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Columnist and librarian Greg Hill enjoys a new novel about a tremendously talented college baseball player who strives for perfection. The story weaves in Herman Melville, contemporary college life, and, according to the New York Times, “the Human Condition.”
Columnist and librarian Greg Hill assures us that reading will keep the brain supple.
"Delving through dusty boxes of the library’s historical records has left me musing about innovations, and fittingly filthy. Many new technologies have come and gone in my two decades on the job here in Fairbanks, and many more in the preceding epochs,'' writes librarian and columnist Greg Hill.
"The commercial side of the holidays offends some people, but it’s a long-standing part of the seasonal celebration. The ancient Romans were early proponents, exchanging small gifts during their Kalends new year festival,'' writes columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
Columnist Greg Hill reminds us that many internet users are uninformed babes-in-the-wood when it comes to the most elemental security risk - personal passwords.
"My daughter Hannah has amazed me for a long time. Her intellectual vitality and sense of fun were evident from infancy, and her siblings owe their very existences in part to the fact that she was such an easy, enjoyable first-born. Hannie’s well into adulthood now, and that’s introduced me to the unanticipated pleasure of the reciprocated liking one’s adult children as friends,'' writes columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
"Reading’s amazingly pleasurable if your mind’s in shape,'' declares librarina and columnist Greg Hill.
"Librarians love bookstores, of course, and that affection’s largely returned by booksellers, who’ve long known that thriving libraries inspire readers to buy books,'' writes columnist Greg Hill.
"A friend from Texas recently admitted on Facebook to a fetish for having toilet paper dispensed from under the roll rather than over. A Wikipedia article on the subject states, 'Despite its being a trivial topic, people often hold strong opinions on the matter.''
Advice columnist Ann Landers said the subject was the most controversial issue in her column’s history,'' writes columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
"Rely on your public library for reliable knowledge navigation and verifiable information, and ignore the dross produced by simple Google search,'' advises columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
...Buffalo Jones was a real westerner. A famous roper, he lassoed warthogs, zebras, rhinos, and a lioness in Africa for zoos, bighorn sheep for the Smithsonian, and musk ox in the Canadian Arctic...
Columnist and librarian Greg Hill "lassos'' a few Westerns.
...“Anonymous” is harmless enough cinematically, but the “viperous motley-minded horse-drenches” who own it are distributing lesson plans depicting de Vere as the true author “to literature and history teachers in the hope of convincing students that Shakespeare was a fraud.” This is despicable...
Greg Hill deplores a film now going the rounds world-wide.
Greg Hill writes about the game which takes Americans outdoors and fills them with oxygen.
"What do you suppose Cardinal Richelieu would think of a word such as “loogy?” asks ace columnist Greg Hill.
"Modern librarians are also Knowledge Navigators. The overwhelming plethora of information cries out for skilled guides, like your local reference librarians. And we’re also Educators...'' writes columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
"I treasure all the words that spice up our language.'' declares Greg Hill, bringing us another firecracker of a column.
"Browsing the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) can be fun, as I rediscovered while researching one of my dad’s old euphemisms, “appleknocker.” He often called my brother and me “little appleknockers,” which I always took as an endearment,'' writes columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
"Despots always torture logic as much as necessary to make it fit their ambitions,'' declares columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
"A recent DailyMail.com story compares sparrows and rappers, saying sparrow singing “is actually an aggressive form of swapping insults. The species’ soothing sounds have a lot in common with the profanity-strewn bragging of rappers, with male sparrows using them to prove how macho they are, and the tougher the area, the more they do so,'' columnist Greg Hill reports.
"Some 456 months ago I convinced a promising coed to join a nuptial merger that’s persisted despite our differences,'' writes Greg Hill.
Columnist Greg Hill tells of a Web site which combines entertainment and education. It entercates!
...Readers can go from Jane Austen to O’Brian and not miss a beat, except where the former writes about the country life of women in England circa 1810, the latter, who kept a first edition of “Pride and Prejudice” at his bedside, specialized in describing the lives of sailors in the same period in impeccable detail. In fact, Austen’s brothers were prominent sailors, and O’Brian wrote as if he was related...
Greg Hill is again re-reading his favourite author.
"The author, Nick Patrick, said “Americans in 1776 did have British accents, in that American accents and British accents hadn’t yet diverged.” However, “those accents were much closer to today’s American accents than today’s British accents … it’s actually British accents that have changed much more drastically,'' writes librarian and columnist Greg Hill.
"The e-book reading experience is better than online, but booklovers know the satisfaction of getting immersed in a good book, its heft, texture, and smell, the flow of text generating mental images superior to any video,'' declares Greg Hill.
"My heart’s been good since the doctor’s worked on it a few years ago, but I do seem prone towards cantankerousness these days, like when I encountered a heart symbol among the Oxford Dictionary Online’s newly added words. Adding slang terms like “La-la land,” “OMG,” “LOL” (“laughing out loud”), and even “wassup” didn’t particularly bother me, but Oxford’s inclusion of the heart symbol did push some buttons,'' writes Greg Hill.
"Why did the OUP editorial board announce last month that the Oxford comma is obsolete and its use is no longer recommended?'' asks columnist and librarian Greg Hill. "Advocates of Oxford comma usage, including yours truly, are aghast...''
Librarian and columnist Greg Hill subscribes to the view that fashions fade, but style is eternal.
Columnist and librarian Greg Hill was more than delighted with his Father's Day gift - “A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew In Its Several Tribes of Gypsies, Beggers, Thieves, Cheats, Etc., with An Addition of Some Proverbs, Phrases, Figurative Speeches, etc. Useful for all sorts of People (Especially Foreigners) to secure their Money and preserve their Lives, besides very diverting and Entertaining, being wholly New.”
"That’s when this reference librarian pulls up BoingBoing.net on the computer to quickly read brief entries about unexpected things, like Japanese bagelheads, skateboarding in Kabul, and the origin of Good Humor Bars.'' writes librarian Greg Hill.
...We encountered natural wonders like the largest Western red cedar deep in the Washington rain forest, and had a special, close-up moment with a barred owl, snake, otter, and mama [duck] towing her babies on her back. But the Rufous hummingbirds surmounted them all in marvelousness....
Greg Hill returns from a vacation visit to the Washington rain forest.
...“Frank,” James Kaplan’s biography of Sinatra states the already wildly-popular singer “hired the best publicist in show business, George Evans” who “saw that the crowds were hysterical, but not choreographed so he took it upon himself to take Sinatra’s crowds to a new level.”...
Columnist and librarian Greg Hill tells of crowd manipulation.
"I began reading children’s books as an adult while in college when a professor with young children recommended the ever-irreverent Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach” to revive my flagging imagination. I read, was revived and have refreshed my creative juices with kiddy lit ever since,'' writes columnist Greg Hill.
Continue reading "A Picture Book A Day Keeps The Imagination From Flagging" »
"Some people think America’s public libraries shouldn’t exist as such, that they should charge for their services. Such thinking leaves me nonplussed. Every year, more than 60 percent of Americans use public libraries, so most Americans value the important roles libraries play,'' says Greg Hill.
'“Malarkey,” which means “nonsense, flattery,” according to the Dictionary of American Slang, has oodles of unsubstantiated origins,'' says columnist Greg Hill.
"The Internet is a river of information a mile wide and an inch deep; you must pay to get really in-depth information,'' says librarian Greg Hill.
...Wikipedia says "curse" is "any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some entity." The Online Etymological Dictionary says that curse's origins are obscure. "Curuz," Old French for "anger," and the Latin "cursus," or "course," are possible antecedents, but "no similar word exists in Germanic, Romance or Celtic."...
Columnist Greg Hill considers curses, ancient and modern.
Greg Hill considers the naming of names.
Greg Hill recalls one of America's most enduring poems.
Columnist Greg Hill tells of that interjectory fellow Gordon Bennett who offered sound advice to all journalists.
...The American Heritage Dictionary's word history of "hoosier," says Texans were once called "beetheads," South Carolinians "weasels," Nebraskans "bug-eaters," and, Missourians were "pukes." An Indiana University website article titled "Myths and Legends About the Origin of 'Hoosier'" says "In colonial America, the terms 'cracker' and 'hoosier' were widely used to refer to white farmers who did not own slaves or large plantations."...
Top-flight columnist Greg Hill investigates how citizens of that fine American state Indiana came to be called Hoosiers.
...we all adore our preconceived notions. Yet another cited study looked at brain-scans of people watching politicians they agreed and disagreed with. Test subjects easily saw contradictions in statements made by people they opposed politically, but not in those they supported....
Columnist Greg Hill cites research which confirms that we hear what we want to hear.
"Shy, retiring, helpless librarians are purely mythical,'' emphasises Greg Hill, outlining some of the problems he had to face in a single day in his Fairbanks, Alaska, library.
Continue reading "Headed For Alaska And Never Looked Back" »
Columnist Greg Hill brings shavings of information about being clean-shaven.
So what is the meaning of the Bangladesh saying "Don't oil your mustache in anticipation of the jackfruit tree bearing fruit."?
Greg Hill venures into untranslatable realms.
Columnist and word juggler Greg Hill brings news of a world champion 13,955 word sentence.
Columnist Greg Hill offers the best possible advice to those wishing to be skilled in writing English. "If you want to write in a manner than doesn't mark you as a rube or buffoon, start reading for pleasure.''
Greg Hill again reveals his enthusiasm for the words of diarist Samuel Pepys, though he has not a scintilla of enthusiasm for a well-know purveyor of perfume.
Columnist Greg Hill highlights ridiculously hard questions put to job interviewees.
..."Whatever the cost of our libraries, Walter Cronkite said, "the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation."...
Librarian and wordsman Greg Hill brings us another column to delight the inquiring mind.
"What better thing than a good book to give the children you care about,'' declares Greg Hill. "Everyone on my family gift list gets a book. They might get other things, too, but there's always a book...''
"Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries."
Columnist Greg Hill quotes blogger Anne Herbert's useful guiding thought for what may be an austere year.
...Best-selling author Stephen King said in "On Writing" "The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing."...
Greg Hill considers the art of writing well.
...Finally, Mitchell's husband brought home a typewriter and told her to write her own novel. She decided to write a romance set during the Civil War, and began with the ending. Mitchell drew upon her family's experiences during the War Between the States, but she also did primary research and fact-checking at the Atlanta Public Library...
And the result of Margaret Mitchell's industrious tappings on the typewriter keyboard was Gone With The Wind.
Ace columnist Greg Hill goes by way of one of the best-selling novels of all time to a leaky library roof.
The inimitable Greg Hill tells of The Great Panjandrum, a mnemonic claim and a wilderness of monkeys. Do read on!
...Corduroy's categorized by the number of cords, or "wales," per inch, ranging from 1.5 to 21. The lower numbers indicate ruggedness and warmth, but I'm doubtful that even the chilliest Alaskan could abide pants with one-and-a-half wales per inch. "Wale" descends from the Old English term "walu" and meant "ridge." That got me reflecting on another whale's anniversary...
Columnist Greg Hill goes on another splendidly entertaining literary journey.
Greg Hill, writing from Alaska, tells us something of the extraordinary life of journalist Ned Buntline, best known for his dime novel extolling Buffalo Bill Cody. He as also known for the Buntline Special, the Colt revolver equipped with a twelve-inch barrel that Alaskan Wyatt Earp employed in a 1960s television series.
..."Light fiction" wasn't widely popular until the 1800s when literacy mushroomed just as the Industrial Revolution drove down printing costs. The first "dime novel," published in 1860, was Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann Stephens....
Greg Hill turns the page to reveal fiction which was once deemed too racy.
Librarian and columnist Greg Hill presents a well-worded case opposing the banning of books.
...My Texas accent remains somewhat pronounced, despite twenty years in Fairbanks. Those with southern pronunciations are often considered slow or ignorant by non-southerners, so I keep a handy copy of "The Illustrated Texas Dictionary of the English Language" in my office. Written in 1967 by Jim Everhart, it clarifies terms such as "small" ("to assume a facial expression indicating pleasure"), "fair" ("a distressing emotion aroused caused by impending danger"), "Heidi!" ("an expression of greeting"), and "Tom" ("any specific point in a day, month, or year")....
Wordsman Greg Hill tells of some words which cannot be translated into English - or Texan.
..."It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought to use it sometimes; that would help. If you had done this every now and then along through life it would not have petrified." ...
So wrote Mark Twain to an editor who had altered one of his manuscripts.
The inimitable Greg Hill tells of Twain and other curmudgeonly writers.
Greg Hill illuminates "the healthy debate that's always accompanied our ever-growing and changing language, and not its demise, which experts have been predicting for centuries.''
Greg Hill says that e-books and other communication toys are not going to go away, but "for now I'm content with print, which requires no electricity to operate, will endure for centuries, and never "goes down," when the Internet glitches.''
Greg Hill spotlights some of the Internet's odder and unexpectedly entertaining sites.
...Oxford University researchers think that we might be able to taste sounds, and "hear" shapes and sizes. It's part of the synaesthesia, or "blending of sensory experiences," that humans utilize for things like figuring out who is talking to whom at a crowded party...
Greg Hill takes us on another journey into the wondrous world of language.
...jumpers challenged each other to clear distances or hurdles, jump from building to building, or over large obstacles. Cropp reported that Calverley was a risk taker who "used to jump the wall between the schoolyard and the field, a drop of ten feet, with his hands in his pockets."
Greg Hill tells of the astonishing feats of a Victorian poet.
Greg Hill tells what it took to help a young daughter to settle down in a new home town thousands of miles away from where she had been living.
...Dictionary-makers hate that sort of thing; that's why they're hesitant to add new, faddish words. So it's not overly surprising that a Kingston University researcher recently discovered that Oxford University Press, publishers of the OED, have a hidden vault containing the words they chose not to include in their massive, twenty-volume dictionary. Perhaps I can understand leaving out "polkadodge (the dance that occurs when two people attempt to pass each other but move in the same direction)," "dringle (the watermark left on wood caused by a glass of liquid)," or even "optotoxical (a look that could kill, normally from a parent or spouse)."...
Wordsman and librarian Greg Hill considers the tools of his trade.
...What do a monkey saving a puppy during a recent explosion in China, the mysterious windshield pits of Seattle in the 1950s, and the biting nuns of 15th century Germany have in common with the News Miner's own Dermot Cole?...
Greg Hill poses what may well be the most intriguing question ever used to begin a weekly column,
...A semi-domesticated guy, an emotionally needy cat, and a large dog with a thyroid condition holding down the fort for two weeks naturally leads to today's topic: "squalor,"...
Columnist Greg Hill fends for himself for a while.
Greg Hill introduces us to the wonderful world of word clouds.
...Spinning the news is another way companies try to get inside our heads. You probably heard that Amazon now sells more ebooks than print books, or you think you did. Amazon wasn't counting pocket and trade paperbacks, only hardbacks. Meanwhile, the American Book Publishers Association reports that hardback book sales are up 22 percent this year...
Greg Hill writes about those cunning folk who get inside our heads to ensure we buy the goods they are selling.
...It's usually best to correct misconceptions quickly, since they tend to spread like wildfires on military testing ranges. Take the Krankawa ear wax myth...
Columnist and librarian Greg Hill goes in search of the truth.
For more of Greg's entertaining columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
"Many people apparently don't know they don't know the proper way to open a banana. According to a recent Slate.com article by Steven Landsburg, peeling from the stem down is the common banana opening method. However, opening it from the bottom is the preferred technique of monkeys, assuredly the world's foremost banana-accessing experts,'' writes Greg Hill, then goes on to consider whether or not plants have feelings.
... recent BBC report titled "Bored by the Bard?" says the Royal Shakespeare Company is promoting a three-point plan to keep Shakespeare vital to modern youngsters by enabling them to act out the plays, to see live performances, and to start doing so as early as possible.
That's why the RSC doesn't mind a bit of hilarity at the Bard's expense, like British satirist Martin Baum's "To Be or Not To Be, Innit." Baum's book combines British street slang and texting language to paraphrase Shakespeare in terms the younger generations can comprehend. He covers "Macbeff," "Much Ado About Sod All," and "All's Sweet That Ends Sweet, Innit."...
Columnist Greg Hill informs us that the Bard wrote in the period of Modern English.
...Our family doesn't have a special name for the cardboard rolls inside toilet paper, but according to Dickson, other Americans do: "daw-daw," "doot-do," "der-der," "hoo-hoo," and "to-do to-do." His list of family names for dust bunnies includes "pummies," "leap jeeps," "fizziewiggles," and "foochachas."...
Greg Hill delves with delight into the history and development of languages.
...Calverley was a risk taker who used to jump the wall between the schoolyard and the field, a drop of ten feet, with his hands in his pockets...
Greg Hill tells of an extraordinary Nineteenth Century Englishman.
...Thanks to rampant abbreviating, today our language is rife with archaic expressions and bizarre spellings, viz. the word "twelfth." I always have to stop and work my way through the spelling of "twelfth," invariably stumbling over that "f" someone stuck in there...
Greg Hill undertakes another deliciously discursive disection of the English language.
Continue reading "Archaic Expressions And Bizarre Spellings" »
...I visited the KGB archives in Vladivostok a dozen years ago. Once past a very large and intimidating female guard, I saw miles of dim shelves filled with identical cardboard boxes. My guide opened several at random, revealing case histories from Czarist times next to some from the 70s, right by others from the 30s. A pale, haggard American researcher, the only other visitor, approached us and asked us to help get the word out that the tragic, compelling stories in the archive needed to be told...
Greg Hill draws attention to a book which details the cruelty perpetrated in Soviet prison camps.
...H.L. Mencken, one of America’s preeminent wordsmiths, claimed that creating beauty was way down the list of reasons why writers write. “Far ahead of it,” Mencken wrote, “comes the yearning to make money. And after the yearning to make money comes the yearning to make a noise.”..,
Columnist Greg Hill, who never fails to entertain and amuse, brings the two key secrets of how to write well.
A zeugma is a handy little device - assuming you are aware if its meaning, and how it can be used.
Ace columnist Greg Hill explains all.
Greg Hill brings good news to enthusiastic tea drinkers.
"Many of my generation possess mental timelines of their youth measured off by Beatles songs,'' writes Greg Hill.
...Stretching lingual bounds is a favorite pursuit among the Hill clan, and Hannah called the library recently seeking a word that means “there’s no word for it.” That was a tough one, and before we’d solved it, Hannah and her coterie of literate pals had found “lacuna” and “lexical gap,” defined together in Wikipedia as “an absence of a word in a particular language.”...
Wordsman Greg Hill goes on another delicious lexicological journey.
To read more of Greg's engaging columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
With Spring in the air, columnist Greg Hill is prompted to go travelling on the page.
I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.
Greg Hill plunges headlong into the joyous world of light verse.
...I possess plenty of collections: miniature cannons, funny fishing lures, and baseball cards divided into categories like “Ugly Man,” and “What’s In His Mouth?” Then there are the book collections: autobiographies, first editions of Patrick O’Brian’s novels, Donald Duck comic books, and Scythian history, to name a few...
Greg Hill admits to being a pack rat.
Greg Hill muses upon the theory that Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare.
...one of my favorite sources of the bizarre is the intelligent innovation blog BoingBoing.net, where I recently learned how scientists are using remote control helicopters to hold petri dishes in the spouts of sick whales to collect samples to better monitor whales health...
Greg Hill tells of oddties, and the collecting and storing of information.
Greg Hill puts in a passionate plea for the freedom to express unwelcomed ideas and facts.
''Peevishness finds full flower in literature, and no American writer ever produced undiluted peevery like Ambrose Bierce.''
With a splendid flow of acerbic words Greg Hill introduces us to the Prince of Peeves.
So how many words are there in the English language? And how frequently are new words added?
Greg Hill joyfully plunges into the waves and currents of the English language.
Greg Hill considers the naming of names, including that of the young Scotsman who has chosen to call himself Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.
...Princess Caraboo was born plain Mary Wilcox, a poor cobbler’s daughter, in 1791, but she convinced thousands of Britons that she was a lost princess from an unknown land...
Greg Hill emphasises the need to check your sources of information.
Greg Hill suggests help for older folk who wish to learn how to use a computer.
...Sometimes words are so unusual that they fall on uncomprehendingly deaf ears, which leads listeners to suspect the speaker’s a high-faluting show-off. Well-read people can easily and innocently fall into this trap...
Greg Hill, a zestful wordsman, journeys by way of a number of odd and amusing words to a mega-thesaurus of the English language.
Greg Hill goes exploring in the wonderful world of words.
"Weasel words'' is an informal term for words and phrases that, whilst communicating a vague or ambiguous claim, create an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said. Weasel words may also have the effect of softening the force of potentially loaded or otherwise controversial statements through some form of understatement.
Master wordsman Greg Hill gives some fine examples of the ignoble art of weasel wording.
...The recent cold snap makes travel to anywhere mildly equatorial awfully appealing, but winter remains Alaskans’ best time for armchair traveling. Reading’s often the best way, and always the most comfortable to experience remote and dangerous places...
Greg Hill goes travelling on the magic carpet that is the printed word.
...My first memory of dentists is hearing my mom say, “His hands will stop shaking when the needle is in your mouth...
Motivated by suh a memory Greg Hill simply had to buy "What It's Like To Be A Dentist'' when it appeared on the library booksale table.
...Print can be read about 20 percent faster than the same text on computer screens because our eyes struggle to maintain focus reading computer text. Eyestrain results, but glasses with non-glare coated lens that are adjusted to monitor distances can help...
Greg Hill suggests other sources of help for coping with eyestrain resulting from reading text on screen.
...The problem with English, the Economist says, is that it’s “a relatively simple language, absurdly spelled.” But it’s far more predictable than many other languages. Chinese, for instance, includes vowels that “carry tones: pitch that rises, falls, dips, stays low or high, and so on,” and variations in the tones can convey wildly different meanings. Mandarin, the Chinese language used the most, has four tones, Cantonese has six. Min, the least-used Chinese dialect, has “seven or eight.”...
Columnist Greg Hill goes delving into languages invented by humans - and monkeys.
...Words are fascinating. In Turkey, for instance, our “turkey” is known as “dik rumi”, or Roman rooster. In Turkey’s neighbor Bulgaria, it’s called “Mucupka”, the Arabic word for Egypt, and in Egyptian Arabic it’s called the “Greek bird.” In Greece and Scotland it’s called the “French chicken,” and the French call it “poulet d’inde,” or “chicken from India.”...
Alaskan librarian Greg Hill says that new studies are revealing how the underlying meanings of words vary widely between cultures.
Greg Hill, lucky man, has a wife who reads aloud to him on long car journeys.
...in Dickens’ words, "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys"...
Greg Hill serves up a suitably tasty dish of Christmas words.
... “Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does.” There’s a lot of truth there, I believe, and it was made by a master aphorizer, Epictetus....
Wordsman and librarian Greg Hill relishes a terse aphorism.
Greg Hill, chief librarian in Fairbanks, Alaska, ruminates on the etymology of the expression "cop a plea''.
...David Galernter, a Yale computer professor and a third expert, points out that “All reading is not migrating to computer screens. So long as books are cheap, tough, easy to read from outside … easy to mark up, rated safe for operation from beaches to polar wastes, and – above all – beautiful, they will remain the best of all word-delivery vehicles … onscreen text will change and improve. But the physical side of reading depends not on the bad aspects of computer screens, but on the brilliance of the traditional book...
Greg Hill considers the future of words on paper.
To read more of Greg's entertaining ccolumns please visit http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...“In grammar,” says Wikipedia, “a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action.” In English, “-le” and “-er” are appended to verbs to make them frequentatives, like when Shakespeare changed “swag” into “swagger.”...
Librarian and columnist Greg Hill is a man who derives great joy from language and learning, as this column vividly displays.
To read more of Greg's entertaining and informative words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...this underscores the tenuousness of human endeavors, especially books. As Umberto Eco put it, “A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands, so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind, but also against nature.”...
Librarian Greg Hill worries about the future of universal access to uncensored libraries.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill suggests a way that adults can compete with today's texting-addicted youngsters and their plethora of acronyms.
...A bunch of us absolutely detest “absolutely,” which seems overly emphatic in context of how it’s being used, like “Can I have a Kleenex?” “Absolutely!”...
Greg Hill highlights some of the words we have begun to hate.
To read more of Greg's columns please visit http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...The word “dear,” for example, takes 100 milliseconds to see the shape and form of the letters. This involves many eye “saccades,” or teeny-tiny eye movements. Another 100 milliseconds goes into turning the letters’ shape into sounds, and for the last 300 milliseconds “the brain is busy trying to make up its mind on what this word means.”...
Greg Hill, going by way of coincidence and synchronicity, considers the surprisingly busy art of reading.
To sample more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...It’s hard to ignore someone who’s an author, statesman, lawyer and saint, like Thomas Moore, who wrote how “The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden.” That’s why it’s so important for our schools to encourage novel reading more effectively...
Greg Hill endorses the idea that students allowed to choose what they read are more likely to acquire a lasting enthusiasm for reading.
To read more columns by Greg please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...I’m not alone in being shy of crazy ants; concerns about them are growing throughout south Texas, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Crazy ants, “so named because they move in all directions rather than in a straight line,” appeared in Houston seven years ago, probably from imported plants, and are spreading throughout South Texas...
Greg Hill, head of the library service in Fairbanks, Alaska, suggest that librarians and ants have a lot in common when it comes to adaptability, teamwork, and long-term persistence.
To read more of Greg's diligently researched columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...Here’s Robert Louis Stevenson’s take on reading fiction: “The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They repeat, they re-arrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience...
Star columnist Greg Hill tells of efforts to encourage boys to get the reading habit.
For more columns by Greg please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Columnist Greg Hill, highlighting the fickle nature of fame, tells of an unintended consequence of literature - a plague of starlings.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...The library abounds in unusual books. Need a recipe for pig ear salad or curried tripe stew? Look into “Innards and other Variety Meats.” Want to have fun with a large appliance box? Consult “The Great Big Box Book.” You can turn to humorist Richard Armour’s “The Happy Bookers” for “A Playful History of Librarians and Their World.” And if a dictionary of Klingon words and phrases is needed, your best bet is Marc Okrand’s “Klingon Dictionary.”...
Brilliant columnist Greg Hill found his ideal job when he became a librarian.
When cats purr, in France they “ronron,” in Hungary they “doromb,” and Japanese cats “guro-guro'' star columnist Greg Hill informs us.
Greg writes about onomatopoeia, the formation of words immitating the sound of that to which they are assigned.
To read more of Greg's brilliant columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...Jack London once cried, “Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over?” I agree, and I’ll stick with print...
Greg Hill, after nostalgic musings, reaches a firm conclusion.
To read more of Greg's sprightly columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...Reading transports the imagination like no other diversion if it’s written engagingly. Books like “Harry Potter” and Twilight” are converting the book-shy into avid readers – national surveys show that teens are buying 25% more books than a decade ago. If kids’ reading and comprehension skills improve, who cares if they’re reading cereal boxes or “War and Peace”? The same mental muscles are being flexed....
And Greg Hill is a writer and columnist who makes reading a joy.
To sample more of his informative and enjoyable words please visit http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Wordsman Greg Hill tells of the highs and lows of plagiarism.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill offers an explanation for the origin of Gertrude Stein's famous line "A rose is a rose is a rose.''
Greg Hill presents his holiday reading list.
To read more of Greg's superlative columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill, head librarian in Fairbanks, Alaska, tells of cold dishes for hot weather, hot monkey sex, and Shakespeare's villain Iago.
...Technically known as “embolalia,” filler words, like “er” and “um” are cues to listeners that the speaker isn’t finished and needs a moment to pull their thoughts together...
But the words which annoy Greg Hill, and every other lover of our language, are morphemes, such as “like,” “okay,” and the dread “you know”.
To read more of Greg's satisfying columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Ever heard of Pink Moons, Wolf Moons, Snow Moons?
Greg Hill goes on a Lunar research expidition.
To read more of Greg's brilliant columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill is astonished that in this age of advanced communication technology we have yet to figure out some of the ancient writing of our early ancestors.
"Sometimes statistics can confuse as well as mislead. You know what happens when you cross a librarian and a lawyer? You get all the information you want, but you can't understand it,'' says Greg Hill, musing on research which suggested that conservatives enjoyed jokes more than did liberals.
To read more of Greg's top-drawer columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...It wasn’t until 1815 that Hone began writing professionally, eventually producing some 220 titles, 200 of them within six years. According to the DLB, “Most of his publications were swiftly produced, inexpensive, quick-selling reactions to passing events and current affairs.” Sort of an early Mad Magazine visionary, Hone’s specialty was illustrated satiric parody. Ranging from caricatures and cartoons to pamphlets and books, his writing covered “the full range of late-Regency social and political concerns.”...
And Hone wrote about Lifting and Heaving days, as Greg Hill reveals.
To read more of Greg's brilliant and engaging columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...people can “imagine everything from books … connections to other cultures, to other people … and to the universe...
Greg Hill tells of people who collected, read and valued books, informing us along the way of the name of Adolf Hitler's favourite author.
Greg Hill writes on waffles, bananas and other tasty topics.
To read more of Greg's superlative columns visit http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill writes about the limerick, a form which is essentially transgressive and violates the taboos of traditional poetry as a part of its function.
...Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, is home to a number of “world’s largest” marvels. The largest ringing bell, broken bell, and underwater bell all reside there, along with the largest gilded building and reclining Buddha. They also claim to possess the “world’s largest book.” This turns out to be Buddhist scriptures carved in gold into 729 white marble tablets, each protected by a small pagoda and all housed in a “pitakat taik,” or religious library, at the foot of Mandalay Hill...
Librarian and columnist Greg Hill presents another selection of curious and astonishing facts.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill tells of monumental blunders, and a type face that said more than its user bargained for.
To read more of Greg's engaging columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill says that writing columns enables him to wallow in the fount of knoweldge stored in the public library in Fairbanks, Alasaka.
Greg Hill tells of the the Gilgamesh epic - and the world's first great library.
"When it comes to big numbers, there’s lots of uncertainty,'' says Greg Hill as he explores the meaning of the word "billion''.
Wordsman Greg Hill sets out to track down the origin of the word "word''.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...Recalling my manifold visits to bookstores, I recall both the pleasure of browsing randomly and the torture of not finding specific books without assistance. Turning to bookstore workers for help usually leads to them looking it up in their store catalogs...
That most excellent columnist Greg Hill points out that library classification schemes are used to save thel time of the reader.
Greg Hill is no fan of moving the clock forward one hour, though he is all in favour of row, row, rowing a boat in a group singalong.
To read more of Greg's entertaining columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...The English language’s roots extend back to ancient India, for instance. The guy who figured it out was Sir William “Orient” Jones. Something of a child prodigy...
Greg Hill introduces us to a very special individual who could converse in more languages than can be counted on the fiingers and toes of one man.
...Mea culpa, by the way, is Latin for “I am to blame,” and am I ever. Someone who preaches that using established, reliable sources over the whimsy so often portrayed as wisdom on the Internet ought to have realized that WikiAnswers.com, like Wikipedia, includes information from nearly anyone and consequently is fraught with error. There’s nothing wrong with beginning your research with Wikipedia, because it is so expansive, but its very inclusiveness often provides opportunity for the malicious and misinformed, like me, to wreak intellectual havoc...
Greg Hill muses on the task of discovering facts.
To read more of Greg's entertaining columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill goes delving into the English city, Birmingham.
To read more of Greg's sparkling columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...Just last week I made Spenser’s yummy Pork Chops with Pineapple Cream Sauce while listening to Benny Goodman perform at Carnegie Hall in 1938, and after perusing the library’s copy of “Rembrandt’s Eyes.” This hefty biography of the artist is as heavy as it is intellectually stimulating, and Spenser recommends it and Goodman for creatively passing time during stakeouts...
Greg Hill's richly intellectual life is accompanied by gustatory delights.
Greg Hill tells of shavers, young and old.
To read more of Greg's finely-honed columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
Greg Hill muses upon the urge to write.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Greg Hill considers similes, metaphors and the controversial apostraphe.
For more of Greg's sparkling and thoroughly grammatic columns please click on
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Greg Hill likes to have a dictionary in every room of his house.
Wordsman Greg brings delight to Open Writing readers every week with his Alaskan Range column. To read more of his words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...There’s much in life to learn, so I ignore Ralph Emerson’s warning: “Culture, with us, ends in headache.”...
Greg Hill, the man with an ever-inquiring mind, brings us another stylish, entertaining and informative column.
For more of Greg's words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Wordsmith Greg Hill considers the plethora of new words which now clamour for admittance into commonspeak.
To read more of Greg's wonderful columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Continue reading "Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s Contemporary Wordsmith" »
There's a ready source of abstruse information, as columnist Greg Hill reveals.
For more of Greg's superb words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Jimmi Hendrix’ lyric, “kiss the sky.” One contributor mangled the Beatles’ French in “Michelle, with “Michelle ma belle, some say monkeys play piano well, play piano well,” and another worked over “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by changing “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” into “the girl with colitis goes by.”...
That inimitable columnist Greg Hill turns a muddle of words into a most entertaining read.
For more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...A lot of adult Americans are functionally illiterate and unable to write, read and compute competently enough for normal day-to-day living. Unsurprisingly, an estimated 60% of the U.S. adult prison population are functionally illiterate, as are 85% of juvenile offenders. Even literate Americans often habitually employ poor communication skills. More than mere cacology, or “the poor choice of words,” many educated people are stylistically challenged when writing...
Greg Hill, a man in love with words, expresses thoughts on effective writing.
For more of Greg's satisfying columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Our orbs and brains can only handle so much stimulation, regardless of its beauty and accomplishment, before blurring...
Star columnist Greg Hill suggests that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.
"So much information’s being generated now that, rather than become anachronisms, libraries are being used more than ever before,'' declares ace columnist Greg Hill.
To read more of Greg's engaging words please click on
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Catachresis, pronounced “kat-uh-KREE-sis” and defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “the misapplication of a word or phrase”.
But a great writer can make deliberate use of catachresis, as Greg Hill reveals.
...Narnia creator C.S. Lewis claimed “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me,” but he never read Phillip Parker’s “The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India.”...
Could there be a more enticing introduction to a column than this by Greg Hill?
For more of Greg’s wizard words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Then there’s the “Johnny Cash theory” raised in a NY Times article by Marion Tierney, who said Cash’s 1969 song “A Boy Named Sue” “proposed a paradigm shift in the field of developmental psychology.” According to Tierney, “studies have shown that children with odd names got worse grades and were less popular in elementary school. In college they were more likely to flunk out or become ‘psychoneurotic.’”..
Greg Hill ponders on the weighty significance of how we announce ourselves to the world.
To read more of Gregg’s engaging columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Greg Hill tells of the creation of classics of American literature – and of his adoration of the Library of America editions of these great works.
Wordsmith Greg Hill delights in paragoge, palinode, tashivate, and other choice words.
For more of Greg's delicious columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Once the specialized domain of only a few thousands, today writing is a skill practiced by about 85 per cent of the world’s population – some 5 billion people. All modern society rests on writing’s plinth.”...
When some folk acquire the writing habit they carry on producing words into their nineties, and beyond, as dedicated columnist Greg Hill reveals.
To read more of Greg’s well-crafted words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Artificial nose hair, a pogo stick with wheels and propellers, a beer dispensing lawn chair...
Greg Hill highlights some bad ideas.
To read more of Greg’s columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Reading is hard enough as it is and is physically difficult for lots of people. Comic literature has a history of helping in this regard, since pictures help the assimilation of text. For example, thousands acquired their early, and often only, exposure to important literature through Classics Illustrated. My first exposure to “Red Badge of Courage” came via Classic Illustrated in 3rd grade and led directly to my reading the uncut version...
Greg Hill, head librarian in Fairbanks, Alaska, tells of a well-trodden path that leads to a delight in reading.
To read more of Greg’s columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Fancy a slice of roof rat pie?
Greg Hill considers a very particular culinary offering.
To read more of Greg’s erudite columns please click on
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
How on earth did peonies, spiders and urinators become interlinked in Greg Hill’s brain. And for that matter, what is a urinator?
To read more of Greg’s columns on unexpected subjects please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Greg Hill muses on words which wrap up unpleasant truths in diplomatic clothes – and the ultimate euphemism, dashes instead of letters.
For more of Greg’s scintillating columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Greg Hill considers the incredible strength of the public library system which can pick up and carry the full weight of all human knowledge.
To read more of Greg’s columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
“It drives my wife nuts that some people, like me, will cheerfully use “gruntle” in Scrabble. The little 1,500-page dictionary we use to settle these misunderstandings may not include it, but gruntle’s there in the final arbiter of our language, the 21,730-page Oxford English Dictionary.’’ says Greg Hill.
But how does one progress from gruntle to spiders?
To read more of Greg’s engaging columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Columnist Greg Hill, highlighting the fickle nature of fame, tells of an unintended consequens of literature - a plague of starlings.
To read more of Greg's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=greg+hill
...My mate and I are polar opposites when it came to the rhythms of physical vitality and emotional highs and lows, we’re on nearly identical tracks intellectually. It’s nice that one of us is generally healthy when the other’s ill and optimistic when the other is blue, but not going through life together feeling dumber or sharper than the other has been a special blessing...
Star columnist Greg Hill allows himself time to muse on the subject of biorhythms.
To read more of Greg’s ever-entertaining words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Columnist and librarian Greg Hill tells us something of the history of handwriting.
To read more of Greg’s well-informed words please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
The inimitable Greg Hill tells of Bible collectors, proof readers and errors.
To read more of Greg’s sparkling weekly columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
Greg Hill considers the best conversational ploys for attracting the opposite sex.
To read more of Greg’s brilliant columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Cinnamon’s now part of my daily oatmeal regime that keeps my blood happy, particularly since I learned that cinnamon repels insects...
Greg Hill muses on cinnamon, mosquito snouts, and efficacious medical wonders.
For more of Greg’s must-read columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Last week I read a headline about a “Fort Worth Rat Factory Pesters Neighbors”. The interesting odors emanating from the Big Cheese Rodent Factory, which breeds 500,000 white rats a month to feed exotic pets, matches the overall impression from my Fort Worth foray...
Greg Hill vacations in Texas and Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Guess where he found the greatest serenity.
To read more of Greg’s columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Futurists have been claiming for over a decade that the artificial intelligence needed for computers to understand humans is imminent, but as evidenced by BabelFish, it’s still a ways off. When BabelFish translated “What is your favorite book?” into simple Chinese and back into English, it came out as “Anything is the book which you like.”...
Wordsmith Greg Hill muses on plain speaking and the complexities of translating one language into another.
For more of Greg’s splendid columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/alaskan_range/
...Books for children came out in the 1600’s but calling them “dour” is putting it mildly. For instance, James Janeway's "Token for Children" (1672) described itself as "being an exact account of the holy lives and joyful deaths of several young children."...
Greg Hill, who runs the library service in Fairbanks, Alaska, tells of literature down the centuries for younger readers.
For more of Greg’s wonderfully literate and entertaining columns please click on Alaskan Range in the menu on this page.
...Americans who most frequently use their public libraries is the Generation Y age-group. A recent Pew Internet and American Life study found that 53% of American’s visited a public library last year, but those using it the most were in the 18-30 year-old category. Apparently those Americans are more aware of what modern libraries offer since they came of age as libraries underwent their latest computer-age transformations...
Greg Hill, head of libray services in Farbanks, Alaska, acknowledges the need to keep up with the times.
Greg Hill tells of marvellous men who explored both the world and the exciting corners of the human mind.
Greg brings us a weekly column from Fairbanks, Alaska. Read his words by click on Alaskan Range in the menu on this page.
Greg Hill presents some seriously interesting information before telling the world’s funniest joke.
Greg will be writing for Open Writing every Tuesday. Don't miss him!
Here’s a welcome to a new columnist, Greg Hill.
Greg is the director of the North Star Borough Libraries in Fairbanks, Alaska. He also writes for his local newspaper, the Daily News-Miner. Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska, the largest state in the United States.
Greg, as you would expect, has read widely. He has a most engaging way with words.
Today he writes about Julie Andrews, who once said of herself “Sometimes I’m so sweet even I can’t stand it.”
