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Hi friends! Welcome to Volume 111 of Dovi’s Digest. For the cricket fans among you, please make sure to read this standing on one leg.
The Digest, by its nature, involved a lot of words. I mean, without said words, this little intro would just be confused unga bungas.
Thankfully, language has evolved sufficiently from there that I can tell you about the arcana that I’ve found to share with you.
A quick sidebar on the subject of words. I love it when people say “oh, (insert colloquial term here) isn’t even a word”. My partner in philology, do you think bae was a word 20 years ago, or internet 70 years ago, or refrigerator 150 years ago? Words are literally only defined and built on what was their modern usage.
That being said, to the majority of the English-speaking world, a word isn’t actually considered a real word unless it’s been added to that arbiter of all things English, the Oxford English Dictionary.
This week’s headline article discusses said publication. It’s fascinating to get an inside view on one of our language’s institutions, how it was started, built (many submissions from members of the public) and how the current lexicographers are editing, improving, and moving closer to publishing the much-anticipated 3rd edition (the 2nd edition was published in 1989). The article taught me many things, and I hope it does the same for you.
Do you enjoy the Digest? Would you like it to get better? Then please consider sharing it, as the more articles I’m sent, the better it is. It only takes a few seconds, and all you need to do is click here 👇. Thank you!
There was ONE correct answer to last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Ariel Subotzky. The answer and this week’s riddle are below.
Etymology doesn’t grab you? No worries. You can learn why certain songs give you the chills (and a list of them to keep you feeling all shivery), the burgeoning Jewish community in Nigeria, the history and evolution of brands on Twitter (think clapbacks and feuds), two brothers in India who save and heal birds of prey hurt by kites (the ones attached to strings and flown by children, not the raptors) and smog, the hidden beauty of still life art (and how incredibly intricate it is), and the innocent woman who was accused of kidnapping by someone trying to gain followers, fame, and clout. Enjoy!
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
Have a great week,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
From Aardvark to Woke: Inside The Oxford English Dictionary
The OED’s task – to define every English word – is as ambitious as it was 150 years ago.
This 715-Song Playlist Is Scientifically Verified to Give You the Chills, Thanks To “Frisson”
Listening to some songs can cause a powerful physiological response known as "frisson." What is it, and why does it happen?
The Lost Jews of Nigeria
Until the 1990s, there were almost no Jews in Nigeria. Now thousands have enthusiastically taken up the faith. Why?
Brand Twitter Grows Up
How corporate social media (mostly) moved past its awkward phase and connected with audiences.
All That Breathes: The Indian Brothers Who Heal Birds Dropping from the Sky
For 20 years, two brothers living in the squalid neighbourhood of Wazirabad in India's capital, Delhi, have been treating wounded black kites that fall from the city's leaden skies.
A Messy Table, a Map of the World
The hidden world of still life painting, and its beauty.
The Karen Who Cried Kidnapping
How one unsuspecting craft-loving mom got tangled in an influencer’s viral yarn.
Quote of the Week:
“I've learned so much from my mistakes... I'm thinking of making some more.” — Cheryl Cole
Facts of the Week:
More than 50% of the ivory imported into China comes from woolly mammoths.
10 million mammoths are still trapped in the Arctic permafrost.
Frostproof, Florida, was so named to persuade farmers it wouldn't get a frost. Two years later, frost killed almost its whole citrus crop.
Whynot, North Carolina, was named after a long debate concluded with someone saying: “Why not just name it Why Not and let's go home?”
Johnny Cash's real name is J. R. Cash: his parents couldn't agree on his names, only the initials.
Johnny Cash named his daughter Roseanne after Rose and Anne, his nicknames for her mother’s breasts.
UK street names include Fanny Hands Lane, Willey Lane, and Uranus Road.
Houses on streets with rude names are cheaper.
You can say “f*ck” at any time on Canadian radio, provided it’s a French-language station.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
In the early years of rocket company SpaceX, CEO Elon Musk liked to set job applicants the following problem:
You’re standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you? (There is more than one answer, I expect two in any submission, as one of them is fairly simple).
Last Week’s Brainteaser and Answer:
Three girls, Akari, Sakura and Yui, are each given a positive whole number, which they keep secret from each other. They are all told the sum of the numbers is 12. A girl is considered “lucky” if she has the highest number. It is possible that one, two or all three girls are “lucky”.
Akari says: “I don’t know who is lucky.”
Sakura says: “I still don’t know who is lucky.”
Yui says: “I still don’t know who is lucky.”
Akari says: “Now I know who is lucky!”
Who is lucky?
Answer:
Sakura and Yui are lucky.
If Akari doesn’t know she is lucky, we can deduce that her number is at most 5. That’s because if she had 6 she would know that only she is lucky, since it would be impossible for the others to have 6 or above.
Likewise, we can deduce that both Sakura and Yui also have at most 5. Once everyone has spoken once, all three girls know that none of them has a number above 5.
They know that all the numbers add up to 12. There are ten possible combinations of numbers 5 or below that add up to 12:
· A S Y
· 5 5 2
· 5 2 5
· 2 5 5
· 5 4 3
· 5 3 4
· 4 5 3
· 4 3 5
· 3 5 4
· 3 4 5
· 4 4 4
We can eliminate the first case, since if that was the case, Yui would have known that the other two were lucky. There are three other cases when Akari has 5, three when she has 4, two when she has 3, and one when she has 2. Since she is able to deduce who is lucky, she must have 2. (Since if she had any other number she would not be sure exactly who was lucky). Thus she has 2, the others have 5, and both Sakura and Yui are lucky.