I get a twitter message from Susan Wu saying she doesn’t get “cosplay.” I think, “Hmmm… I don’t either. What’s cosplay?” I open the browser and ask Wikipedia. Well, it’s a portmanteau of the English words “costume” and “role play” Got it, cool. Well, not really, but portmanteau is much more interesting. I can tell what it means from the usage, but what an interesting word! I wonder what the etymology is? I ask Wikipedia again, but before I can get to the etymology I am clicking links trying to figure out the difference between “nonce words” and “neologisms” (as a side note, basically a nonce-word is made up for one-time usage, but if the cat who made it up is popular and it catches on, then the word becomes a neologism… I guess that’s before the neologism gets a spouse and a mortgage and becomes a… word).

Luckily, I wasn’t totally side tracked by the nonce-word / neologism debate and was able to make my way back to the portmanteau article on Wikipedia, because if I didn’t - I wouldn’t have been able to share this little gem with you.

Portemanteau, from Middle French porter (to carry) and manteau (a coat or cover), formerly referred to a large travelling bag or suitcase with two compartments, hence the linguistic idea of fusing two words and their meanings into one.

The modern usage of portmanteau was actually coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). In the book, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice words from Jabberwocky, saying,

“Well, slithy means lithe and slimy … You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

A beautiful image isn’t it? Packing words.

His invention is making my life intolerably difficult. That said, some people disagree. Check out the sales pitch this company came up with (after clicking the link, you’ll be looking for the bold, bright blue text, three quarters of the way down the page).

There has got to be a better way (oh wait… there is… it’s called a PDF).

Photo via (Jack Hess)

Apparently there is a name for those radiant beams of light streaming down from the heavens. It’s called the Tyndall Effect. I guess I have to stop calling them God Rays now.

I love this map from National Geographic Magazine.

Check out New York. Now I have absolutely no excuse for being single. Damn.

via Strange Maps

I created another blog to hold onto all of the things that I am finding and loving, but losing somewhere in the gaps between delicious, my blog, and the favorite button in various applications (think Flickr and YouTube).

It’s basically a scrap book of my discoveries which I intend to fill with photos, videos, quotes, lyrics, and other found items that I don’t want to lose or forget.

Anyway, it’s at http://www.fullfathom.org.

We’ve discussed the etymology of fathom before.

This is new to me. In the intro to Blame it on Me, Akon actually issues a blanket apology for things that might occur in the future.

“As life goes on, I start to learn more and more about responsibility. And I realize that everything I do is affecting the people around me. So I wanted to take this time out to apologize for the things I have done and the things that haven’t occurred yet… and the things they don’t want to take responsibility for.”

So much for responsibility.

I just got this email from the President of Amherst College. As of the 2008-2009 school year, Amherst will be replacing the student loan portion of all students’ financial aid packages with a scholarship. Now that makes me want to donate money to my alma mater in a more serious fashion. I haven’t met Anthony Marx in person, but I have been impressed with his vision. Well done. A copy of the email is below:

Dear Amherst College Alumnus or Alumna:

I write to let you know about an important new change to Amherst’s financial aid practices. Acting on the advice of faculty committees, the Board of Trustees has decided that beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, Amherst College will replace all loans with scholarships in its financial aid packages. This should be especially helpful to students from middle-income families, who too often have had to take on significant debt in order to ensure access to an outstanding education, and who too often graduate feeling that their career choices are constrained by that debt. With this change of policy, Amherst is ensuring that we can attract the most talented students, regardless of their economic standing, while providing further, proactive leadership to higher education in this important area.

This new policy—one in place at only two other colleges and universities nationally—builds on Amherst’s longstanding leadership around accessibility and scholarship. Seven years ago, Amherst demonstrated its commitment to being a leader in making education more accessible to low-income students by eliminating loans for students from families with incomes of less than $40,000 a year. A few years ago, we expanded this policy to include families whose incomes were below $60,000 a year. The new initiative that will be implemented next year significantly broadens our commitment by eliminating loans for all families. Once implemented, this new policy will affect not only incoming students in the Class of 2012, but also current Amherst students.

Let me be clear about what this new policy will mean. Because Amherst is need-blind, every student admitted to the College receives financial aid that meets the student’s full financial need. Currently, middle-income students take on federal or college loans as part of financial aid packages that also include scholarships, grants and job opportunities. Beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, the loan component of this financial aid package will be replaced with scholarships; no Amherst student will be required to take out loans in order to come to Amherst. (We know that many families will still choose to take some private loans to cover their expected payment.)

This is a significant new financial commitment for Amherst. But, as our Board of Trustees chair, Jide Zeitlin ’85, noted in a news release about this program, for almost two centuries Amherst’s alumni, parents and friends have consistently demonstrated a commitment to supporting Amherst when it has taken steps to broaden access to the college by the most talented students from across the nation and the world. We believe that this new program, designed to eliminate barriers for middle-income families and allow an even greater number of students to graduate from Amherst without debt, will inspire new levels of commitment from those who know the College best. We hope, too, that our actions will encourage other institutions to take similar steps to open their doors to talented young people, regardless of circumstance.

With best wishes and thanks for all you do for Amherst,

Anthony W. Marx

While attempting to draft my last post evangelizing Tide to Go, I naturally went looking for a picture of the product. When I got to the site, I right clicked on the image and was greeted by an alert box that said “Sorry, right click has been disabled for pictures.” [1]

What type of marketer goes to their web development team and says, “Be sure to disable right click. We don’t want anyone stealing our pictures!” [2]

It’s a 400px by 100px picture of a disposable consumer product. If I worked for Procter & Gamble, I would be begging people to take my content and republish it. Why proactively make it harder for your fans to spread the word?

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[1] This was technically not true. They forgot to code for Firefox so it was, in fact, not disabled.

[2] Apparently only the marketer in charge of Tide. Notably, other P&G Brands such as Bounty, Cascade, Crest and Tampax don’t employ these tactics. Makes me wonder what Tide is trying to protect itself from.

I rarely have an out and out dress shirt calamity (when I was growing up, you could tell what one of my best friends had eaten for lunch by perusing his shirt… Doritos and a Pizza… Nice).

But nary a day goes by that I don’t get some little spec of a stain on my shirt. Today it was Jamba Juice. Yesterday, coffee. The frustrating part is that those little stains, if forgotten, end up getting baked into my shirts permanently after I wash and dry my clothes. So I lose a lot of shirts.

But all that is of no matter now. Because I have this:

After my Jamba Juice fiasco, I simply applied a bit of the Tide Stick and I was good to go. The stain is totally gone. Which raises the question: Why can’t Tide Detergent remove these stains while in the washing machine with a ton more product and a lot of water. Perhaps I should throw a Tide Stick in the mix and see if that works.

When did Facebook add the ability to update one’s status via text message? Actually, not only can you update your status by text, you can receive messages, pokes, wall posts, and friend requests as text messages as well.

If they add the ability to receive friends’ status updates via text, I wonder what it will mean for the future of Twitter?