Blog

Thad McCotter has fun with antonyms

Congratulations, Congressman Thad. You found out how to use a thesaurus, and you put it on big placards and read it on the floor of the House. Hilarious!

Jun 21, 10:26 AM / Comment

 

Today's etymology lesson

Contrary to popular belief, “jury rigging” has nothing to do with rigging a jury, or at least as we know it. Wikipedia to the rescue!

Jury rigging refers to makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Originally a nautical term, on sailing ships a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast.

Also of note: the phrase I originally googled, “jerry-rigging,” has nothing to do with rigging a guy named Jerry. It is actually a bastardization of jury rigging and jerry-built. The latter means that something’s a piece of crap, and it’s Jerry’s fault.

Oct 10, 04:20 PM / Comment

 

Great word of the day

roue: a man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure.

Filing this word away for the next game of Scrabble…

Sep 13, 07:41 AM / Comment [2]

 

Linx

e.politics · Emily · Ezra Klein · Future Majority · Nancy Scola · Planting Liberally · TechPrez

Tagz

2008 election, animals, barack obama, books, buffalo, bush daughters, celebrities, crime, democrats, design, digg, dirt mcgirt, district of columbia, elaine chao, email, facebook, firefox, food, football, george dubya bush, getting laid, google, guns, hillary clinton, history, hockey, huffington post, internet, internets, iowa, iraq war, joe biden, john edwards, john mccain, kanye west, kentucky, labor, lip hair, liveblogging, lots of links, manpageant, mashups, mike gravel, mitt romney, music, my life, new york city, photography, pictures, random, rap, republicans, ron paul, rss, rudy giuliani, science, site notes, technology, tech president, travel, tv, twitter, utah mine collapse, videos, weather, web 2.0, wikipedia, wonkette, words, writers strike, wtf, yearly kos

Who I Am

My name is Michael Whitney. I'm an interwebologist in Washington, DC. I design, develop, and produce things on the Internet. You can email me here: michael[@]michaelwhitney.net.

» More about me

twitter

» Follow me on twitter!