✍ Writing & Words
✍️ Degrees of Deception: An Index of Dishonesty // bradley-andrews.com
✏️ New Word Learned:
Caterwaul: to make a harsh cry; protest or complain noisily
✏️ New Word Learned:
Gravid: distended with or full of eggs; pregnant
✏️ New Word Learned:
Crepitant: having or making a crackling sound
✏️ New Word Learned:
Ferreous: of, like, or containing iron
✍️ First They Came (Grammar Edition):
First they came for the em dash
And I did not speak out
Because I did not use the em dash
Then they came for the Oxford comma
And I did not speak out
Because I did not use the Oxford Comma
Then they came for the serial semicolon
And I did not speak out
Because I did not use the serial semicolon
Then they came for iambic
And I did not speak out
Because I did not write in iambic
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
That knew how to write a defense for me
How I feel when people tell me not to use em dashes in my writing anymore because of AI. 😆 Click here for the original poem I based this parody on.
✏ New Word Learned:
Kvetch: a person who complains a great deal
✏️ New Word Learned:
Revanchism: a political doctrine aimed at the reversal of the losses incurred in previous political or military defeats, most commonly, incurred territorial losses.
✏️ New Word Learned:
Chronophagic: (derived from Greek chronos “time” and phagein “to eat”) means “time-eating” or time-consuming. It refers to anything that wastes time, or is used to describe the “Chronophage,” a series of mechanical,, “time-eating” grasshopper clocks created by Dr. John Taylor that dramatically depict the passage of time.
Not just a new word, but a new favorite word. Can’t wait to drop this one in a sentence (probably when discussing social media).
✍️ Back in October, I wrote a dark fiction fable that included a brief rant from an unhinged tech CEO about the connection between war and business. Yesterday morning, Alex Karp of Palantir was on CNBC making the exact same arguments:
On the battlefield, on the commercial battlefield, too, at large companies… our ability to target and take out adversaries and enemies in a way no one else can. I mean, from a not moral perspective, they’re exactly the same; what makes you lethal on the battlefield, and what makes you commercially viable?”
I’m not prescient—this is just how these guys think. They are terribly misguided, even if commercially successful.
✍️ I can smell your aura, a new blog post from yours truly is out now.
As far as I can tell, these are sense-words; adjectives meant to describe an effect that we feel but can’t necessarily link to a specific visual trait. It’s like supercalifragilisticexpealidocious, but for attentional faculties. It’s what we say when we don’t know what to say.
I pull on everything from Ivan Illich to Frank Sinatra to Gandalf to explain pop culture’s misunderstanding of “aura.” These thoughts are half-baked, but hopefully teach something about language, media ecology, and perception.
✏️ New Word Learned:
Encomiast: a person who publicly praises or flatters someone else
✏️ New Word Learned:
Riparian: relating to wetlands adjacent to rivers and streams
✍️
Love is bringing out the play in others. Play is the mode of one who is loved. When you create conditions for another person to express themselves playfully, you have loved them. When you have been safely carried into a state of playfulness, you have been loved. Play is how we exercise the freedom that love secures for us.
Put a lot of heart into my most recent post about the relationship between play and love. Not sure how intelligible it is, but it is the type of thinking I’d like to believe is somewhat rare. Please read the full thing and let me know your thoughts: bradley-andrews.com.
🗞 A friend from my MBA program recently reached out with an idea about how entertainment follows the same life cycles as empires. Together, we wrote a paper that explores this pattern in depth, and made some predictions about what happens next. You can read the dispatch here: mercurysplaybook.com
I’ve heard many arguments for why writers should not use AI. Yet, I have never heard someone voice my particular reason.
My particular reason is that I care deeply about the quality of my prose and my prose is far better than anything AI has produced. Should this change, my stance might also. In the meantime, I will be unapologetically penning my own thoughts.
✏️ New Word Learned:
Quaintrelle: a woman who emphasizes a life of passion expressed through personal style, leisurely pastimes, charm, and the cultivation of life’s pleasures; the female equivalent of a dandy.
✍️ Just dropped some new stanzas: bradley-andrews.com
(Due to formatting, I recommend reading on wide-screen or computer)
🗞️ A new dispatch from Mercury’s Playbook is out now:
These are the Mag Sevens, the Michael Jordans, Kendrick Lamars, Albert Einsteins, Warren Buffets, Serena Williams, or Mr. Beasts. Not just excellent operators, but undeniable winners… Just like the formation of actual astronomical stars, star performers are born within extremely unique conditions which, directly or indirectly, provide the materials necessary for their emergence. In astronomy, these environments are called stellar nurseries.
✏ New Word Learned:
Skosh: a small amount, bit, smidgen
According to Merriam’s, “the word skosh comes from the Japanese word sukoshi, which is pronounced “skoh shee” and means “a tiny bit” or “a small amount.” The Japanese word was shortened by U.S. servicemen stationed in Japan after World War II. Later, in the Korean War, a small soldier was often nicknamed Skosh.”