Aptonym Alert
We’ve blogged in the past about aptonyms — names that fit the people who own them, like a magazine fact-checker named Paige Worthy — and we’ve even held an aptonym contest. So we would have been delinquent to not make note of a byline in a special section of yesterday’s Times called “The Business of Read More »
The FREAK-est Links
“[H]ybrid record label and blog” launches with new plan for selling music. (Earlier) A lesson in “Marijuanomics 101″. (HT: Economics International) A classic aptonym. (Earlier) Japanese engineers develop “musical roads”. (HT: BoingBoing) Read More »
Announcing the Winners of Our Aptonym Contest
Last week, I blogged about a magazine fact-checker named Paige Worthy and asked you to submit your best aptonyms. You responded mightily, with nearly 300 submissions. Judging from this sample, the dentists, proctologists, and eye doctors of America seem particularly prone to aptonymous behavior. Below you will find the best submissions. As promised, the readers Read More »
Contest: Beat This Aptonym
Can you beat the aptonym “Paige Worthy” for a magazine fact-checker? Come and try your luck in the Freakonomics “Aptonym-Off.” Read More »
We’re All Semanticists Now: Dr. Beaver’s Response
I blogged recently about a linguistics paper so stuffed with jargon that it read to me as if it had poorly translated from the original Croatian. I also wondered what the paper had to do with belly buttons, as was suggested by its title (“Have You Noticed That Your Belly Button Lint Colour Is Related Read More »
It’s All Semantics
For reasons that may not make sense to anyone else, I recently performed a Google search for “They Might Be Giants” and “Belly Button.” This was the second hit: a paper by a Stanford linguist named David Beaver (that’s not an aptonym, is it?) called “Have You Noticed That Your Belly Button Lint Colour Is Read More »
In Praise of Ancient Technologies, and Aptonyms
There was an interesting article in the New York Times sports section the other day about how the All England Club has kept the Wimbledon tournament free of pigeons since 1999 by employing a man named Wayne Davis to bring in his small flock of peregrine falcons. Until Davis came along, the pigeons were a Read More »
The FREAKest Links: Paper Beats Rock and Boys Named Hell Edition
As enduring fans of the sport, we were glad to hear that ESPN2 broadcast its first coverage of the 2007 USA Rock Paper Scissors League championship, which took place in May at the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay. The single-elimination competition was won by Jamie Langridge from Odessa, Texas, who employed a “complex adaptive” strategy to Read More »
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