Collection

Surface tension linguistics - how cities and bubbles build dialects. This is an article about population centers and the creation of dialects; fascinating research for *most* writers, I might say.

A very cool look at developmental spelling science, because there is NO SUCH THING as too many linguistics links, and kids' brains are neato.

Can you imagine a policy that prohibits white girls, many of whom are born with straight hair, from wearing their hair straight? Absolutely not!

White readers: imagine having your hair policed. It's all but inconceivable to you, right? The politics - and systemically discriminatory policieis - of hair. For anyone who finds themselves distracted by braids - the problem is not the hair: it is your perception of the person whose hair it is. It is you.

Okay, a lighter note. Now imagine a world without windshield wipers! Well, that's messy. Score one for the woman who invented them - thank you, Mary Anderson! "She didn't have a father; she didn't have a husband and she didn't have a son. And the world was kind of run by men back then."

Kind of.

History! Now that we've had time to cool off about the U.S. election (or not), how about a look at another electoral upset that was so profound it ended an entire type of democratic process? The fact that ostracism is still practiced - just not with pottery - doesn't lessen the interest of this story! Courtesy of Gary Corby.

And a click beyond worth a little blurb all its own here in Collection-post town, a little further reading in Gary Corby's blog took me to the Met's FREE ONLINE DIGITAL BOOK COLLECTION. Holy drooling reading/history/art nerd Heaven! FREE BOOKS, y'all! Available to read online (Google Books), for download to PDF, or print-on-demand. A look at the very first title displays a good, clear digital copy, too. So: free and clear. Literally. (So many puns...)