With a series of large hurricanes hitting the US recently, I wondered what impact their names have on people’s opinion of those names for their children: do people try avoid the new negative connotations of the name or is that even a factor in their decision process? For some superficial...
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Who is the main side character in The Simpsons?
The Simpsons has a rich cast of great characters, with Wikipedia suggesting the show has somewhere around 100 recurring characters. But, outside the titular family members, who can claim to be the main side character in the show? I’m not interested in who the best character is—because let’s face it,...
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Vowels
My post earlier this week on why the ‘except after c’ rule is a bit useless gathered a lot more attention than I expected. Although largely positive feedback, inevitably when you say anything online, no matter how trivial or innocuous, you will have someone telling you that you’re wrong, or...
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How to find friends as influenced people
Is Christmas really coming earlier every year?
i before e except after...w?
i before e except after…w? Nathan Cunningham The mnemonic ‘i before e except after c’ is something we’ve probably all encountered at one point or another and can be a useful trick for figuring out awkward spellings. However, an episode of QI I watched recently claimed the rule has more...
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