letter written by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) to his wife, Olivia (Livy) Langdon. Twain married her on February 2, 1870, when he was 34 years old, and a famous bohemian author, and she was 24 years old, from a very strict, religious background. (Letters written by Mark Twain often come up for auction and can sell from $5,000 to $50,000.) This letter was written on November 27, 1875 to mark her 30th birthday.

Livy darling,

Six years have gone by since I made my first great success in life and won you, and thirty years have passed since Providence made preparation for that happy success by sending you into the world.

Every day we live together adds to the security of my confidence that we can never any more wish to be separated than that we can ever imagine a regret that we were ever joined. You are dearer to me to-day, my child, than you were upon the last anniversary of this birth-day; you were dearer then than you were a year before—you have grown more and more dear from the first of those anniversaries, and I do not doubt that this precious progression will continue on to the end.

Let us look forward to the coming anniversaries, with their age and their gray hairs without fear and without depression, trusting and believing that the love we bear each other will be sufficient to make them blessed.

So, with abounding affection for you and our babies, I hail this day that brings you matronly grace and dignity of three decades!

Always Yours,
S. L. C.

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There’s A Word for That: Flibbertigibbet

02/13/202302/13/2023 / Alexander Atkins / 2 Comments

alex atkins bookshelf words If you have ever been on a long flight, you have probably sat in front of one — and been annoyed the entire flight because you forgot to bring your noise-canceling headphones. Aargh! We are talking about a flibbertigibbet, defined as an excessively talkative person; a chatterbox or a silly, flighty person. The word is pronounced “fli ber TEE ji bet.” The word is a variation of the Middle English word flepergebet, introduced around the mid 1500s, that means “gossip,” “gossiper,” or “blabbermouth. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 15 variant spellings, including flybbergybe, fibber de’ jibe and flipperty-gibbet. The word is onomatopoeic, created from sounds that represent idle chatter.

In King Lear (published c. 1608), William Shakespeare uses the word flibbertigibbet for the name of a devil. In Act II, Scene IV, Edgar (disguised as a madman) speaks to Lear and his Fool: “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he give the web and pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of the heart.” Some annotated versions of this play, indicate that Shakespeare meant the term to mean a false flatterer.

Later, Sir Walter Scott uses Flibbertigibbet for the alias of a mischievous urchin, Dickie Sludge, in the historical romance novel Kenilworth, published in 1821: “Either Flibbertigibbet,” answered Wayland Smith, “or else an imp of the devil in good earnest.”
“Thou has hit it,” answered Dickie Sludge. “I am thine own Flibbertigibbet, man; and I have broken forth of bounds, along with my learned preceptor, as I told thee I would do, whether he would or not.”

Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein used the word flibbertigibbet in the famous musical The Sound of Music which premiered on Broadway in 1959 and ran for three years. It was adapted in the film of the same name in 1965 by director Robert Wise and screenwriter Ernest Lehman. In the song, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” the nuns at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg sing the following lyrics about a free-spirited postulant named Maria von Trapp, the quintessential flibbertigibbet:

She’d outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She’s a riddle! She’s a child!
She’s a headache! She’s an angel!
She’s a girl!

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!

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Understanding Shakespeare’s Tragic Hero

02/05/202302/05/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf literature Many students of the humanities are familiar with the great German philosophers like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Arthur Schopenhauer; however, few are familiar with German philosopher, Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) who had a profound impact on the study of human sciences and influenced many philosophers that followed him. For Dilthey, a true polymath well-versed in history, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, hermeneutics, and philosophy, the human sciences encompassed both the social sciences and the humanities. Dilthey developed the term Geisteswisseenschaft (meaning “science of the mind” or “spiritual knowledge”) to describe the study of individual’s life in its actual cultural-historical context. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy elaborates on Dilthey’s contribution to philosophy: “Whereas the main task of the natural sciences as Dilthey found them was to arrive at law-based causal explanations, he projected the core task of the human sciences to be that of providing an understanding of the organizational structures and dynamic forces of human and historical life. It will be shown that this distinction is not so sharp as to rule out causal explanations in particular human sciences such as psychology, political theory, and economics; it mostly delimits the scope of explanations in these fields.”

Beginning in the late 1980s, Dilthey scholars Rudolf Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi began editing and publishing Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works in six volumes for Princeton University Press. Sadly, these books are not as accessible as they should be: they are extremely expensive and not available in digital format. The second volume titled Understanding the Human World (2010) reveals Dilthey’s tremendous erudition and insight as he explores the seminal work of William Shakespeare, who created some of literature’s most enduring heroes. In this excerpt, Dilthey explores the relation between Shakespeare’s tragic hero and the world:

“By living among these new ideas, Shakespeare used relations between the spirit of Renaissance and Protestantism to generate a feeling of life and the world that exceeded both. Regardless of how long or short life is, to live by activating the energies lying in us, to take pleasure in our essence, to do justice to the tasks springing from it, to live fully in the beauty and the happiness lying in our vicinity while prudently observing the rights and the standards dealt us by our circumstances, that is the new rule of life that he expresses more powerfully than anyone before him, and not in abstract thoughts but in the images of human existence itself.

Hence it follows that for him tragic conflicts takes place in persons themselves. Such a conflict has its roots in the soul itself. In a character whose powerfuleness we can easily imagine as exuding magnificence there is a structural incongruity so that he nonetheless falls victim to a pathological process. Because of this inadequacy, a passion emerges from this powerful psychic structure of the hero. It is suddenly elicited from the depths by conditions of life that stand in no relations to what is otherwise happening and propels the hero toward his destruction like a dream coming totally from within, a flamed that hardly needs external nourishment. If this passion violates or detroys the rights and existence of others, then, and only then, does the consciousness of it exhibit itself in pangs of conscience as punishment. For Shakespeare it is no punishment, but rather almost a beautiful fate, that death makes early claims on those who are most powerful, beautiful, and pure. Schiller expresses the same feeling at a higher stage of European development.

For Shakespeare the tragic does not lie in conflicts with the powers of the world, but within the structure of the soul, in a disproportion located there. Hence, this immense intellect must fully concentrate on grasping and understanding a person as distinctive. This person is not formed by circumstances and does not develop. Circumstances do not seem to in any way constrain the person’s impetuous course.”

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For further reading: Understanding the Human World (2010)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dilthey/

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Little Books, Big Ideas: Inspiring Quotes About Writing

02/01/202302/01/2023 / Alexander Atkins / Leave a comment

If you visit a used bookstore, you might stumble upon an often neglected section: miniature or compact books. A miniature book generally measures 3 by 4 inches; some are even smaller: 1.5 inches by 2 inches. A compact book, also known as an octodecimo in American Library Association lingo, generally measures 4 x 6 inches. Unfortunately, these types of books are often dismissed due to their small size. “If they are so small, how can they possibly matter?” you think to yourself. Astute book lovers, however, know that even little books can contain big ideas — profound thoughts that can change your life.

In my periodic visits to used bookstores, I recently came across such a thought-provoking little book: The Wit and Wisdom of Women edited by the editors of Running Press, published in1993. Founded in 1972 by Stuart and Larry Teacher, Running Press specialized in small books that could be purchased as gifts.

In the introduction of The Wit and Wisdom of Women, the editors write: “The book you hold is a celebration of women’s lives, at once funny, poignant, passionate, and irrepressibly joyful… Many of these women, bound by time, place, and circumstance, could not possibly have conversed during their lifetimes — but that doesn’t mean we can’t delight in a spirited dialogue of our own making… These unexpected meetings of the mind affirm the universal quality of experience.” Here are some inspiring quotes about writing:

“We rely upon the poets, the philosophers, and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy or sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope; they give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I feel my courage wavering, I rush to them. They give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resiliance to push on.”
From A Gift of Joy (1965) by Helen Hayes

“A thing is incredible, if ever, only after it is told — returned to the world it came out of.”
From the short story “No Place for You, My Love” (1952) by Eudora Welty

“We inherit a great responsibility as well for we must give voice to centuries not only of silent bitterness and hate but also of neighborly kindness and sustaining love.”
From The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) by Alice Walker

“Although some use stories as entertainment alone, tales are, in their oldest sense, a healing art. Some are called to this healing art, and the best, to my lights, are those who have lain with the story and found all its matching parts inside themselves and its depth… In the best tellers I know, the stories grow out of their lives like roots grow a tree. The stories have grown them, from them into who they are.”
From Women Who Run with Wolves (1989) by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year. You make the path boldly and follow it fearfully. You go where the path leads. At the end of the path, you find a box canyon. You hammer out reports, dispatch bulletins. The writing has changed, in your hands, and in a twinkling, from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool. The new place interests you because it is not clear. You attend. In your humility, you lay down the words carefully, watching all the angles. Now the earlier writing looks soft and careless. Process is nothing; erase your tracks. The path is not the work. I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope birds ate the crumbs; I hope you will toss it all and not look back.”
From The Writing Life (1989) by Annie Dillard

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Famous Misquotations: Don’t Cry Because It’s Over; Smile Because It Happened

01/27/202301/27/2023 / Alexander Atkins

If you have attended any event that celebrates an important milestone, like a graduation or retirement, you have heard someone say: “And like Dr. Seuss said, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.'” And like many memorable quotations, this is found on all kinds of merchandise: posters, coffee mugs, t-shirts, and so forth. But like many quotes found on the internet, there is absolutely no evidence that Dr. Seuss (the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel) wrote it. No, he did not write that. Nor did the Cat in the Hat. He did not say it here or there. He did not say it anywhere. Some websites attribute the quote to Gabriel Garcia Marques or Anonymous. So which is correct? Let me welcome you into the classroom of Famous Misquotations 101, where we will seek enlightenment.

Garson O’Toole, better known as the Quote Investigator and author of the fascinating book, Hemingway Didn’t Say That (2017) joins forces with another quote investigator, Barry Popik, to discover that the actual source of this quotation is a variant of two lines from a poem by German poet Ludwig Jacobowski (1868-1900). Jacobowski lived and worked for most of his life in Berlin. He edited a local newspaper and wrote several volumes of poetry and two novels. The poem that is the focus of our attention is titled “Bright Days” (or “Radiant Days”), published in the August 1899 edition of Das Magazine fur Litteratur, a literary journal. Two key lines from that poem read “Night weinen, weil she voruber! / Lacheln, weil sie gewesen!” Translated into English the lines read: “Don’t cry because it’s over! Smile because they have been!” The entire poem appears below:

Bright Days by Ludwig Jacobowski

Ah, our brilliant days

shine like eternal stars,

They glow past as consolation

for future sorrow.

Don’t cry because it’s over!

Smile because they have been!

And if the days get cloudier,

Our stars redeem!

Fast forward to 1996, when an anonymous contributor posted this line on a Usenet newsgroup under the heading rec.humor: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” The Wikiquotes page devoted to Dr. Seuss points out that this quotation has also been attributed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who wrote: “No llores porque ya se terminó, sonríe porque sucedió.” Translated into English it reads, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” However, there is no source to confirm that Marquez ever wrote this.

The erroneous attribution to Dr. Seuss begins with one individual who was too lazy to do his research: Christopher Roche, the valedictorian at Albertus Magnus High School. In June 1998, The Rockland Journal-News (Rockland County, New York) quoted Roche’s valedictorian speech. Roche claimed that he was paraphrasing some lines from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go: “Like Dr. Seuss tells us, today is our day. We’re off to great places, so let’s be on our way. Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Yikes. Even ChatGPT wouldn’t make a bonehead attribution like that. Realize how easy it would be to confirm: Oh, the Places You’ll Go is not some sprawling epic novel, like War and Peace — the book has only 56 pages with just a few sentences on each page with lots of large pictures. If Roche had even flipped through it, he would discovered that this sentence or anything with a similar sentiment simply isn’t there.

So the next time you hear someone quote from “Dr. Seuss,” please interrupt them politely and graciously enlighten them: “You mean the obscure German poet, Ludwig Jacobowski, don’t you? Please, don’t cry that you made a mistake; smile that I corrected you — so that you are spared the humiliation of looking like a fool.” Oh, the places you’ll go…

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For further reading: Famous Misquotations: Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Famous Misquotations: A Civilization is Measured by How It Treats Its Weakest Members
Famous Misquotations: The Two Most Important Days in Your Life
Famous Misquotations: The Triumph of Evil is That Good Men Do Nothing
Famous Phrases You Have Been Misquoting

For further reading:
Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations, Garson O’Toole, Little A, 2017.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/07/25/smile/
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/dont_cry_because_its_over

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

New Buzzwords for 2023

01/22/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf words In early January, the editors of NPR published a list of global buzzwords that will likely dominate the headlines in 2023. Some of the words are neologisms, while others are old, well-known terms. Here are their selections:

polycrisis: a series of old problems (famines, wars, pestilence, etc.) occurring at a faster rate and with compounding effects.

poverty: the state of being extremely poor (from the Latin paupertas from pauper meaning “poor.”

traveler surveillance: testing and gathering date on people who travel.

child wasting: a life-threatening form of malnutrition in which a child has very low weight for their height.

zero-dose children: children who never receive any of the most essential vaccinations (eg, diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus).

tarmac to arm: the delivery of urgent supplies (eg, medical supplies, PPE, and food) flown into crisis-hit areas and offloaded onto airport tarmacs.

gender food gap: women who are underpaid or unemployed and live in poverty, unable to feed themselves.

aridification: the increasing mismatch between supply and demand of available water.

climate impact resilience: adopting strategies to prepare for and help blunt the impact of climate change.

The editors reached out to its readers and asked them to submit additional buzzwords for 2023. Here are some additional new words for 2023:

elite-directed growth: “Global problems (poverty, climate change, child wasting) stem from the same cultural cause. Power has become concentrated among elites — decision makers who make decisions that benefit themselves but are maladaptive for the population and environmentbecause these decision makers are insulated from the impacts of their policies. So they are either unaware of the adverse human consequences their policies have or they don’t care.”

microplastics: Microscopic bits of plastic that find their way into land, ocean, and humans (eg, the lungs) that can cause great harm.

precariat: a person who does not live in security. A portmanteau combing the words precarious and proletariat.

solastalgia: a form or emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change. Formed by the Latin word solacium (meaning “comfort”) and the Greek word forming element -algia (meaning “pain, suffering, grief”

superabundance: an amount or supply more sufficient to meet a person’s needs.

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For further reading: .npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/01/17/1148994513/a-guide-to-9-global-buzzwords-for-2023-from-polycrisis-to-zero-dose-children
npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/01/22/1150062051/we-asked-you-answered-more-global-buzzwords-for-2023-from-precariat-to-solastalg

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

The Dog that Ate the Manuscript of a Famous American Novel

01/10/2023 / Alexander Atkins

alex atkins bookshelf literature It’s one thing when you’re dog eats your homework and you have to face your skeptical teacher — but what if your dog eats a manuscript considered one of the most famous American novels set in the Great Depression? Now that’s a tragedy! American writer John Steinbeck experienced that exact situation and imagine the reaction from his publisher when he had to explain that his dog ate his manuscript Of Mice and Men. The dog of this sad tale was a setter puppy named Toby that in Steinbeck’s words “[was] a very serious dog who doesn’t care much for jokes.” Apparently, he didn’t care too much for his regular dog food and switched to something with a bit more fiber. In his journal entry for May 27, 1937, Steinbeck wrote: “Minor tragedy stalked. My setter pup [Toby], left alone one night, made confetti of about half of my manuscript book. Two months work to do over again. It set me back. There was no other draft. I was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically. I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a manuscript I’m not sure is good at all. He only got an ordinary spanking… I’m not sure Toby didn’t know what he was doing when he ate the first draft. I have promoted Toby-dog to be a lieutenant-colonel in charge of literature. But as from he unpredictable literary enthusiasms of this country, I have little faith in them.”

The title Of Mice and Men was inspired by two of the lines from the poem “To A Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Lough, November, 1785” by Scottish poet Robert Burns. The poem is written in a light Scots dialect which is foreign to modern readers. The specific lines from the seventh stanza are: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley. (The best laid schemes of mice and men / Often go awry.)” Steinbeck completed his work on his manuscript for Of Mice and Men and the book was published later that year in 1937. Toby eventually recovered from his spanking and never ate another manuscript again.

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For further reading: Conversations with John Steinbeck by Thomas Fensch

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

The Most Beautiful People Are Those Who Have Known Defeat, Suffering, Struggle, and Loss

01/07/2023 / Alexander Atkins

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

From the book Death: The Final Stage of Growth, published in 1975, by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004), a Swiss-American psychiatrist who was the leading authority in the field of death and dying. Kübler-Ross introduced her theory of the five stages of grief in her seminal work, On Death and Dying published in 1969. The five stages of grief, known as the Kübler-Ross model, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In a work published after her death (Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief” co-authored with David Kessler, 2019), Kübler-Ross adds a sixth stage: finding meaning. Interestingly, Kübler-Ross theory was based on people who were dying as opposed to actually grieving; therefore, perhaps it would be more accurate to call them the “five stages of accepting death by individuals with terminal illness.” More significantly, the theory is not supported by empirical research or evidence.

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For further reading: www.ekrfoundation.org/elisabeth-kubler-ross/quotes/

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

Most Expensive Books Sold in 2022

01/05/202301/05/2023 / Alexander Atkins / Leave a comment

When dedicated bibliophiles want to purchase a book, they generally turn to AbeBooks rather than Amazon Marketplace or eBay. AbeBooks was founded in Victoria, British Columbia, as the Advanced Book Exchange in 1995 by four bibliophiles. The company was acquired by Amazon in 2008. The site lists more than 140 million books from thousands of independent booksellers, many former brick-and-mortar establishments, from more than 50 countries.

Each year, AbeBooks publishes the list of the most expensive rare books sold on the site, providing a glimpse into what books have come onto the market and what bibliophiles are willing to pay for their Holy Grails. Despite how high these numbers are, they pale in comparison to the price that bibliophiles pay for exceptionally rare and valuable books that are only sold at auction or through private broker sales.

(1) I Quattro Libri dell Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture, 1570) by Andrea Palladio, $57,750
This influential first edition set of four books about architecture was written by Andrea di Pietro (nicknamed Palladio) who worked extensively in Venice. His style, known as Palladian architecture, was influenced by the classical architecture from ancient Greek and Roman traditions. Palladian architecture is characterized by its grand appearance and use of classical elements, specifically, symmetry, harmony, balance, tall columns (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian), and intricate detail.

(2) Cook’s Voyages (1773-1784) by John Hawkesworth, $50,000
This is a rare first edition set (nine volumes) of the official accounts of British explorer Captain James Cook’s three voyages in the Pacific Ocean published in 1773, 1777, and 1784. During the 18th century, these books were bestsellers because Europeans were curious about life in distant lands: New Zealand, Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands.

(3) How to Trade Stocks (1940) by Jesse Livermore, $40,000
A first edition, signed by the author, published by Duell, Sloan & Pearce. In the 1920s, Livermore was one of the great stock traders, worth millions, who traded with his own money. His formula for monitoring trends is still used today — more than 80 years later.

(4) Cantiques des Cantiques (1931) by Solomon, $25,000
This is a rare French limited edition (1 of 8) of The Canticle of Canticles (or Song of Songs), an erotic poem, illustrated by British artist Eric Gill. The Song of Songs, which signifies the “most excellent, best song,” is one of three books of Solomon, contained in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Christian Canon of the Scriptures. The literal subject of the poem is love and sexual longing between a woman and a man. Because it explicitly says little or nothing about the relationship of God and man, Christians commentators turn to allegory to treat the love that the poem celebrates as an analogy for the love between God and Church.

(5) The Time Machine (1895) by H. G. Wells – $30,500
This is a first edition of Wells’ first novel published by Henry Holt. The author’s signature appears below his misspelled name on the title page (“H.S. Wells”). Wells not only popularized the concept of time travel in a machine, and coined the term “time machine.” The novel is considered one of the seminal works of science-fiction literature that inspired countless stories about time travel.

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For further reading: http://www.abebooks.com/books/rarebooks/most-expensive-sales-2022

To learn more about Alexander Atkins Design please visit www.alexatkinsdesign.com

Atkins Bookshelf

Explores the world through literature, movies, words, and quotes for the intellectually curious

Author: Alexander Atkins

The Wisdom of Edgar Allan Poe

Best Commencement Speeches: Tom Hanks

Intriguing Connections: Oscar Wilde and JFK

Adventures in Rhetoric: Gish Gallop and the Trump Torrent

The Best Graduation Advice: 2023

Do You Place Marks of Ownership in Books?

There’s A Word for That: Hygge

How To Read and Recognize a Great Book

What is the Origin of “Close, But No Cigar”?

What Was the First Book Sold on Amazon?

The Wisdom of Mothers

What Do You Call Compound Words Formed by Two Rhyming Words?

New Words Added to Dictionary.com in 2023

New Book: Serendipitous Discoveries From the Bookshelf, Hardcover Edition

Conversation: The Most Gratifying Response to Literary Creation

Why Humans are Poorer than the Bees

The World’s Greatest Love Letters: Mark Twain

There’s A Word for That: Flibbertigibbet

Understanding Shakespeare’s Tragic Hero

Little Books, Big Ideas: Inspiring Quotes About Writing

Famous Misquotations: Don’t Cry Because It’s Over; Smile Because It Happened

New Buzzwords for 2023

The Dog that Ate the Manuscript of a Famous American Novel

The Most Beautiful People Are Those Who Have Known Defeat, Suffering, Struggle, and Loss

Most Expensive Books Sold in 2022

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