Mar 27, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Readers of this blog will be aware of my fascination with all things linguistic. So, I just had to share Susanna Viljanen’s and Dan Toler’s answers on Quora on what happened to Latin once Rome was no more. It may surprise many to realize that Latin is...
Mar 15, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Jane Austen, the writer of Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility (among others) is widely considered ignored in her lifetime–and a bit of a prude. As Devoney Looser explains in The Washington Post, these are just two of the persistent myths...
Feb 27, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Quora
Contrary to popular belief, people in the Middle Ages loved color – and could afford it. They also liked to be, well, naked. Which makes sense, considering how much Medieval people liked throwing rotten vegetables at each other. Some people take the term “Dark...
Feb 23, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
I recently explored the question of whether computer-generated writing could ever replace the human kind. I recently came across some interesting statistics on Artificial Intelligence (AI), courtesy of Kommando Tech. Current AI technology can be roughly divided into...
Feb 3, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Readers of my blog and interviews will know that my sci-fi/fantasy series, Pearseus, is basically Herodotus’ history of Cyrus, King of Persia… in space. It’s easy enough to understand how I came up with the idea, growing up some 20′ from the...
Jan 31, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Writing
This is a trick question, obviously, as everyone knows there are actually 13 loaves of bread in a baker’s dozen. So, how did this strange idiom come about? And no, the answer is not that bakers are just terrible at maths. This one, as the Australian...
Jan 29, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
In my last post, I mentioned the possibility of AI replacing humans in writing. I am pleasantly surprised at the post’s reactions, as they generated some great comments. So, I thought I’d clarify today what my own feelings on the matter are, something I...
Jan 23, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Dusty Old Thing recently published an article by Rose Heichelbech about The Fierce Female Librarians Who Delivered Books On Horseback During The Great Depression. While everyone’s heard of the Pony Express, this is a rarely-told story. If like me, you’d...
Jan 19, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts, Writing
I recently came across a great thread in Quora about the usage of the word “yes” in various languages. The thread is concerned with explaining why romance languages use almost the same word for “yes” (si [Spanish, Italian] and sim [Portuguese])...
Jan 13, 2020 | Fun Historical Facts
Marillion, a singer in Game of Thrones, had his tongue cut out on the orders of King Joffrey for writing and performing a crude limerick about Joffrey’s parents. Thankfully, the real punishment meted out to musicians in the Middle Ages who had offended their...
