Admittedly, how often are you making Bundt cakes?

It's time to sit down, be honest, and ask yourself: How often am I making Bundt cakes in my everyday life?

Probably not enough, which explains some of the general disappointment people feel around you. Now you can improve everyone's mood by borrowing baking pans of all sorts from the library of all places. Specifically, the Carnegie-Stout Public Library in Dubuque, Iowa.

Sure, Dubuque is a bit of a haul for most Americans to visit to borrow a pan, but it's worth it in the end once you realize Bundt cakes en masse are about to come out of your kitchen.

Carnegie-Stout Library Director Susan Henricks tells local TV station KCRG it's all about reaching out to locals. "We're trying to meet people where they're at. Getting them to come in and see what we are like," Hendricks said.

What they're like is deliciousness. Library Bundt cake deliciousness.



If you're wondering why I keep capitalizing the word "Bundt," it's because the word was trademarked by Nordic Ware in the 1950s. "Bundt" is just an Americanization of "bund," which etymologists aren't even sure is authentically German with regard to food, since "bund" largely refers to a federation or alliance. An alliance of deliciousness on our taste buds, perhaps.

Once-banned literature used to create imitation Parthenon where books were once burned.

Argentinian artist Marta Minujin used over a 170 different banned book titles to create a full-sized recreation of the Greek Parthenon at the site where Nazi Germany once burned books.

Using over 100,000 copies of those banned books--along with plastic and some steel--Minujin built the art installation in the city of Kassel, where the Nazis burned 2,000 books as part of their "Campaign Against the un-German Spirit" in 1933. At the time, mainly books by Jewish authors and individuals against fascism were lit ablaze.

Marta Minujin is clearly more productive than you or I am.

According to Metro UK, Minujin asked students at the Kassel University to comb over books to find titles that have been banned all-time. The students brought forth works that included the likes of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter collection, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

This Parthenon stuff is old hat for Minujin, though. She created a similar banned book Parthenon structure in 1983 in her native Argentina after the military dictatorship fell.



photo: EPA/Filip Singer
photo: Boris Roessler/AFP/Getty

Humans have decorated eggs for thousands of years. Just...because.

It's not just your average patron at Denny's or chicken farmers who love a good egg, as humanity has always been fascinated with them. Therefore, since it's Easter, we might as well dive into why Easter eggs exist, and why there's a bunny going around with them in a basket.


Easter Eggs:

For some unfathomable reason, humans have always taken to decorating eggs. Long before Christianity, Islam, or Judaism existed, evidence shows humans decorated ostrich eggs 60,000 years ago in parts of Africa. The Sumerians and Egyptians maintained the tradition thousands of years before Moses or Jesus arrived on the scene, and those civilizations often placed decorated eggs in graves, too.

(((shrugs))) People have been buried with weirder things.

Let's assume the Sumerians' eggs looked slightly different.

It's largely a portrayal and symbolism of vitality and birth that captivated people. This fascination with eggs continued with Christianity after the death of Jesus, as followers began dyeing eggs red as a representation of Christ's blood at his crucifixion and sacrifice for all to have eternal life.

Bloody eggs commemorating murder? Gather 'round the kids! I know I'll never look at one of those PAAS Easter egg kits the same way again.

All the allure of a crucifixion!

Likewise, for centuries eggs were banned to be eaten during the forty days of Lent leading up Easter, part of a slew of foods and drink to instill a fast. Since chickens are uncooperative rebels and still have eggs nonstop, there was always a surplus of eggs to consume by the time Easter arrived, where feasts on hoarded eggs occurred so food didn't spoil.

The Western Christian denominations rescinded the ban long ago, so your Sunday morning omelette is still safe. Eastern Orthodox churches still maintain the ban, though. This might explain why you can find a Denny's in Japan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, but nowhere Eastern Orthodox churches are popular.

Not popular around the Eastern Orthodox folks.

Many have tried to symbolize the egg in a Christian vein (despite egg popularity pre-dating Christianity by 58,000 years), suggesting the egg represents the tomb Christ's body was placed in, or, again, the potential for rebirth and eternal life. Alas, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible never jotted that egg nugget down, so take it with a grain of salt.


Easter Bunny:

Short and simple, it was the Germans who popularized the Easter Bunny myth. Since none of this egg history really makes sense, let's invite the Germans to this international party to confuse it more.

Germany has always had a distinguished history with folktales, and the appearance of rabbits or hares in those tales frequently occurred. Stories about the animals were passed down through generations, often with allusions to their--(((ahem)))--procreation abilities.

As with all things related to spring, rabbits' sexual proclivities symbolized rebirth in Northern Christian churches, so much so that the "three hares" symbol became popular as a design accent on medieval churches. With Easter occurring only in the springtime, the combination of rabbits to the holiday was a simple addition for German folklorists.

None of this creepy old greeting card should make a lick of sense to you.

Tales of the Easter Bunny were passed down through the oral tradition before German physician and botanist Georg Franck von Franckenau wrote about the tale of a hare in his 1682 work De ovis paschalibus, which was the first written mention of the Easter Bunny.

German Lutherans popularized the Easter Bunny myth as a teaching tool to children, suggesting the rabbit would come on Easter to judge children on whether they deserved to be given the ever-coveted eggs. Yes, it's just like you always thought. The Easter Bunny really is just a springtime version of Santa Claus.

It's good to be number one.

The Pennsylvania Dutch Protestants and emigrating Germans to America brought this fable of the Easter Bunny with them, calling it "Osterhase" or "Easter Hare," and American commercialization and affinity for soft, fluffy looking animals took right on over from there.


Conclusion:

None of this explains or defends the cheap plastic grass in those Easter baskets or these guys:

Harry Potter-themed restaurant is themed if Harry Potter was jonesing for some casual Italian.

MAGICAL PREP TIME!!

Pasta Wiz is decorated like a modern interpretation of an 18th-century German beer hall with good housekeeping  Hogwarts, the school Harry Potter learned the ins-and-outs of how to save the world from snub-nosed evil wizards.

While promoting the Harry Potter angle, the restaurant's website tones down the enthusiasm, lest you think they really went all out on channeling Potter-inspired food:


"While the interior of the Pasta Wiz flagship resembles a wizard's enchanted lair, the real magic shines through in the prep time of their dishes: approximately 3 minutes."


Real magic! The true Hogwarts never understood fantastic customer service when it came to a quality bolognese.

Get on it, Hagrid! Stop being a deadbeat!

91-year old museum visitor fills in crossword puzzle that's actually a piece of modern art.

The wave of criminal shenanigans by elderly people has hit the museum world.

Case in point: An elderly 91-year old German woman recently visiting Nuremberg’s Neues Museum saw a blank crossword puzzle on a wall, beside it which had a sign saying "Insert words."

Maybe it was age talking or a stunning susceptibility to do as signs command, but the 91-year old threw caution to the wind and proceeded to fill in the crossword puzzle with an abundance of words. The small problem was that the crossword puzzle was actually modern artist Arthur Köpcke's 1977 creation "Reading work-piece," valued at everyday affordable price of $90,000.

"The lady told us she had taken the notes as an invitation to complete the crossword," a police spokesman said, according to The Telegraph. True. You can't deny the allure of a good crossword puzzle invitation. It's like Tinder for the elderly.

The Telegaph also added, "If the museum didn’t want people to follow the artist’s instructions, they should put up a sign to make that clear, she told police."

Grade-A sass from a 91-year old grandma who gives no you-know-whats at this point. She's thisclose to doodling all over Picasso's Guernica any day now.

NFL wide receiver has a punctuation first.

An umlaut!

You know what an umlaut is probably, and it's not that little fleshy thing hanging at the back of your throat. That's a uvula. Common mistake.

An umlaut is the punctuation mark of two dots above a letter found in many European languages, like German. It's sort of like if a letter had its own uvula, you might say.

Which brings us to German footballer Moritz Böhringer, who was just drafted by the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. The young rookie assumed he would have to spell his last name as Boehringer because the league's strict uniform policy forbids non-English punctuation. Even his Twitter handle can't manage an umlaut.

Except, for reasons unknown, the NFL changed their position.

Böhringer, not Boehringer.@MoBoehringer received approval from the @NFL to add the umlaut on his jersey. pic.twitter.com/w5oefFZZtT

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) May 11, 2016

First Poland, now football jerseys. Germany never quits invading.

Poll: 4 in 10 Brits don't like or understand Shakespeare.

60% approve. That's a passing grade, Bill!

18,000 people from 15 nations responded to a poll for the British Council to determine the Bard's economic impact in his homeland and abroad, and it found that English people, much like English weather, are sort of damp. Somehow, the world's most famous writer homegrown in their own land is disliked by 40% of the population.

A collected response from the 15 polled nations shows that 76% of respondents like Shakespeare's sonnets or plays overall.

Countries like India, China, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa have higher approval rates than England in the end.

What country is least favorable to Shakespeare though? That would be Germany, where only 44% replied they like his work and 42% said it was worthwhile.

Germany's hatred actually makes total sense in that Shakespeare often left at least one or two people alive at the end of his dramas, and no German wants that.

Germany to finally publish 'Mein Kampf.' Millions about to fall asleep.

Looks like someone else read Mein Kampf.

Germany has spent the better part of the last 80-years trying to smother any acknowledgment of their Nazi past. This includes banning the publication of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's roughly 600-page rant written decades before World War II.

Indeed, Germany was granted the copyright to the book after the war by Allies--and Germany chose to make sure publication never happened within its borders during that time. Copyright law states the holder of the copyright owns it for 70 years after the writer's death. Now, with the 70th anniversary of Hitler's death upon us, the copyright is set to expire--and the German Institute for Contemporary History intends to publish Mein Kampf for the first time in the country.

It won't simply be a basic republication of the book though. German law also forbids anything related to Nazism that isn't heavily annotated to be critical of the regime, propaganda, and heinous actions undertaken then. Thus, Hitler's 600-page snoozer* of a book will now be inflated to nearly 2,000 pages, filled with notes, commentaries, and annotations regarding all "lies, half-truths and vicious tirades," the institute says.

The book is estimated to cost $63.




*Buy Mein Kampf in person at a bookstore sometime. You'll never feel more awkward purchasing a book at a Barnes & Noble than you will when you slide that one across the counter to the middle-aged woman with glasses on the bridge of her nose channeling her inner librarian, as she gazes up at you briefly to make sure you aren't shady. [I was doing a school project on World War II.] Toe-curling awkwardness, where you'll want to say--loudly--"I'm not an anti-Semite! It's research! I swear!" while you start to sweat and question why you didn't just buy the damn thing online. To make matters worse, Hitler was as good of a writer as he was as a human being--which is to say horrible, horrible, horrible. If you find Ambien, Lunesta, or any other prescription medication isn't helping you sleep, that alcohol doesn't do the trick, you can take solace in the fact that you'll pass out from sheer boredom five pages into reading Mein Kampf.

This is all to say that Germany is about to unleash a wave of book-induced narcolepsy upon its people.

Know Your Obscure Halloween Candy: Raisinets

With Halloween coming soon, that means only one thing really: candy.

Anyone who trick-or-treated as a child knows that there's always one or two houses that dish out some obscure candy. So, between now and October 31st, we'll take quick looks at obscure candies (and some popular ones as well), just so you know what exactly you're getting yourself into.


Today:  Raisinets

Looks like someone is about to make my candy shiny!

What it's made of: Varies slightly based on where it's made. Generally milk chocolate covering a raisin. (Please tell me that was a given for you.) But many varieties include a lovely coating of shellac to give the tiny choco-grape a shiny glow.

Do you know what shellac actually is? No--no, you probably don't, other than knowing you've heard the word before. Because you've been a great disappointment in your parents' life and never got that medical/engineering/science degree.

Shellac is a resin secreted from the female lac bug--and used in many functions of furniture and home design. Primer, varnish, sanding sealants--they all use shellac. And, most likely, so does your chocolate-covered raisin of choice. Those little misshapen chocolate balls will now remind you more of poop than ever before.

Who owns it:  Nestlé

Background:  Chocolate-covered raisins have no concrete origin story. Mesoamerican cultures threw cocoa on everything in sight hundreds centuries ago. If it was edible, there's a solid chance some Mesoamerican group decided to dabble in a little culinary magic and cover it with cocoa.

For the western/European world, it's believed the chocolate-covered raisin came from what is now modern day Germany, where a folk tale mentions "kleine Schokokugeln," which apparently means "little chocolate balls." (It's a known fact you can never say anything in German and have it sound quaint or lovely. "Little chocolate balls" ends up sounding like a death threat or demand from a dictator.)

A fairly common children's German prayer also gives a shout-out to the chocolate balls, but in more detail: "Meine kleine Schokokugeln, oh, wie edel man die Früchte hängen nach unten zu verherrlichen. Mein Weinberg weint mit guter Laune an diesem Geschenk des Himmels." If Hansel and Gretel didn't just pop into your head while reading that, I don't know what to say. Apparently it translates to "My little chocolate balls, oh, how nobly you glorify the fruit hanging down. My vineyard weeps with good cheer at this gift from heaven."

You see that? God even gives gifts of chocolate around the holidays. You're not cheap for giving out $5 bags of Lindt.

The American Raisinet hit the marketplace in 1927, slowly becoming a staple at movie theaters that weep with good cheer at the sight of your wallet. The following ad from 1990 is disturbing on a variety of levels, not the least of which is how a creepy mother with a seductive smile is apparently making it rain Raisinets on small children.



It's all fun and games until little Suzy loses an eye from a Rainset coming in hot at 400mph.

In Britain, a chocolate brand called Paynes Poppets dominates the marketplace, but Paynes--like the Mesoamericans--will cover most anything in chocolate, including raisins. Mesoamericans = Modern day Brits.

In Canada, something called a Glosette is their chocolate-covered raisin of choice. Because Canada lost all imagination and just embraces shiny shellac at this point.

What it tastes like:  The United Nations of candy.

Halloween Trick-or-Treat Grade:  C+

If someone gives you Raisinets while trick-or-treating, yell "Ich bin ein Berliner!" at them. Keep people guessing.

German organization offers free college education to those seeking asylum in the country.

Kashif Kazmi, a 21-year old Shiite Muslim from Pakistan, fled his homeland in May to seek a better life somewhere in Europe. After traveling through nine countries, he ended up in Germany, seeking asylum and protection from Taliban-controlled regions that put the minority Shiites in danger. Kazmi's sisters and father still remain back home. "And I'm so homesick," he tells NPR.

In order to find a way to bring the rest of his family to Germany, Kazmi needs to pursue higher learning--and an opportunity might have arisen for just that

Kiron University is a Berlin-based online program aimed to refugees. As NPR notes:

"Kiron University students take courses online for the first two years, working toward a bachelor's degree while they apply for asylum and acquire the paperwork and qualifications needed to enter a partner university, local to where they are, to complete the degree."

Because he is not a German citizen, nor does he have that above-mentioned required paperwork as an asylum-seeker to act as a foreign student studying in the nation, Kazmi is denied to attend local universities. Yet, with Kiron University, that changes the equation.

As Markus Kressler, co-founder of Kiron, notes, upwards of 50% of third year students leave their schooling, opening up seats which random universities want filled. And who has their asylum papers filed usually after two years? Refugees, who should have two years of online classes under their belt as well. It all makes sense, assuming Kiron can attain the funding to supply scholarships for these students--which is what Kressler is working on.

In the meantime, Kazmi is all set and will be amongst the first to try the Kiron Program.

As he told NPR, ""Today I am a refugee, but tomorrow, I hope so, I will be in the position to be able to support others."

Linguistics professor argues to eliminate gender pronouns "he" and "she" in favor of "ze" or "they."

Let's cut to the chase of Professor John McWhorter's argument:


"We are opening up to the idea that binary conceptions of gender are unnecessarily rigid and don't correspond to the self-image of a great many people, and even that people's sense of their gender may not correspond to their biological sex. In this new world, a bland opposition between "he" and "she" seems increasingly antique, and even insulting, to many."


Yada, yada, yada...after explaining how people have learned to say "Billy and I" as opposed to "Billy and me," Prof. McWhorter continues:


"Now, I would hope that pronouns like "ze" would not be imposed with the knuckle-rapping and contemptuous indignation with which the Billy and I rule has been promulgated. However, there is room for presenting "ze" as a matter not of fashion, but of basic civility -- people must think of new pronouns as the proper thing to do, not as a stunt."


In reality, "ze" just sounds like a Hollywood stereotype of a Nazi soldier, with a chest full of medals, holding a baton, as he paces across a room while espousing some view.

"Ze problem wiz ze gender pronounz iz that ze binary conzeptions are unezzezarily reegid."

Yeah. Let's try "they" first and see how that flies, eh?

Use this pre-written excused absence note, take the day off work, and watch the U.S.-Germany World Cup game.

Jurgen Klinsmann, the U.S. Men's National Team's head coach, Tweeted out an excused absence letter for employers to give their workers a day off to watch the U.S.-Germany World Cup game this afternoon.

Written like a doctor's note, Klinsmann acknowledges that absences will reduce productivity, but also encourages the boss to take a day off, too.

If only.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's prayer for those invading Normandy, D-Day, June 6, 1944.

On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy occurred. Seventy years ago today, the largest invasion human history ever witnessed happened in an act to reclaim the European continent from Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany, an attempt overcoming one of the most sickening displays of death, murder, and injustice civilization has ever encountered.

That evening, during one of his radio broadcasts (popularly known as 'fireside chats'), President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the nation and offered the following speech and accompanying prayer for Allied soldiers invading--and dying--in the cause to overcome Hitler:

Audio of the speech is included here:

"My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces.


Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen."


312 days later, Germany surrendered. With it, World War II in Europe ended.

Germans are heavily borrowing English words, and this has some German linguistics experts worried.

Germany has borrowed or adopted 10,000 English words into their own language since 1990. At least that's what NPR authoritatively says, as they apparently stood listening at the Berlin Wall as it fell and haven't stopped counting since.

Holger Klatte, the spokesman for the German Language Society, explains his concern to NPR.

"Languages do tend to affect one another, but the influence of English in Germany is so strong that Germans are having a hard time advancing their own vocabulary," he says.

Klatte says that can be a problem for Germans who may not know any English.

"The second world war and Nazi times have led Germans to downplay the importance of their language," he says. "Unlike the French, Finns and Poles — they promote their languages a lot more than we do."


If I'm Finnish, I'm suing whoever's promoting my language and demanding a refund. Even the Muppets chose the Swedish Chef over anything Finnish.

Anatol Stefanowitsch, an English linguistics professor at the Free University of Berlin, tells NPR that Germans are just overemphasizing the matter. As Stefanowitsch notes, roughly 25% of the German language comes from borrowed words. English, by comparison, borrows 40-80% of its words from other languages--and it's a healthy, robust language doing just fine.

"No language has ever disappeared because it borrowed words," Stefanowitsch says.

Quite true. It might become a hot mess like English, but it never disappeared.

In other news, Big Brother knows you're reading 'Mein Kampf' and/or are cheap.

Having a jones for failed Austrian watercolorists with bad mustaches?

Be careful what sort of books you're downloading to your eReader because, as The Guardian notes, most have a terms of service that document what you're reading, free or not.

Fascist mass-murderers memoirs aren't the only thing they track. They track your penchant for Fifty Shades of Grey, too.

Admittedly, you like some weird stuff.

'Mein Kampf' is a bestselling ebook on iTunes and Amazon.

As Vocativ.com states it:

"Or to put it another way: On Amazon, there are more than 100 versions of Mein Kampf for sale in every conceivable print and audio format, from antique hardbacks to brand-new paperbacks. Of those 100 iterations, just six are e-books—yet all six of them rank among the 10 best-selling versions overall. And those are just the ones people are paying for."

In other words, you're a cheap Fascist.

Famous Writers Shirtless: Hermann Hesse (mildly nsfw)

A fleeting internet meme happened of writers in underpants--but it passed too quickly to be truly appreciated.

So, occasionally we'll post some literary beefcake for your perusal.

Today:  Hermann Hesse

Most inappropriate impersonation of Baby New Year ever.

You know how Germans roll. A little mountain climbing, a little nudity--the simple pleasures in life.

That lack of body hair really reduces the wind drag at certain altitudes, creating a quicker ascent and a more leisurely climb.





source: Poetswithoutclothes

Fashionable Words: Nincompoop

[Sometimes words die out of fashion. But sometimes those words are good words, words with a certain appeal that can't be denied forever. Those words should be brought back into fashion, used frequently and used often. These are those words.]

Word:
Nincompoop


Definition:  noun
A foolish person; an individual lacking common sense.

Origin:
No respectable dictionary will dare say with confidence. "Origin uncertain" is about as hard edge as they'll get.

Samuel Johnson--he being the grandaddy of all modern dictionaries--was throwing things against the wall and seeing what stuck when he wrote that nincompoop came from the Latin non compos, usually seen in legal terms like non compos mentis (not mentally competent).

Samuel Johnson double-checks his Latin.

Sounds legit, right? Not so, said the Oxford English Dictionary, as they picked a fight with a dead man and called out Johnson decades after his passing, suggesting his logic didn't account for variations of nincompoop that were around in the 1600 and 1700s. Today, the OED believes there's a chance nincompoop's origins come from the Dutch, especially the poop side of the word.

Poep, a 17th century Dutch derogatory word talking trash about Germans, was bandied about and adopted by English folk. Yes, poep gives us our modern use of poop. Today, whenever you casually mention the need to take a bowel movement, you're actually speaking ill of 17th century Germans. Remember that.

The nincom side of the word is equally obscure, with little proof of how it originates. The OED subtly suggests it might come from the French nicodème (a simple person), which in turn comes from Nicodemite--a Middle French term that describes someone who is a timid adherent, especially religiously (think: Protestants in Catholic countries, or vice versa, 400 years ago), with allusions to the ancient gentleman named Nicodemus.

Why does the name Nicodemus sound familiar to you? No, he wasn't an early mathematician or third-rate mobster in a Martin Scorsese flick. In the bible, Nicodemus appears during the Gospel of John as a Jewish ruler who showed favor to Jesus Christ, most notably visiting Jesus at night to learn about his teachings. Later, after Christ's crucifixion, Nicodemus is mentioned as helping remove the body of Jesus from the cross.

That's right. Nincompoop somehow potentially combines Christ's crucifixion with the Dutch lingo for feces.

Most obscure UrbanDictionary.com definitions of nincompoop:

4.  A braindead self important little turd given an impressive sounding job title to keep him blissfully ignorant of the world shattering nefarious machinations of his keepers. Derived from army slang 'non-com' short for non commissioned officer.

13.  Slang term for anyone who is a devoted fan of Nine Inch Nails, or NIN, usually only used by other fans.






Used in a sentence:

1. That nincompoop used dirty dish water to fill up the coffee maker.


Why you should use nincompoop in your daily life:

It makes you sound like a nebbish academic, circa 1920.


Word Awesomeness Scale (1-to-5):
Four.

It's the only time you can say 'poop' without sounding like a kindergartener.

University mistakenly emails entire 37,000 student body, tells them they're unenrolled.

You know when you send an email and wish you could take it back? Yeah, this is kind of like that.

Dresden University of Technology, in Germany, mistakenly emailed the entire student body that they were unenrolled. The email stated the following:

"Your logins will be locked in twelve days. This is happening because you have been unenrolled as a student, your contract is up or your guest logins are no longer valid. Please ensure you have saved any information that may be contained within these logins."

The email was sent on a Friday, but wasn't corrected until the following Monday, leaving panicked students in limbo for the entire weekend.

Kim-Astrid Magister, a university spokesperson, claimed the mistake was human error while managing a software program, and that no students were unenrolled.

Errors with computer software--at a university of technology.

Sounds like a solid education.





photo: Wikicommons

Ancient language spoken for the first time in thousands of years.

All Indo-European languages spoken today descended from one primary source. That primary language--known today as the Proto-Indo-European (or PIE) language--is believed to have been spoken between 4500-2500 BC, yet there has never been any written text to go off (our ancient ancestors slacked a bit in this regard), and obviously no recordings of the language spoken (our ancient ancestors slacked a bit in this regard, too).

But as Archeology magazine tells us, what that language sounded like is no longer a mystery. University of Kentucky's Dr. Andrew Byrd used a reconstructed alphabet of PIE that was created in 1868 by German linguist August Schleicher and read a fable (also created by Schleicher) to finally put the language to sound.

And what you get is this:

While no one can be certain if the pronunciations are quite perfect (linguists are sticklers on these things), Byrd says his recreation is "a very educated approximation."

In case you're wondering what Byrd is saying in PIE while reciting the Sheep and Horses fable, Archeology supplies us with this translation:

---------------
The Sheep and the Horses

A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.
---------------

What can we take away from this fable? Sheep are sensitive. Also cold.