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.

Can you point me at a link (or just reproduce the answer) where I don't have to register?

Try this, Bob.

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.

Nope. I just a get a page telling me I need to register to access the article.

I imagine the article will be picked up by the blogsphere shortly. But until then, Bob, I'm PMing you my registration information.

Thanks. Excellent article.

I got that URL from Google news. I thought that was always available without having to register to the sites. Am I wrong about that?

I was able to see the article without being required to register.

I'd probably use 'epiphany'.

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.

Fascinating article, Shu- and a cool word. Thanks for sharing it.

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?

What do you think of this?

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 just tried the link again and this time they want me to register. Weird.

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.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
I just tried the link again and this time they want me to register. Weird.

Which is doubly odd as since I used shu's registration I haven't been asked to register again. I assumed that using shu's had written a cookie.

quote:

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.

quote:

on the kunstschrank? I would capitalize the noun.

I would choose clarity over consistency and not capitalize it. It's confusing if you don't know that German nouns are capitalized.

I agree, neveu.