I Spend Entirely Too Much Time Woolgathering About Words

"Safety" is a funny word. Of course, it's derived from "safe."

"Whimsy" is a funny word. Of course it's derived from "whim."

So why not "whimsty"? Or "safey." Perhaps, like pigs, whims live in a sty?

Do they have Rothschilds in Russia?

We saw Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. The theater projected captions in English and Russian on both sides of the stage for the non-Yiddish speakers in the audience, in other words, for almost everyone. I happened to note that in the song If I Were a Rich Man they used "Rothschild" in the Yiddish song as a synonym for rich man, and also in the English caption. In Russian? It was Russian for "rich man." Hmmm.

N vs И

Speaking of Russian, the character N in English when reflected in a mirror becomes the Russian character for (long) E. I have sneakers with a big N on them, which is the logo for "New Balance." I was wondering whether, if someone in Russia wanted to go into the sneaker business, they could use the reverse-N logo on their footwear, and if anyone would notice. Of course, in the old CCCP days, they would come in only two sizes—too large and too small. But I'm sure they'd be better now.

Patrouille Suisse

You know I can't resist a yodeling festival. With all that chocolate and Roger Federer (who has borrowed my initials) what's not to love about Switzerland? And, if you say this paragraph's heading with an atrocious French accent, you have a trifecta. I offer the following quote—which even involves aviation—without comment:

"The Patrouille Suisse, a Swiss air force aerobatic demonstration team, performed a planned flyby over the wrong town last weekend. The team was scheduled to conduct the maneuver above Langenbruck, Switzerland, as part of a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Swiss aviator Oskar Bider, who became the first man to cross the Alps in an airplane in 1913. Instead of making their planned appearance at the ceremony, the Patrouille Suisse accidentally performed the flyby over the 31st Northwest Yodeling Festival, which was taking place in Mümliswil, a town about four miles west of Langenbruck."

Pearl Jam

"Yesterday" I wrote about my discovery of David Bowie. I have a slightly defective optical encoder in the car radio, and sometimes it jumps forward instead of backward at a few detents. Hence, I found myself listening to "Pearl Jam Radio" instead of either Deep Cuts or The Grateful Dead, as is my wont. As with Bowie, all I knew were their radio hits, and also never heard them live. On Pearl Jam Radio I have heard other hits and some live material, all of which was impressive. When I get a chance to listen more I'll try to determine if this counts as a discovery.

Deep Fakes and a RIKLblog Policy

If I faluted high, I might have a "credo" like Wendy's. But I'm going to go for "policy" here. I've been blogging for over a decade, and I know that some of the claims I have made are outrageous, verging on incredible. But in this era of "fake news" and pictures and sound modified by artificial intelligence to convince people of untruths, I feel the need to make a statement:

• For my outrageous and incredible statements, I invariably have surrounded them with hypertext <Fiction></Fiction> tags. I intend to continue to do that.
• I don't recall ever using doctored photos, which I probably don't have the skill to commit, or fraudulent sound files, which I do. In the photos you have seen and will see, I shall warn you if I do anything beyond resizing, cropping, rotating, or changing the brightness or contrast. Likewise, if I edit any soundfiles (other than those I might happen to create myself) to the extent that their meaning changes, I shall both warn and pre-apologize.

Although I am not a "journalist," I have seen them on the hoof, and I can spell "integrity" without resorting to any web resources. And unlike the internet and its web sendings, I want this blog to resound as a shining example of truth and honesty, so that in the future you will trust everything I write.