A fascinating tale in today's paper here told of a flash of insight – and it contained a new word. But I can't tell you the word without ruining the suspense that leads up to the insight. So …
Early telescopes, from before 1650, are extremely rare: only eight were known in the world (plus two whose age is disputed). A man from Chicago's Adler Planaterium, which has one, recently travelled to Germany to view another.
Seeing it, he had a sudden insight, an idea where others might be found. Boy, was he ever right! Two more were found almost immediately, following his idea.
What was his insight? Where were those two unearthed? What is the new-to-me word? See here.
Is there a word for an "aha moment"? Shu and I were talking about that today, and while "epiphany" could work, you'd never say, for example, that someone had an epiphany before inventing something.
I had to register to read the Tribune articles and did so maybe three years ago. It's no big deal - they never spam me - indeed, I can't remember the last time they even bothered to get in touch.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
German often manufactures words by joining smaller words - in this case "Kunst" (art) with "Schrank" (cupboard). We would probably use two words, mabye "curio cabinet". I did notice that although "Kunstschrank" is undeniably a German noun the article consistently shows it with a lower case k where the normal German practice would be to use upper case. What do you think of this? The word isn't English and is unlikely to become English so shouldn't we use it complete with its initial capital?
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
I often wonder about things like this. Where does it stop? Ought we to inflect the word using German morphology? Should I talk about two Kunstschränke or kunstschranks? Should I write that the pencil is auf dem Kunstschranke or on the kunstschrank? I would capitalize the noun.
On the other hand, I have books from the 19th century, printed in Germany, that do not use the capitalize nouns convention. It looks just plain weird, and it seems to have been a failed experiment.
I am confused. I thought links from Google News were always available without having to register for anything. Is that not the case?
I think it is hard to require the use of rules from other languages. While Zmj and Bob know German, others of us don't. I wouldn't even know to capitalize it.
Originally posted by Kalleh: I am confused. I thought links from Google News were always available without having to register for anything. Is that not the case?
I think it is hard to require the use of rules from other languages. While Zmj and Bob know German, others of us don't. I wouldn't even know to capitalize it.
Actually I#ve found that most links from Google News require registration with the original publication.
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson.
