Wild Pages

11h

If I could draw, I think I'd draw small titty anime versions of big titty anime girls. Just to desaturate the market a bit.

@jesszafarris.com, and @robwords.com watching your woodland words video and...the European badger is scientifically "Meles meles" or Latinized Greek for "badger badger" and the American one is "Taxidea taxus" or Medieval Latin for "badger-like badger."...

...Honey badgers are "Mellivora capensis" or "honey eater from the Cape." The Cape in question being The Cape of Good Hope where they were first observed.

Also, technically, every wolf is a wolf-dog. Because...Canis lupus

@jesszafarris.com and @robwords.com can I just say...one of my new favorite facts is that "pine cone" was created because "pineapple" became so associated with the new fancy expensive fruit that...it was easier to come up with the new term. And they were fancy and pricey back in the day.

en.wikipedia.orgTiffany problem - Wikipedia

@robwords.com and @jesszafarris.com A suggestion for a Words Unraveld: The Tiffany Problem which: refers to the issue where a historical or realistic fact seems anachronistic or unrealistic to modern audiences of historical fiction, despite being accurate. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany...

@robwords.com and @jesszafarris.com You two should to a scientific name episode. Those can be fun. Like I have learned that while "hyena" translates to "she-pig," the scientific name "Crocutus" is a bit more mysterious and goes back to sanskrit and was used be Pliny the Elder for an unknown beast.

@robwords.com, @jesszafarris.com Baker's German chocolate is a double aptonym. Baker's chocolate was named after Walter Baker. And German chocolate was named after Sam German. But Sam made German chocolate for the Baker's Chocolate Company.

@jesszafarris.com, @robwords.com "lime" is an interesting word. The might have ultimately come from Malay. But may also have traveled through Sanskrit to Persian to Arabic to Spanish/Portuguese. But the Persian lime is a hybrid.

So, we were already cultivating it well before it had a name. From what I read, the word comes from words meaning "citrus fruit," and has sense changed to be more specific, but...fun thoughts.

No one watches/reads Harry Potter because they agree with JK or even think about her or because they hate trans people. It became what is for being a descent series about wizards. A story can live beyond it's author. Like Charlie and the Chacolate Factory...and Disney.

@robwords.com, @jesszafarris.com, huh. I was typing out the Latin name for the maned wolf family - Chrysocyon (Golden dog) - and I noticed how close it is to "Chrysler." But the brand name is actually an Americanization of the German Kreisler. Still fun coincidence.

(Kreisler, by the way, might be related to "kreisel" or "spinning top." Also, I imagine if Walter P Chrysler had learned that "chrysos" is Latin for "gold" that would just be the cherry on top, right? I mean, talk about being the 'gold' standard.)

arstechnica.comA 2,000-year-old stylus makes a point about ancient Roman humorLost in ancient Londinium: "I went to Rome, and all I brought you was this pen."

@robwords.com and @jesszafarris.com I don't know if it counts as an idium, but in 2019, a 2000 year old Roman stylus was found in London with basically "I went to Rome and I bought you this lousy stylus" inscribed on it. arstechnica.com/science/2019...

18 Sept

Okay...developers. If I download a game that I assume is single player game and said game hits me with setting up an multiplayer connection, and match-making stuff, I'm gonna just uninstall it 'cause...it's a multiplayer game at that point.

16 Sept

@jesszafarris.com and @robwords.com did you know that Kansas City, Missouri came first. It was named after the Kansas River which was named after the Kansa tribe. And Kansas City, Kansas...named themselves after Kansas City, Missouri...because it was big and successful and next door.

16 Sept

Amazon AI dubbed Ghost in the Shell Arise, it's sequel season and the New Movie based on it. Don't watch it. Get Crunchy Roll or buy the blu-ray. Fuck Amazon dubs.

16 Sept

It's sad that trillion dollar companies would rather wipe their asses with money than spend it on quality products. It's pathetic really. Just...pissing it away on stupid shit when for a fraction of that they could just increase quality and QoL, but...nah...that's "too much work."

15 Sept

@robwords.com, @jesszafarris.com sorry for the multi alerts, but...scientific names can be fun. Take the bat-eared fox. Otocyon megalotis. Or "Big-eared ear dog."

15 Sept

@robwords.com thanks to your latest video, I'm gonna give a character the last name of "Bobson." Because it's funny. And I can hear Rowin Atkinson saying it and it's glorious.

4 Sept

@robwords.com and @jesszafarris.com learned a few Latin origins to words like "peculiar" comes from the Latin "peca" which referred to cattle, and originally meant "belonging exclusive to one person." It didn't shift to mean "distinguished" in the 16th century then "odd" in the 17th...

4 Sept

...But I also learned 'Courteous' has a bit of a fun history. It combines French and Latin to effectively mean "someone of the King's court" or at least someone who acted like they were. And I find that amusing because...it feels like it wasn't originally used in a kind way...

4 Sept

...like, nowadays, if one were to use the original meaning, one might say, "the Karen at the coffee shop was acting a bit courteous." And that implies in my head the meaning we have today came probably from the King's court itself and not the common people.

@robwords.com I just watched a couple Youtube videos about follies. The main was on the Irish Famine Follies. These are buildings that were commissioned during the Great Famine, by wealthy land owners to employ the poor. But when I was growing up here in America, "folly" sort of meant "mistake."

I guess "folly" does come from Old French meaning "madness" or "stupidity." So, I guess the buildings would be "stupid" or "foolish buildings," And Alaska was considered a "fool's purchase," so I guess "a mistake" or "stupid decision" makes sense. Just interesting observation.

But we talk about it in context of something like Sewerd's Folly, which is the buying of Alaska in 1867. And I can see the shift in definition from "a useless building" to a "mistake." I feel like in 1867, though, it would had the same meaning...More "you're wasting your money" than "mistake"

25 July

@robwords.com my attempt at an irony mark It's a backwards interrobang. Inspired really by de Brahm and the /s thing. I call it the iromark.

13 May

This week, @jesszafarris.com and @robwords.com talk about funny stuff like Harlequins. VW used the word to refer to the pattern in the 1960s. It was used to show off the interchangability of the panels between models and the different factory colors the car came in. (Later used on the Golf)

youtu.beWhat is a 'slapstick'?YouTube video by Words Unravelled

13 May

youtu.be/56YLffYfQ7M?...

7 May

Hot Take: A "carnivore" calling vegans pussies, to me, is as annoying as a vegan saying "you hate animals and are a murderer if you eat meat." Those are two sides of the same stupid coin. Let people enjoy their food.

23 Apr

Happy Birthday, @jesszafarris.com!

15 Apr

@robwords.bsky.social, @jesszafarris.com This week Jess and Rob talk about Red Herring! youtu.be/tRR-DHzD7mw?...

14 Apr

@robwords.bsky.social and @jesszafarris.com have you talked about spoonerisms? I ran't cemember.

en.wikipedia.orgHistory of Oslo's name - Wikipedia

8 Apr

@robwords.bsky.social and @jesszafarris.com Huh. Looking it up. Wikipedia says that Oslo means something like "meadow at the mouth of the river" It can also apparently mean "meadow beneath the ridge" or "meadow of the gods" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...

19 Mar

Elon Musk isn't an entranpaneur. He is a guy who has a lot of money, and bought a lot of shit, and then claimed it was his. He is a supervillian, although, I doubt even the Legion of Doom would like that guy.

15 Mar

@robwords.bsky.social You spoke of names in your last video and...I have an odd one for you. You probably know it. In the old Looney Toons cartoons, there were the Road Runner cartoons and the coyote's name was Wile E. Coyote. It's a simply play on words, but...What kind of name is Wile?

7 Feb

@robwords.bsky.social I have to admit, that "other" would sound pretty funny today in place of "second." Imagine a sports caster going "So, the top three are: this person in first, this other guy, and then third place." Sort of personifies the 'second is just the first loser' idiom

4 Feb

@jesszafarris.bsky.social, @robwords.bsky.social, Out of curiosity, I was looking into the origins of "Geoff/Jeff" and it turns out...that it is related to both Godfried and Gilbert. So, late Gilbert Gottfried was technically...Geoff Geoff

31 Jan

@robwords.bsky.social have you and @jesszafarris.bsky.social talked about emordnilaps? These are words that form different words when spelled backwards. Like mood/doom. Or repaid/diaper. I always snag them when doing those word collection mobile games.

21 Jan

Hey, @hankgreen.bsky.social Can we talk about Mizor and Alcor? They're a 6 star system, with Mizor being made up of two pairs of binary starts orbiting each other and then...17,800AU away...is Alcor, another binary pair. But that distance...17,800AU...it takes light over 100 days to make that trip.

21 Jan

And 17,800AU is the low end. That's the closest. Like Proxima Cenaturi is 13,000 AU from Alpha Centauri, and we haven't confirmed if it's gravitationally locked to the other two, abut Mizar and Alcor...are. Like your neighbor living on the other side of the world from you...on Mars.

11 Jan

For terrestrial mammals there are three major forms of locomotion: plantigrade, digitigrade, and unguligrade. -grade comes from Latin "gradas" meaning "walk." The prefixes refer to the part of the foot used for walking. 1. Planti = sole 2. digit = toe 3. unguli = hoof

11 Jan

Technically, ungulate does come from the Latin "ungius" meaning "nail" but "ungulate" is "hoofed," so "unguligrade" is more "hoof walker" than "nail walker"

9 Jan

Ice cream is just sweetened, flavored, congealed fat

31 Dec 2025

@robwords.bsky.social and @jesszafarris.bsky.social this is my favorite tautology:

22 Dec 2025

What? Are you saying that the science in my fictitious work isn't accurate? How dare you accuse me of using fictional science in my science fiction story!

19 Dec 2025

"Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." -- Charles Dickens from The Christmas Carol

9 Dec 2025

I want one of these websites to "comply" with the stupid age verification thing and then leaving a giant backdoor wide open. Like "we complied. There's nothing in there about NOT leaving the backdoor open."