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Index: Noted elsewhere

Thomas Jefferson and the science of practicality.

Even as Jefferson was open to and appreciative of the innovations of other inventors, he continued to pursue, and to suggest, additional refinements to enhance the quality and performance of their work.

As Thomas Paine knew, it’s the language of common sense.

What is it about English? I do not have an answer, but I note the fact that there seems to be some deep connection between the English language and that most uncommon virtue, common sense.

John Gross introduced us, by Jove.

This doesn’t mean that the best 19th-century reviewing wasn’t very good indeed and that anonymity may not have lent it some of its strength. In the age of celebrity culture, it is hard not to look back fondly on the sober charms of Anon.

The translator’s loyalty to the text: transformation or treachery?

The translator’s task is to freeze meaning in a form that is intelligible and interesting in another language and culture. The inevitable thaw occurs as the translation warms to the touch of different readerships, its charm dissolving with changes in literary taste, ultimately creating a demand for a new version.

Wilfrid Sheed: An ‘irresistibly quotable’ writer due for a revival.

I luckily discovered him last year when I came across an appreciative blog post by Allen Barra, who wrote, “No other critic approaches [Sheed’s] ability to synthesize the vast literature on a subject or to illuminate a writer’s oeuvre in a short starburst of words.”

The Case of the Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota.

[Timothy J.] Johnson has charge of what he describes as the world’s largest collection of material related to Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Event: The TS Eliot Prize Readings, London.

Simon Armitage, Annie Freud, John Haynes, Seamus Heaney, Pascale Petit, Robin Robertson, Fiona Sampson, Brian Turner, Derek Walcott and Sam Willetts are the shortlisted poets for this year’s prize.

Ebooks: editing ‘editor’ out of the budget.

As Alberto Rollo, who directs the Italian fiction list for Feltrinelli, said, when I asked him about the editor’s role in Italy: “There is no e-book without asking ourselves what writing means, what editing means, and, yes, what publishing means.”

The future of ‘word-based narrative skills in portable multi-media devices.’

The expressive and editorial urge is too strong and word-smithery still remains at the heart and gateway to communications in all media.

The alchemy of indolence: ‘the transformation of Europe from forefront to backwater’.

Certainly, it does not seem to me that the future necessarily belongs to freedom as we have known it, and such as it was, and that therefore China must break apart under demands for personal liberty. It is a mistake, in my view, to assume that all people want to be free, in the sense of the American pioneers.

Did you hear the anekdoty about the Irish hiker who finally got the Russian joke?

The laughter was, it seemed clear, an essential component of the occasion, encouraging performers to embark on new jests and prompting the previously silent into speech.

Alan Sokal and the advanced science of foot-shooting.

Aronowitz and Ross had every reason to feel badly stung, no question.

An American city in ruins.

“Detroit in Ruins,” a selection of photographs of Detroit by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

Nonsensing ourselves into oververbed oblivion.

No trend has been more obtrusive in recent years than the changing of nouns into verbs.

400 years of swearing on King James’ ‘gloriouse’ text.

The “gloriousely writen” text doesn’t seem to be the bailiwick of linguists. If there’s an offense that unites scientists and post-structuralists against a common foe, it’s belle-lettrism.