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I’ve been following Lili, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ongoing effort to develop a video game. Lot of red flags in that first sentence, but it seems like they’re making good choices (e.g. taking a production role and backing an existing entity with a small scope). The name is a nightmare (apologies to any Philips around, but I recoil as through from a snake when I see Ls and Is in close proximity), but it’s entering production “late 2025”.
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Over the past few years, I’ve encountered people online using “trespass” as a transitive verb. “The store should trespass you”, “My friend and I were trespassed from the gas station”, “He should be trespassed”. I didn’t know if it was a regional English-ism or if I was watching a linguistics shift in real time. It turns out, I’m between 12 and 30 years too late to the party. Investigation led me to this article from 2013 where Neal Whitman does a deep dive into the origins of the usage.
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Related, Whitman hasn’t posted on the above blog since 2016, but his last post there is an investigation into the perennially popular subject of adjective order in English. On his own blog, (defunct since 2019), he does further deep dives, like this one on a Laurel/Yanny Sesame Street situation.
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I was talking to some friends over a game of Q.E. and remembered this incredible Rolling Stone article about stoner arms dealers (later adapted to a movie) who underbid established defense companies to exploit loopholes in weapons trades.
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Every 5x6 Nonogram, the collaborative, realtime logic puzzle web game, is now available for all - no account needed!
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Comics famously have had loose practices around crediting writers (to say nothing of Bob Kane or Stan Lee’s habits of taking more credit than is due). This changed largely due to Marv Wolfman including a line that a story had been told by a wandering Wolfman. When the comics authority complained (werewolves were verboten), DC added a credit to prove it was the author’s name. Then the dams were opened.
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Star Wars (the original theatric cut) is back in theatres in 2027!
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Guy Kelly: My jokes are good, actually, and here’s why.
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An older post by friend of the blog Ty Pitre about reputation systems. I was reminded of this when I was looking for a different post (ladder tables) from Mindstorm Press, but the blog is full of wisdom.
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The opening line of Beowulf is often rendered as something like “Listen, we’ve heard about the Spear-Danes in days of old, and the courageous kings who ruled them” (Some variations here). In 2020, Maria Dahvana Headley made waves with a modern translation, rendering the ever-controversial Hwæt as “bro”. This gives the first line as:
Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings! In the old days,everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound.
I don’t hate it!
11. Related, the intersection of Beowulf and the old Old Spice commercials.
12. Aud Koch’s take on Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work (and a bonus article about the originals)
13. How to plan a writing retreat, a blog post (since defunct) by Siri Paulson.