Gossip

GOSSIP is from Old English godsibb, from god and sibb, the term for the godparents of one's child or the parents of one's godchild, generally very close friends.

The term originates from the bedroom at the time of childbirth. Giving birth used to be a social (ladies only) event, in which a pregnant woman's female relatives and neighbors would gather. As with any social gathering there was chattering and this is where the term gossip came to mean talk of others.

In the 16th century, the word assumed the meaning of a person, mostly a woman, who delights in idle talk.  The person might also be called a newsmonger or a tattler.

The verb to gossip, meaning "to be a gossip", first appears in Shakespeare.

In the early 19th century, the term was extended from the talker to the conversation of such persons. The content can be referred to as rumor, tittle-tattle, whispers, canards, tidbits, candal, hearsay, dirt, buzz, or scuttlebutt.

Not Even Wrong

The phrase not even wrong describes any argument that purports to be scientific but fails at some fundamental level. The phrase is often used to describe pseudoscience or bad science, and is considered derogatory.

The phrase is generally attributed to theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking.

The origin story is supposed to be that a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, "It is not even wrong."

A variation is "It is not only not right, it is not even wrong."

Pi

Today is Pi day. And it is a sort of special one being that it is 3.14.14
π

The circumference of a circle is slightly more than three times as long as its diameter. The exact ratio is called π.

The symbol used by mathematicians to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is the Greek letter π, sometimes spelled out as pi, particularly when foreign fonts are not available.

In English, π is pronounced as "pie"

In mathematical use, the lower-case letter π is distinguished from the capital letter Π, which denotes a product of a sequence.


π is commonly defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference C to its diameter d

The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159.

It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century. According to Wikipedia's entry for the word, the earliest known use of the Greek letter π to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was by mathematician William Jones in his 1706 work Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos; or, a New Introduction to the Mathematics.

The Greek letter first appears there in the phrase "1/2 Periphery (π)" in the discussion of a circle with radius one, so Jones may have chosen π because it was the first letter in the Greek spelling of the word periphery.

Jones also wrote that his equations for π are from the "ready pen of the truly ingenious Mr. John Machin", leading to speculation that Machin may have employed the Greek letter before Jones We know that it had been used earlier for geometric concepts.

After Jones introduced the Greek letter in 1706, it was not adopted by other mathematicians until Euler started using it, beginning with his 1736 work Mechanica and then in 1748, he used π in his widely read work Introductio in analysin infinitorum saying that "for the sake of brevity we will write this number as π; thus π is equal to half the circumference of a circle of radius 1".  The usage was universally adopted thereafter in the Western world.

Being an irrational number, π cannot be expressed exactly as a common fraction. Consequently its decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern. The digits appear to be randomly distributed although no proof of this has yet been discovered.

Animation of the act of unrolling circumference of a circle having diameter 2, illustrating the ratio π.

The New Pornographers

The New Pornographers is a Canadian indie rock band formed in 1999 in Vancouver, British Columbia.



The name of the band was chosen by member Carl Newman, who has said that he came up with it after watching a classic Japanese film called The Pornographers. (Not to be confused with several other films by that name - none of them "pornographic.")

A common assumption at the time of the band's first fame was that it was a reference to evangelist Jimmy Swaggart's claim that rock and roll was "the new pornography."

The band has released five albums to date: Mass Romantic (2000), Electric Version (2003), Twin Cinema (2005), Challengers (2007), and Together (2010). A live album recorded on their 2006 tour is available only at concerts and on the band's website.




Band Members:
Dan Bejar of Destroyer, Swan Lake, and Hello, Blue Roses
Kathryn Calder, solo artist and of Immaculate Machine
Neko Case, solo artist, also of Maow, The Corn Sisters, and Cub
John Collins of The Evaporators and Destroyer
Kurt Dahle of Limblifter and Age of Electric
Todd Fancey, solo artist (as Fancey) and of Limblifter
Carl Newman, solo artist (as A.C. Newman), also of Superconductor and Zumpano
Blaine Thurier, independent filmmaker

Love and Tennis

On this Valentine's day when love is in the air, we ponder why "love" came to mean nothing in the game of tennis.

This is one of those origins that is disputed. The two main explanations are as follows: 1) It was adapted from the phrase "to play for love of the game" (i.e. to play for nothing). 2) It represents a close sound to the French word l'oeuf, meaning 'an egg' from the the resemblance between an egg and a zero on the page. (Americans once used the term "goose egg" to mean a zero, as in a zero on an exam.)

Add to those origin possibilities this ine from the Online Guide to Traditional Games who propose that it comes from the Dutch/Flemish "lof" which means honor. Around the time that the expression came to be used, England received a wealth of immigrants from the low countries and most games were played for money. So, if a player scored no points, the phrase "omme lof spelen," meaning "played for the honor" might have been used.

I favor the French and egg theory, mostly because much of the game's formalities come from French medieval roots.

Originally, in lawn tennis using rackets scoring, a game comprised 15 aces, which could be won only by the server who remained "hand in" until the loss of a rally. Tennis scoring was adopted for the first Wimbledon Championships in 1877 and became the standard.

The origins of the 15, 30, 40 scoring system is also unclear but has medieval and French roots. One explanation is that the scoring system is based on the presence of a clock face at the end of the tennis court. A quarter move of the appropriate hand was made after each rest, with the score being called as 15, 30, or 45 as the case might be. As the hand was moved to 60, making the complete circuit, this was the game.

The term "deuce" is derived from the French "deux", an advantage of two points having to be gained.



Tennis: Origins and Mysteries




The Tennis Book: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Tennis