the anti-almanac -- lists of things I don't know

[trochee]

I sat with Alvin the librarian on the bus to campus this morning. Alvin is a charming, very gay older man who is also the librarian who is (among other things) the linguistics librarian.

He recruited me to help him with a crossword clue; "1-down: some leporids" (which we were able to work out was "HARES", when I remembered the French word for "rabbit").


We talked some more about crossword puzzles, and he pulled the most marvelous book out of his bag:

Alvin keeps a list of all the things he learns in crosswords ("not the ones I just couldn't think of," he said, "when I really didn't know the fact").

"It's an Alvin's-complement almanac," I said, and he laughed, and flipped to the back of his little hand-printed book, to show me the "unverified" section. It was a long list of words like "essling: baby salmon", where, Alvin said, "they seem reasonable, but I just haven't been able to find it anywhere -- internet, reference books, whatever."

I looked over the list over his shoulder, and pointed out that "chile: grape basket of South America" was likely wordplay rather than an actual basket, which caused us both to crack up -- "I've been trying obscure Spanish dictionaries trying to figure that one out," he said.

How cool is that almanac? I'm tempted to start one myself. It's like an anti-del.icio.us. A database project that might make a cool web application for a bored developer: vocab.ulario.us doesn't seem to be taken...

Comments

[xaosenkosmos.livejournal.com]

It's the nurdan dictionary!

(Urban Dictionary, if one doesn't get the reference. No pun intended.)

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

That's really cool !

And that bunny is cute.
Glad you feel connected to your work and your linguist self. It's important !

Also, I think you can come up with a better name than one that rips off del.icio.us...
That one is too long and windy methinks.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

it is fun, isn't it. I think there's a sense of wonder that's really neat that this guy in his fifties is keeping a book of "new stuff I just learned" and that he's proud of it.

I want to do it more myself. Maybe I'll start a list of "neat thing I didn't know that I learned today"; it seems like a great mental stretch every day. And a little bit of humility.

[psychicle.livejournal.com]

Yeah! This was a great story and a good idea too. Thanks for sharing.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

and the bunny is very very cute. I found it checking on the spelling of "leporid" and French Wikipedia. :-)