PUBLISHED: December 11, 2008
1. Austenbook:
- Caroline Bingley tagged Jane Bennet in her note Visit us at Netherfield.
- Jane Bennet finds herself very unwell. :(
- Elizabeth Bennet is going to stay at Netherfield with Jane.
- Louisa Hurst saw Elizabeth Bennet’s petticoat and is absolutely certain it was six inches deep in mud.
- Elizabeth Bennet is improving her mind by extensive reading.
- Charles Bingley created an event: Ball at Netherfield.
2. December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month:
Here is where you’ll be safely, carefully introduced to books written by black people. Now, don’t be alarmed. The books are written by black people, but like other books, they can be read by anybody. In fact, we WANT you to read our books. Don’t let the fact that publishers and booksellers put us in the back in the special section of the store scare you. They do that because they want African American readers to be able to find us easily, which is a good thing. However, it has come to our attention that it also puts some of the rest of you off.
(Via Literary Ladies Luncheon)
3. Rep. Nancy Pelosi has been variously quoted by 448 media outlets as saying, with regard to the auto industry bailout bill, “everybody has to take a haircut” and “we call this the barbershop: everybody’s getting a haircut here.” That turn of phrase left goyim around the nation scratching their heads. It turns out to have roots among American Jews, as hinted at by the “to take” construct, describing accepting a loss that is less than total. (A total loss being “to take a bath.”)
4. Amateur linguists and lexicographers will want to bookmark Grant Barrett’s Double-Tongued Dictionary, which chronicles the appearance of new words and phrases. Some of my favorite recent entries are “misery memoir,” “choreplay,” “Olympic Village Effect,” “gork,” and “take the number 11 bus.”
