Tag Archives: semantics

‘Little Fat, Lazy, Old Woman’

Posted on July 5, 2022 by JMN

I have a cartoon figure on each shoulder; one whispers “you aren’t” in my ear and the other whispers “you’re not” in my ear. I don’t know which is the devil. If you aren’t swayed by this contrived tease, you’re … Continue reading →

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Sparring With Blushes

Posted on May 27, 2021 by JMN

“My English is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.” (Edward Gibbon) In the Middle Ages, several women poets of Arab Spain (al-Andalus) were known for their erotic and satiric verses composed with … Continue reading →

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How Are Posh Men Educated?

Posted on May 4, 2021 by JMN

…The vanities of posh men… centre on an ancient system that trains a narrow caste of people to run our affairs…. Ever questing to penetrate British lingo, I wobble over “public” versus “private” education in the kingdom’s parlance. In my … Continue reading →

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The Squat

Posted on November 6, 2020 by JMN

I learned the term “typosquatting” today. Shortly after 2:30 a.m. on October 30, 2020, Twump tweeted the hashtag “#BidenCrimeFamiily” with no other context or link. That extra “i” circumvented Twitter’s efforts to hide the hashtag in search results. Called #typosquatting, … Continue reading →

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The Gargoyles’ Grin

Posted on August 30, 2020 by JMN

In 1915, Wallace Stevens offered Harriet Monroe, founder of Poetry (the magazine), several poems that included Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock. “She returned them… finding them ‘recondite, erudite, provocatively obscure… all with ‘a kind of modern-gargoyle grin to them,’” writes Stevens … Continue reading →

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Prosodic Moments in Poeisis

Posted on August 23, 2020 by JMN

In English, the difficulty of perceiving even brief isosyllabic lines as rhythmically equivalent is aggravated by the inordinate power of stressed syllables… The mashup of mystification about versifying that’s available online furnishes what I call Prosodic Moments — when phraseology … Continue reading →

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What Does a Poem Teach? Fluidity

Posted on July 8, 2020 by JMN

Excerpts are from the poem “A Future History” by Suzi L. Garcia (Poetry, March 2020). A muster of peacocks show off their tails, but instead of feathers, knives. This line introduces me to “muster,” a collective noun applied to peacocks. … Continue reading →

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Pouncing on “Pounded”

Posted on March 8, 2020 by JMN

Many conservatives have gleefully pounded on Project Veritas’s disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. The gist of this article is that Project Veritas works for conservatives against liberals. I surmise that the writers … Continue reading →

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Can a Lie Be “Unintentional”?

Posted on October 30, 2019 by JMN

I propose as a reflection on semantics that a lie, strictly speaking, cannot be “unintentional.” A lie must know itself to be such in the mind of the liar. Consider the following quotation: “I am unquestionably, undoubtedly, the greatest human … Continue reading →

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