1. Y’know how little kids call blonde hair “yellow”? I just realized my 9-year-old still does. I love that.
2. How is it that after a 9-mile training run, the next day’s 3-mile recovery run still feels hard?
3. I just discovered Rhymezone.com, thanks to Laura. I’m just gonna put this out on the table as a potential addiction, right here and now.
4. This year’s science fair projects are (drum roll, please): lead testing toys (taller one) and comparing the fat content in various fast foods (smaller one). These are sure to transform the face of healthcare in America. I mean, just in case Hillary doesn’t get to that.
5. I am seriously, compulsively enjoying Kingsley Amis’ The King’s English. Here’s one (of about a zillion) reasons why:
Thankfully
Not an illiteracy in sentences like, ‘After my long walk in the sun I thankfully put down a glass of shandy,’ where the walker/drinker is thankful. But a stark illiteracy in, say, ‘Thankfully, the shandy is well chilled,’ where nobody in particular is thankful. A word like luckily is required instead.
The use of thankfully in a dangling position, however, as in my second example just above, is not a politician’s use like that of dangling hopefully. It makes no attempt to smuggle in more than it says, even though it is a warmer sort of word than luckily. In any case, this is a use that looks likely to catch on further with or without the approval of honest writers, who will go on avoiding it.