Hapex'd

The word of the day is "hapex legomenon." It means a word that is found only once in the written record of a language, the writings of an author, or a single work. It's a great word for use by linguists and philologists. A fantastic example of a hapex legomenon is "honorificabilitudinatibus," a Latin word used once in the works of Shakespeare. It is also considered one of the longest words in the English language, considered such because it was used in a Shakespearean work (see here).

Now, I can't imagine this standard would be applied to any other author there would be a lot more words in the English language. It really shows how silly is the amount of reverence given to the works of Shakespeare. However, as long as the standard is just shown to works of Shakespeare, I believe that any word connected to Shakespearean works should be given the status of a word in the English language. For example, "Liikemaailmassa" is half of the title of a Finnish adaptation of Hamlet (Hamlet Liikemaailmassa, or "Hamlet Goes Business"), and as such is a word in English as well.

This Libby Nonsense

So much has been said in the past couple days. I don't have much to add, just that the entire republican party should be barred from ever using the phrase "tough on crime" ever again, and this precedent should be used to bring down any republican-implemented mandatory minimums policy on the books anywhere. Hell, by Bush's standards of crime and punishment, shouldn't Libby be executed?