Edgar Allan Poe

Three Quotes from Edgar Allan Poe

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the nights have grown colder, the days shorter, and the leaves are starting to change. It’s my favorite time of the year. I figure it’s the perfect moment to share some of my favorite quotes from the king of gothic romanticism and inventor of the detective novel, Edgar Allan Poe.


“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Eleonora


“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket


“Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.”

The Mystery of Marie Rogêt


Do you have a favorite Edgar Allan Poe quote? Is there a story of his which you love? Let me know in the comments!

Graphing the distribution of English letters towards the beginning, middle or end of words

Graphing the Distribution of English Letters

I came across this old post on prooffreader.com from 2014 from data scientist and developer David Taylor and found it fascinating. I figured my readers would as well.

Below you’ll see a graphic visualization on the distribution of English letters towards the beginning, middle, or end of words. The data set comes from the Brown Corpus in the Natural Language Toolkit instead of a dictionary, this great because the results are weighted for usage based on the frequency of use.


Graphing the distribution of English letters towards the beginning, middle or end of words


If you’re a data nerd like me, there are a lot more details in the original post that explain these findings. If you want to learn more about the methodology, then be sure to check out the extended version of the post on prooffreaderplus. I appreciated Taylors final thought:

The most common word in the English language is “the”, which makes up about 6% of most corpuses (sorry, corpora). But according to these graphs, the most representative word is “toe”.

I’m glad the word that ended up representing English the most is somehow “toe”—for whatever reason I find it oddly fitting for our mongrel language.

Friday Link Pack 11-20-2015

Friday Link Pack 11/20/2015

It’s Friday! That means it’s time for the Friday Link Pack, my weekly post covering topics such as writing, art, current events, and random weirdness. Some of these links I mentioned on Twitter, if you’re not already following me there, please do! Do you have a link I should feature in the upcoming link pack? Click here to email me and let me know! (Include a website so I can link to you as well.) Let’s get to it…

WRITING:

Five Years
Author M.S. Force reflects on the last five years of her career when she decided to take her rejected novel True North and step into indie publishing.

Alan Moore’s Advice To Unpublished Authors
“If you write every day, you’re a writer.” In this quick video recorded at St James Library, Northampton, UK, Alan Moore gives some advice to new and unpublished writers.

20 Misused English Words That Make Smart People Look Silly
Is it affect or effect, ironic or coincidental, do you get nauseous or nauseated? They are fair questions. Quartz sets the record straight on a few words people get wrong all the time.

Anne Frank’s Diary Gains ‘Co-Author’ In Copyright Move
Copyright laws are weird.

ART:

13 Miles Of Typography On Broadway, From A To Z
If you’re a writer, you should appreciate type. After all, typography is the communication channel to share your worlds with readers. In this piece for Hopes & Fears, Ksenya Samarskaya examines the type one finds along New York’s famous Broadway.

Meet The Designer Whose Collection Will Make You Scream
Costume or fashion? That is the question asked by designer Eda Yorulmazoglu in her latest, and wonderfully strange, collection.

Meet the Vendor: Saltstone Ceramics
My friend Sarah recently opened Saltstone Ceramics, a pottery studio here in Seattle. The work she has been creating is fantastic. (Kari-Lise and I own quite a few pieces now.) In this interview, Sarah discusses her journey, her work, and lots more. Find out more about her work at her website.

RANDOM:

The Return of #FeedCthulhu
Ross Lockheart, of the weird fiction press Word Horde, is giving away ebooks of their latest anthology, Cthulhu Fhtagn! All you have to do is donate to your local food bank and tweet about it. Three lucky winners will win personalized autographed copies as well. Details in the post!

Our Generation Ships Will Sink
Sci-fi great, Kim Stanley Robinson, dives into the complexity inherent in the ideas surrounding generation ships and why he thinks they are not only impractical but impossible outside the realm of fiction. Great article.

Is Tom Brady A Fancy Dog?
Deadspin asks the tough questions.

Your Jetpack Is Here
No, really. I’m serious. Check out this incredible video of the JB-9, the world’s only true jetpack. Find out more at Jetpack Aviation’s website. The future is now people. The future… is now.

WEIRD WIKIPEDIA:

Prostitution Among Animals
“A few studies have been used to promote the idea that prostitution exists among different species of animals such as Adélie penguins and chimpanzees. Penguins use stones for building their nests. Based on a 1998 study, media reports stated that a shortage of stones led female Adélie penguins to trade sex for stones. Some pair-bonded female penguins copulate with males who are not their mates and then take pebbles for their own nests.”

H.P. LOVECRAFT STORY OF THE WEEK:

Under The Pyramids/Imprisoned with the Pharaohs
Written with Harry Houdini in 1924, the story is a fictionalized account of an allegedly true experience of the escape artist. What mysteries does Houdini find? Well, you’ll just have to read to find out.

GIF OF THE WEEK:

Why... hello there.

E-reader is now a real word

PWC PROJECTS CONSUMER EBOOK MARKET SURPASSING PRINT BY 2017

Mark your e-calendars, the Oxford English Dictionary has added e-reader as an official word!

e-reader, n.

  1. A person who reads electronic text; spec. a reader of an electronic version of a book, newspaper, etc., esp. as distinguished from a reader of the paper version.
  2. A hand-held electronic device used for reading e-books or other text in digital form, esp. one intended primarily for this use; (also occas.) an application designed for this purpose.

Other recent additions: big data, crowdsourcing, mouseover, and redirect. See what else is new this quarter over at the OED’s blog.