“My girlfriend has left me. After four years together, she has left me. It happens, I know. It happens to us all, and my turn has come. This time however I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to throw everything out and start afresh. My second-hand life is for sale; I’m starting a new one. Come and buy. I’m selling up to free myself of all ties.”. (Matteo Caccia)

I break an unwritten rule, presenting something in Italian. It’s worth it.

Vendo Tutto (Everything for Sale): a radio program written and hosted by Matteo Caccia on Radio 24.

You can listen the podcast and the archive of the previous episodes. The sale, real, was on Ebay.
The signature tune is: Ten Millions Slaves by Otis Taylor.

Above: Matteo Caccia, photo from his page on Ebay, detail.

Read more…

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.”

(Oscar Wilde, Reality Is Unrealistic)

“Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés.

Tropes transcend television. They exist in life. Since a lot of art, especially the popular arts, does its best to reflect life, tropes are likely to show up everywhere.”.

TV Tropes: “a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction.”.

“A straw man is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern:

1. Topic A is under discussion.
2. Topic B is introduced under guise of being equivalent to topic A.
3. A participant (usually the one who introduced B) attacks B, as if it were A.”.

(from Wikipedia)

“Ever wondered how a word is pronounced?
Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you.
You can also help others recording your pronunciations in your own language.”.
Forvo: all the words in the world, pronounced.

Bombsville Any kind of failure in life. End A word to signify that someone or something is the very best. Player Term for a man who is a gambler by nature, who makes friends easily, and never gives up trying. Rain As in “I think it’s going to rain” indicating that it is time to leave a dull gathering or party.

“Part of Sinatra’s manly and cool presence came from the way he talked.
It not only created a magnetic attraction, but simply sounded damn cool.”.
Talk Like Frank Sinatra. From The Art of Manliness.

Grok

To understand something intuitively or by empathy.

“We must look to Robert Anson Heinlein for the origins of this word, which he invented for his science-fantasy book Stranger in a Strange Land in 1961.
In this, Valentine Michael Smith, a human being raised on Mars, returns to Earth with psi powers given him by the Martians and is transformed into a messiah.”.
(Michael Quinion)

worldwidewords.org: “Michael Quinion writes on international English from a British viewpoint.”.

“The Daily English Show is an internet show for English students, English teachers and those interested in the English language and language study. You can watch the show on many sites. You can also watch it on your video ipod.”.

The Daily English Show, by Sarah Lilburn.

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“It is hoped that exposing these tactics will help muzzle the growing abuse in our conversational landscape.”.

Conversational Terrorism: How NOT to Talk!, by Dean and Laura VanDruff.

This or That

“It is not a question of (this) or (that), but rather it is an issue of (whatever it is you want to say).”.

Even You

“Even you should be able to grasp the next point.”.

Distorted Active Listening

“If I hear you correctly, your point is…(get it all wrong).”.

“The intricacies of human language may have fouled them up, or perhaps unfortunate slips of the tongue led them to ignominy. Whatever the case, there’s a lot to laugh at.”.

Things People Said. A RinkWorks production.

Some examples:

Kids’ Ideas About Love

“Lovers will just be staring at each other and their food will get cold.
Other people care more about the food.”.
Brad, age 8

The Language Barrier

“Please do not feed the animals.
If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.”.
A sign in a Budapest zoo

Warning Labels

“Do not use for drying pets.”.
In the manual for a microwave oven

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body.
Then I realized who was telling me this.”.
(Emo Phillips)

“A.Word.A.Day includes a vocabulary word, its definition, pronunciation information with audio clip, etymology, usage example, quotation, and other interesting tidbits about words to subscribers every day.

You can think of it as a word trek where we explore strange new words.
Words are usually selected around a theme every week.”.
(Anu Garg)