We use a lot of expressions in everyday speech, and their origins are frequently lost to history. But I’ve found an interesting exception. A friend recently asked me if I thought the coronavirus pandemic is a black swan event. This was a new one; I’d never heard that phrase before. I went scrambling to the
“Only God Can Make a Diamond” makes a good advertising slogan, but it’s no longer true. Now diamonds can be made in a laboratory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond). But should synthetic diamonds be considered real? How many romances have broken up because the diamond wasn’t natural? Or if you see an animal skeleton in a natural history museum,
We all know that English is a flexible language, as in google becoming a verb. Yet some say it needs to be even more flexible — there is a word for being behind in your work (backlog), but what’s the word for forging ahead? A more pertinent example is the quest for a gender-neutral, third-person
Why trust Science? This has become a pertinent question, especially in the current political climate. Science has a role in so many aspects of our lives, from our jobs to our health to our environment. Yet, despite being able to time solar eclipses down to the second, there seems to be more distrust of what
I remember the software package that came with my first computer had an interactive game on CD. How the game progressed depended upon which answers you gave at critical points. This was my first exposure to interactivity. So I was surprised to learn that interactivity predated computer technology. There was a series of books from
When you were a kid, did you ever play pirates and draw a treasure map purely from your imagination? Adults do that, too. If you are a writer, fictional map-making can be the key to your story, as in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Or it can be an important embellishment, like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s
I hope we never find intelligent alien life in the cosmos. Granted, it would be exciting, especially to science fiction buffs to see how accurate our imaginations were. But even within our own galaxy, the distances are vast and we don’t have the technology to make travel practical. So if there was contact, they would
The subject of paying reparations for slavery has been raised periodically ever since the end of the Civil War. This was in the back of my mind when I recently read about a very unusual court case, Wood v. Ward, in which a former slave sued for reparations… and won. The details are pretty complicated.
What children’s books do you remember? These books are some of our first memories of life, and a great way to prepare for the challenges ahead. I’ve always admired Dr. Seuss. I still enjoy reading his work, and sharing them with kids. In fact, I’m writing children’s books now myself, as you can see elsewhere
For my entire life I have been a collector — of Disney, books, games and general memorabilia. In fact, hoarder might be a more accurate description. Now that I’m officially old, as into my seventh decade, I know all this stuff will have to be dealt with someday. My worst nightmare is knowing at some