Clik here to view.
On Being Obvious–Towards an Illustrated Alphabet of the Obvious
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1850 "It is obvious that we can no more explain a passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind."–T.S. Eliot "We have now sunk to a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Partial Alphabet of Thai Onomatopoeia–Words for Usually-Unusual Noises
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1882 [ Joom] Sound of a pebble being thrown in a pond [ Seet] Sound of someone eating something very spicy I'm not sure that the idea of phonoaesthetics comes into play with...
View ArticleDead, Extinct and Dying Jobs, 1880
JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post Having a quick look at the jobs of Americans in 1880 (according to the Compendium of the U.S. Census, 1884) reveals a number of interesting things, not the least of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Alphabet of Dictionaries-at-Odds: Ambrose Bierce & Sam Johnson // ART & ASS
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1916 Samuel Johnson and Ambrose Bierce compiled dictionaries–two different types, two different efforts, 150 years apart. Some think of Johnson's Dictionary of the English...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Patenting the Artificial: Moustaches, Bark and Ideas
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1928 An Alphabet of the Artificial as Seen in Patent Drawings " I…can wet my Cheekes with artificial Teares."–3 Henry VI, iii, ii, 184. Using "artificial" as the word...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Mystopian Alphabet of Newspeak Words: Orwell and Unthink
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1953 "It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words … what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Questions Answered with Guts, Wax, Bumps and Glory: Fortune Telling Patent...
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1956 [All images via the lovely and easy to maneuver Google Patents here] Fortune telling and divination is mostly the subject of the pretty patents (below), a quick...
View ArticleAn Alphabet of Great Works in the History of Science
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1964 This is a short and developing list of 36 principal works in the history of science, a list of integral and indispensable thinking. Its just the beginning of the list,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Inferred Narratives of the Last Word in Novels
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1968 I was reading the ending of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and found it a highly unusual occurrence that the novel ended on its single-word title. It doesn't seem to happen...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Imaginary History: 2-D and 3-D Shadows
JF Ptak Science Books Post 1975 In preparing an alphabetic sampler atlas of imaginary places (a thing which looks much finer capitalized, so An Alphabetic Sampler Atlas of Imaginary Places), I wondered...
View Article
