The Word Project: Obscure Words in Bricolage

The Word Project: Obscure Words in Bricolage:

 

What aviary resemblance has to do with the study of soil and the irresistible urge to dance.

We love words and language, especially artful intersections of lingolove and design. Earlier this week, we spotlighted illustrator Veronika Heckova’s lovely Words Without Words project and, thanks to reader Cassandra Marketos, we discovered the utterly wonderful work of artist Polly M. Law. The Word Project is a compendium of 100 odd and obscure words, illustrated in Law’s signature bricolage paper-dolls style.

 

Strigiform: (adj) resembling an owl; Struthiform (adj) resembling an ostrich

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

 

Dinomania: (n) irresistible urge to dance

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

 

Godwottery: (n) an overly ornate garden

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

 

Pedology: (n) the study of soils

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

 

Lucubrate: (v) to work by artificial light

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

 

Bibliotaph: (n) a person who hides books

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

 

Empyreal: (adj) celestial, elevated

Image courtesy of Polly M. Law

 

 

At once whimsical and illuminating, The Word Project is a playful and inspired gateway into grown-up vocabulary, approaching the intellectual with the kind of childlike curiosity we so encourage.

Thanks, Cass

We’ve got a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

Brain Pickings takes 450+ hours a month to curate and edit across the different platforms. If it brings you any joy and inspiration, please consider a modest donation – it lets us know we're doing something right and helps keep the lights on.

 

Wasabi Kit-Kat's???

Wasabi Kit-Kat

bookofjoe (bookofjoe) – 3/22/11 10:15 AM

Ummm, wasabi. And that's not all: how about purple sweet potato (below),

macha (green tea), cheesecake, soy sauce, annin dofu (a Japanese dessert with almonds), caremalized sweet potato, and yellow sweet potato?

According to Ufunk, "They're all good and tasty!"

[via Design You Trust]

Origami

origami by Brian Chan

origami by Brian Chan...(Read...)

Pop-ups

Pop-ups! They're Not JUST for Kids from Bowdoin College on Vimeo.

Growing is Forever

Growing is Forever:

"I have a deep affection for the Redwood forests of Northern California. This is my best attemp..(Read...)

 

Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage

Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage:

New footage of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes living in the Brazilian rainforest. ..(Read...)

 

Waterfall

Waterfall:

Back to the future

Back to the future:

 

Back to the future by Irina Werning."Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, i..(Read...)

 

People of Wal-Mart - Cerail For You & Kids

Cerail For You & Kids:

This grocery list looks like something I drunkenly jotted down at 3am….with the exception of the atrocious spelling errors of course, because even hammered drunk I know how to spell “castle”.

Virginia

Yesterdays Cars of Tomorrow

Yesterday's Cars of Tomorrow:

As this short 1948 film aptly demonstrates, the hardest thing in the world is to design something futuristic. That said, I wish my old jalopy could parallel park as nimbly as the Davis Three Wheeler.

BehindTheMedspeak: The 5-Second Rule

BehindTheMedspeak: The 5-Second Rule:

C. Claiborne Ray's "Q&A" column in this past Tuesday's New York Times Science section addressed this urban legend as follows.

...........................

Q. You know the five-second rule for dropped food? Is it really safe if you pick it up in time?

A. "The five-second rule probably should become the zero-second rule," said Dr. Roy M. Gulick, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College. "Eating dropped food poses a risk for ingestion of bacteria and subsequent gastrointestinal disease, and the time the food sits on the floor does not change the risk."

In general, if there are bacteria on the floor, they will cling to the food nearly immediately on contact, Dr. Gulick said. Factors that influence the risk and the rate of bacterial transfer include the type of floor; the type of food; the type of bacteria; and how long the bacteria have been on the floor.

In a study published in 2007 in The Journal of Applied Microbiology, Clemson University researchers tested salmonella placed on wood, tile or carpet, and dropped bologna on the surfaces for 5, 30 or 60 seconds. With both wood and tile, more than 99 percent of the bacteria were transferred nearly immediately, and there was no difference by the time of contact. Carpet transferred a smaller number of bacteria, again with no difference by contact time. The amount transferred decreased over hours, but there were still thousands of the bacteria per square centimeter on the surfaces after 24 hours, and hundreds survived on the surfaces for as long as four weeks. As few as 10 salmonella bacteria can cause gastroenteritis.

...........................

Below, the abstract of the 2007 paper cited above.

...........................

Residence time and food contact time effects on transfer of Salmonella Typhimurium from tile, wood and carpet: testing the five-second rule

[illustration at the top by Victoria Roberts for the New York Times]

Beauty is in the eye of the Blur-Tool-holder.

Beauty is in the eye of the Blur-Tool-holder.:

Beauty is in the eye of the Blur-Tool-holder.....(Read...)