Arnold Zwicky's Blog
Arnold Zwicky's Blog
Arnold Zwicky
A blog mostly about language from Arnold Zwicky, Adjunt Professor of Linguistics, Stanford University.
Latest Posts
Briefly noted. Lynneguist on Facebook today tracked her work weeks: typically 45 hours, rising to 60 at this point in the fall. I reported: Back when I still had an academic life, 60 hours a week was the absolutely standard work week,...
11 … 2 … 3 it’s Fibonacci day today; the omens foretell 5 in your future, and then 8, and then 13, and then 21, leaping upward in ever-greater jumps, in an elegant spiral of numbers (I used to be a mathematician, and still have a license...
In an old NCIS episode (“Bikini Wax”, S2 E15, 3/29/05), the chief medical examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard (played by David McCallum) recollects that he’d considered a career in teaching but didn’t find the idea of lecturing on...
Yesterday, a news story (from an Ohio site) with this summary of its subject, Madelyn Varela: Ohio’s viral lesbian cheesemonger This builds in sound from its onset to its cheesemonger climax, which was something of a surprise (just on...
Tomorrow is 11/22; on my calendar this brings up a set of two deeply discordant anniversaries and the birthday of an admirable colleague and friend. And this year 11/22 is the date of Stanford’s preeminent sporting event, to add a note...
(#1) Alfred Tennyson,”The Lady of Shalott” (1832) A Joe Dator cartoon in the latest (11/24/25) print issue of the New Yorker poses the question, “What if Humpty Dumpty had survived his fall?” Humpty Dumpty is an egg. An egg contains a...