One thing that amuses me during this process is similar-sounding word pairs that may be quite close in form but have an entirely different function and meaning. Here are a few from this week:

Insole: the inner sole of a boot or shoe
Insolent: an extremely rude person

Jake: all right; fine
Jakes: an outhouse

Jingal: a heavy musket
Jingle: to make a tinkling sound

► Photos of the Week

Besides a great number of words pertaining to abnormal mental activity and various watery discharges from various orifices, my reading this week was surprisingly useful: having never really gotten into mathematical or logic proofs, I had never heard of the word iff, meaning "if and only if." Upon reading that it was a legitimate conjunction, I realized that I had incorrectly edited three instances of it in the last programming textbook I finished editing last week, and I contacted the editor about it and got it sorted out. Scrabble Read-a-thon FTW.

My favorite word this week was impark: to confine in a park. It reminded me of a story we read for a capstone English class I had as an undergraduate—a class on utopias and dystopias. This particular story was Larry Niven's Cloak of Anarchy. People are actually trapped in a park—imparked—and the story describes what happens when anarchy ensues. You can read it online for free here.

► Photos of the Week

This week will be slightly truncated (meaning less photos and commentary), as I have my final graduate work of the term due, papers to edit, science articles to edit, parents to show around town, and an article to revise for publication (woot). So it's short(er) and sweet(er?) this week. Favorite word was definitely hoick. Sometimes you just gotta hoick.

► Photo of the Week

A gowk and his gowd are soon parted.

► Photos of the Week:

I believe I’ve come up with the recipe for dystopic fiction. Flavor: Atwood.

Step 1. Create cutesy, innocent-sounding names like ChickiNobs Bucket O’Nubbins, a chicken product made from genetically engineered biological monstrosities, or BlyssPluss, the ultimate Viagra pill that (spoiler alert!) kills everyone in Oryx and Crake. Margaret Atwood also named the Compounds where the upper-class scientists live: HelthWyzer Compound, AnooYoo, CryoJeenyus, RejoovenEsense. These infantile names serve to heighten the horror of their true purposes.