By William Germano. The recent controversy over the young composer Jonas Tarm turns on the eleventh-hour discovery, or recognition, that his “March to Oblivion” (“Marsh u Nebuttya,” in a transliteration from Ukrainian) incorporates unplayable music — unplayable not because of its difficulty but because of its use of musical quotation. More...
By Geoffrey Pullum. The Chronicle’s strict profanity policies, as I explained last year, bar mentioning offensive or obscene words, even in linguistic discussions where the details are crucial. Asterisk-respelling tricks are unapproved under the New York Times style guidelines that we follow. More...
By Lucy Ferriss. I’m always coming late to the party. Over the weekend, traveling through Arizona with a clogged computer, I stopped in at the Apple store, 12 minutes late for my appointment at the Genius Bar. They hold the appointments for 10 minutes, after which you go into the queue. More...
By Ben Yagoda. The most popular answer was this: “There’s nothing grammatically or syntactically wrong with starting a sentence with ‘this.’ It’s essential, however, that it’s clear what the ‘this’ is referring to.” More...
By Erin E. Templeton. I came across a post this week titled “A Parents’ Guide to All That Ed Tech in the Classroom: What to ask when your school says the iPads are coming.” Obviously intended for parents, this post is actually a helpful starting point for anyone who is considering incorporating more technology into an educational environment, whether parent, student, faculty member or administrator. Read more...By Amy Cavender. I love the list in this photo. The kindergarten teacher who asked her class what they wanted to learn about got a list of fantastic answers. I’m sure being asked that question so early in their formal educational process is something that will stick with them. Read more...By Natalie Houston. Many readers probably answered “check email.” Checking email has become the default work-ish activity for many professionals. I said work-ish because while checking email may be work-related, for most people it is not a central activity of their work. Read more...By Ryan Cordell. We write about fitness quite a bit here at ProfHacker. I must confess, though, that until quite recently I was all excuses. Beginning in grad school and through my first post-grad-school job, I was far, far “too busy” to work out. I had excuses every day—writing, teaching, grading, and family—all good priorities, to be sure, but none that truly took over my life so as to make exercise literally impossible. Read more...By Adeline Koh. I often refer to my inbox as the abyss from which few return, given how overwhelmed I generally am. Faced with a constant email deluge, I’m always worried that I will forget to answer important emails (I do), or even non-urgent ones that may fall off the face of the earth once they get buried at the bottom of my to-answer pile. Read more...By Adeline Koh. “Selfies,” or self-taken photographs, have become as ubiquitous as the smartphone. Their popularity has even spurred the formation of an academic group, The Selfies Research Network. Your students take selfies, you probably do as well. Read more.../https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
