Wednesday Blog

  • Understanding Others and Communicating Well, Pt. 2: English

    Introduction In the week since I published my last little mumbling about why Latin scholars today should use the macron, see here, I’ve had more conversations than normal with those of you who’ve been reading this about ways we can improve communication and education in and for English. Ours is a very complicated language, one Read more

  • Welcome to the 2020s

    This morning, while looking through my YouTube feed during breakfast I came across an upload of the Air France swing ad from early in 2015. I remember seeing this ad fairly frequently in ’15 and ’16 when I was in Europe, the tune in particular that was used for that ad is something that I Read more

  • One Year In

    By the time this is published, 1 March 2021, St. David’s Day for all my Welsh and Welsh American readers out there, we will have very nearly reached the first anniversary of the beginning of the lockdown. For me, that anniversary is on 13 March, the last day that I reported to my university for Read more

  • A Gift from St. Nicholas

    ‘Twas the morn of good Christmas and all through the house All the creatures were stirring except for the mouse The stockings were stuffed by the chimney with care, by good St. Nicholas who lately was there. The children ran down to the hearth two-by-two Their parents behind with smiles too And there next to Read more

  • Visions and Dreams in 2020

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. I first heard perhaps the most famous and impactful line in any of his speeches as a child during the final episode of Ken Burns’s magnificent The Civil War documentary series. Spoken on 4 March 1865, a month before the end of the Civil War and a Read more

  • Les choses tristes et les heureuses choses • The Sad Things and the Happy Things

    Ce fois, je veux écrire en français. (Il y a une traduction anglaise sous le texte français.) Je connais que la majorité de mes lecteurs ne lisent pas du français, mais c’est ma humeur maintenant. Je pensais tous jours sur ma situation ici en l’état de New-York, loin de ma famille, mes amis, et ma Read more