My kids’ schools never stopped class to listen to President Bush‘s inauguration speech; but my sense in Connecticut is that many public and private schools stopped normally scheduled classes to listen to Obama‘s inauguration speech. News articles suggested that many schools considered his inauguration address a teachable moment. The empiricist in me wonders whether this phenomenon is more pronounced in . . .
From a reader named Raymond DeCampo comes this interesting, poignant bleg. (Read up on blegs here; send your own blegs here; and see some other new Freakonomics-coined words here.) My wife and I recently undertook the task of securing our son’s future in the event we would not be there to secure it for him. In the process I realized . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with quotations — send it along here. Reader Jeff Ritter poses the following question: So I have been using this quote that supposedly came from Alexander Fraser . . .
Last week’s quotation bleg, asking for suggestions of notable recent U.S. Supreme Court quotes, elicited this response from Jerry E. Stephens, quoting now retired U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley (Western District of Oklahoma):
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with quotations — send it along here. Turning from comic strips to a weightier arena, I would welcome suggestions of notable quotations from United States Supreme Court . . .
Freakonomics reader Presh Talwalkar, author of the Mind Your Decisions blog, wonders why there’s no holiday-gift guide for economists: I see many practical applications to such a list. It could help students give gifts to professors, businesses give gifts to hired economists, etc. Perhaps this list would reduce the “deadweight loss” of Christmas gifts. The problem, of course, is that . . .
A reader named Evan Schumacher wrote in with an interesting bleg. (Read about blegs here and send your own here.) Tucked inside his bleg is the part that tickled me the most: a website Evan created to tell him whether it’s worth it to watch a basketball game he’d recorded. Anyway, I’ll give my answer below, after his bleg. I . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with quotations — send it along here. In my last bleg, I asked for the most famous quotations of all time from comic books or graphic novels. . . .
We received an interesting bleg from Martin Saavedra, who is studying international economics and finance at the Catholic University of America and plans to start an economics Ph.D. next fall. He is interested in a subject we’ve written about before — the utility of voting — although he is after a more personal set of information, namely: why do you . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with quotations — send it along here. I would welcome suggestions of what are the most famous quotations of all time from comic books or graphic novels. . . .
Photo: That Guy Who’s Going Places Here’s a desperate bleg from a reader named Theo Bryan. (Send your own blegs here.) Hey, I am living with my stepfather and don’t pay rent or food expenses. I am not pressured to find work from my stepdad or my mother, who lives in another city for work. I fear I have no . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with quotations — send it along here. I would welcome suggestions of famous quotations from Spanish or Latin American literature, history, or culture, particularly if they are . . .
From a reader named Eric Robinson comes this interesting bleg. (Click here for blegging information, and send your own requests here.) Photo: Uriba When I’m at a party and get asked what I do (I am an architect), I always hear one of the same five responses: + What kind of architecture do you do? + Hey, you can design . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with quotations — send it along here. Photo: foundphotoslj Recently, after a Wall Street Journal article named The Yale Book of Quotations as the second-most-essential reference book . . .
I’m moving to New Orleans in a month (and continuing as editor of this blog from there). I’ve gotten mixed opinions about quality of life from people who live there, but they all agree on two things: the food is spectacular; the weather is sweltering — and obviously, at times, extremely threatening. So for readers who live in the Crescent . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own, send it along here. Thanks to all who posted recent advertising slogans for my last bleg. Let me belatedly acknowledge the comments of some by agreeing that, yes, television is probably the one among . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own, send it along here. Enough with 21st-century movie lines. Let me now move on to 21st-century popular song lyrics. Here we face the same issues of qualitative decline as with movie lines, I believe. . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own, send it along here. Thanks to all for the hundreds of responses to the movie lines bleg. I was looking for 21st-century quotes, but there was some confusion on the issue. My sense is . . .
Our resident quote bleggar Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is back with another request. If you have a bleg of your own — it needn’t have anything to do with famous quotations — send it along here. Now, before you consider Fred’s latest request below, just ask yourself: Are you having a laugh? Thanks to the . . .
Here’s the latest guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here; send us your own bleg requests here. The Yale Book of Quotations has a large section of the most famous television catchphrases. The list is stronger on pre-1980 catchphrases than post-1980 catchphrases, perhaps reflecting the fact that my . . .
A reader from Boston named Robert Veneman-Hughes writes in with a bleg request on a subject we’ve wondered about before here: gas siphoning. Here’s what I wrote not long ago at the end of a post about an increase in theft of catalytic converters: I haven’t read many articles lately about people who steal gas out of people’s tanks, even . . .
Here’s the latest guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here; send us your own bleg requests here. The Motley Fool used my blegging for modern proverbs as an inspiration to write about “investing proverbs.” Wall Street is indeed a rich source of memorable quotations, including: “Buy on the . . .
From a reader named Joe McCright of Alexandra, La., comes the following bleg. Please help him out in the comments section. Past blegs can be found here; you can send your own bleg requests here. I teach Spanish to kids in pre-K through 4th grade, and I play music of the Spanish-speaking world to expose them to aspects of the . . .
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here. Send us your own bleg requests here. For years I have been posing a question about the term “bargaining chip” that no one has yet answered. This is widely assumed to be a poker metaphor, but I . . .
We like to give readers the chance to ask their own bleg — i.e., to use this blog to beg for ideas or information. Here’s an interesting one from a reader named Philip . I look forward to your input; you can send your own bleg suggestions here. Many cities around the country have parking problems in their urban neighborhoods. . . .
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here. Send us your own bleg requests here. Thanks to the hundreds of people who have responded to my blegging for contributions of modern proverbs over the past two weeks. Now I turn to something that may have . . .
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here. Last week I blegged for examples of modern proverbs, like “Sh*t happens,” “It takes a village to raise a child,” “Different strokes for different folks,” “The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” “There ain’t no . . .
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. His past blegs can be found here. Last week about 100 people responded to my blegging for examples of famous computer proverbs. In general, proverb dictionaries are filled with traditional sayings like “A stitch in time saves nine,” ignoring modern proverbs. Yet modern proverbs . . .
Here’s the most recent guest bleg from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. In recent weeks I have blegged for information about the origins of famous computer sayings, including proverbs such as “Garbage in, garbage out,” and, “Information wants to be free.” Computer culture seems to be a rich source of new proverbs such as these. For . . .
Here’s the latest bleg request from Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. You can find his past blegs here and you can send blegs of your own here. The past few weeks I have been blegging for information about famous computer quotations to help with future editions of the recently published Yale Book of Quotations. Can anyone . . .