Search

The article offers information on actor, director, and playwright Mark Rylance and the various awards won by him. Topics discussed include he developed a fondness for dry midwestern sense of humor, he served as artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe theater in London, England; and he is unlikely to make himself the center of attraction.

The author reflects on the phenomenon of title inflation and mentions several humorous examples. The history of titles in the English language is discussed. A new science of exaltametrics, which would adjust titles for inflation, is proposed by the author. Examples include Jong-Il Kim's many self-endowed titles and the large number of executives running the football team the Huston Texans.

The author reflects on the many varieties of handbooks and how-to manuals. He notes the antiquity of the genre, citing Sun-Tzu's "Art of War" and the "Kama Sutra," and gives examples of some tongue-in-cheek modern works, such as "Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison," by Andy Borowitz. The U.S. Army Ranger handbook is also admiringly quoted on making soup from blood and weapons from bones.

The author humorously discusses what he calls the intersection of religion and modernity in the U.S. The author provides numerous examples of this intersection in various aspects of American culture, such as the acceptance of divorce, the relationship between Americans and their cars, and use of the Internet in the selling and buying of souls.

The author uses wit and humor in offering a look at world governance and autonomy. The demands of Saparmurat Niyazov, the President of Turkmenistan, are described. The author suggests that the impulse to bring forth a new nation manifests itself in several ways, including literature and the Internet.

The author reflects on the concept of "walking back the cat," a phrase indicating a retracing of steps to find out what happened to cause a certain event. The presence of black box flight recorders on aircraft and, increasingly, similar devices on cars is related to this concept. The author imagines a black box on waiters, to find out what happened to his order, or family members, to learn what an argument was really about, but believes such things could be taken a bit too far.

The article presents a humorous look at consumer services that meet the needs of niche markets. The author discusses the Alibi Agency, a company that provides services to cheating spouses, and other specialized service companies. The author proposes that he will create the "Assisted Thinking" service, which would be designed to help people keep pace with the massive amount of knowledge in the modern world.

The author cites the year 1999 as an epochal year in the history of names and name changes. The author discusses the issues of name changes on crayons, Internet domain names, city name changes, and species names. The author asserts that while there are a numerous amount of names, there can also never be enough because things are always being discovered. The author humorously proposes expanding the use of Latin in naming.

This article discusses the prevalent use of euphemisms in modern American society. The author discusses why euphemisms are employed by society, and claims that in the 20th century, euphemisms have become a device for expressing almost anything. The author relates some commonly used euphemisms, and humorously proposes that a database of euphemisms, or a Semantic Engineering Index (SEI) be compiled.