The First-Ever Fuck, and Other News
Image via io9 Behold: the first written use of fuck, from 1528, inscribed by a monk who seems to have been pretty pissed off with an abbot. “Kicking against the pricks becomes rather less impressive...
View ArticleClean-Living Canines, and Other News
Carl Reichert, Paar Doggen Jane Austen read her own reviews, and took scrupulous notes: “Austen appears to have compiled the reactions of her readers from letters, hearsay, and direct conversations and...
View ArticleBoswell’s Prurient Pastime, and Other News
Why is our vice president quoting Thomas Pynchon? In a speech in Des Moines, Joe Biden expounded on this bit of vintage paranoia, from Gravity’s Rainbow: “If they can get you asking the wrong...
View ArticleLetter from Dhallywood, and Other News
From “Love Me or Kill Me,” via Slate. It must be said: in this, his bicentennial year, Trollope is trending—and not just because, as we mentioned yesterday, one of his books is soon to become a TV...
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