weaktwos

Well, I've wrapped up work and will now go help a friend try and fix her software version of the Oxford English Dictionary.

I love that program. I love it *so much*.

Did you know that the definitions and usage history of the word "read" spans 16 printed pages in the O.E.D.? Not all words can claim that distinction, let me tell you. One would have thought the word "read" would have had a fairly simple and straightforward word history. Not so.

And a word for the day:

zabernism (ZAB-uhr-niz-uhm) noun

The misuse of military power; aggression; bullying.

[After Zabern, German name for Saverne, a village in Alsace, France. In 1912, in this village, a German military officer killed a lame cobbler who smiled at him.]

"Both countries have been slaves to Kruppism and Zabernism--because they
were sovereign and free! So it will always be. So long as patriotic cant
can keep the common man jealous of international controls over his
belligerent possibilities, so long will he be the helpless slave of the
foreign threat, and 'Peace' remain a mere name for the resting phase
between wars."
H.G. Wells; In The Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace; 1918.