Flossophy Friday January 17

January 17, 2020

Happy Tromping Around, Fellow Snowshoers,

As we slog through a slow news week, we are reminded by our in-house Chronolab™ that the experiential length of a year fluctuates according to the point size of headline fonts: the slower the news cycle, the smaller the average headline, and the longer the year. Staff is worried that if nothing keeps happening, this year could last into the next decade.

So in the spirit of avoidance, we hereby consider the matter of length-in-letters rather than length-in-duration: let’s continue our reader-inspired romp with long words, most recently hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (yes, it’s a word, in case you missed it two weeks ago). Well, fine, says Tom Kelley of Morro Bay, how about a word that takes over three hours to pronounce? Check out sesquipedalia (Yes, oy, it’s a word, too.).

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50611/longest-word-in-the-world

And again in terms of diversionary durations during slow news cycles, consider the matter of length of impact of a word, with these random examples on the Hope vs. Horror spectrum of the human experience.

Hope
Sapiosexual: Sexually attracted to highly intelligent people. (Would we improve the species if this caught on?)

Horror

Taphophobia: The fear of being mistaken for dead and then buried. Thanks for sharing, Edgar Allen Poe, from everyone who needs a nightmare!

On that happy note, your support team here at Flossophy delivers with sophisticated methodology for coping with long yearism:

Fictionary Friday: Words You Need. Whether you know it or not.

Chronsty (kronn stee) Noun: When you don’t have time to learn patience.

In a sentence: Journalist Hugh Kaliptis was so unnerved by the lack of news that he suffered an acute attack of chronsty and shouted, "NOTHING HAPPENED would make a great headline!"

Wikipedia Friday Favorite:
In honor of the intersection of curiosity and logarithmically expanding human knowledge, we offer a weekly favorite obscure Wikipedia page. Even though it’s been a slow news week, let’s revisit a wildly popular list of muddy thinking – just in case the news flow might accelerate one day into a tsunami that engulfs the U.S. Senate and Lev Parnas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Fizzdom Friday: from our collection of favorite quotes.

"The middle of the day is a bad time to try to get anything done." – Staff

Friday Fluff:

Two Announcements for Week 53, but who's counting? (We never do "Announcements" but were inspired, again, by the dearth of news.)

1.) Our famous Math Department got excited about the Hope vs. Horror Spectrum above (not sure why, but that’s math for ya) and suggested that we put out feelers for a new study on the Candyass / Badass spectrum. This is your chance to send in raw data, People!

2.) Next week, get ready for a change in form and content, first in a series of deviations from our "Formal" Flossophy Friday "Format". Surprise!

Write if you (do) or (do not) need some news.

Yours in hope and horror,
Jonathan
www.jonathanmarcus.org

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PPPS: Access the complete archive of past Flossophy Fridays, from the very beginning.