Follow The Oikofuge: Reading, filter it, and define how you want to receive the news (via Email, RSS, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.) https://follow.it/the-oikofuge-reading Thu, 28 Sep 2023 21:54:19 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmxR5VaPaqamZ8v71dCn6bG It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him. George Bernard Shaw, introduction to Pygmalion (1913) Alan Ross was Professor of Linguistics at Birmingham University when he published this paper in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, the journal of the Modern Language Society of Helsinki, although The Dictionary of National … Continue reading Alan S.C. Ross: Linguistic Class Indicators In The Present Day (1954) →]]> Wed, 27 Sep 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmxR5VaPaqamZ8v71dCn6bG https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmGlqueQ49Zm--bbeigX9oC What does seem clear is that there was something in the early lives of nearly all the published writers in the group that isolated them from their contemporaries. Blish, Pohl, Michel, Merril, and I were only children. Pohl, Blish, Wilson, Lowndes, Merril and Michel lost one parent each in childhood, by death or divorce. Wilson … Continue reading Two Science Fiction Histories →]]> Wed, 23 Aug 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmGlqueQ49Zm--bbeigX9oC https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnVqFTRgyvkusfGo0LrnZNO For the past thousand years, the human history of the North Sea has been played out on a stage constructed largely of herring. I’ve written about Helen Czerski before, when I reviewed her first book, Storm In A Teacup (2017). At that time I mentioned that she is a physicist with a speciality in oceanography. … Continue reading Helen Czerski: Blue Machine →]]> Wed, 19 Jul 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnVqFTRgyvkusfGo0LrnZNO https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmz03bSHd7Bx6JCIqJppjfU [With apologies to those who caught a glimpse of this last week, because of a scheduling error.] How long before you find out if you’re really good, or you’re really lucky? Cole Trickle, Days of Thunder (1990) Is Elon Musk a genius or an idiot? Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 7 November 2022 These two … Continue reading Keuschnigg et al.: The Plateauing of Cognitive Ability Among Top Earners →]]> Wed, 14 Jun 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmz03bSHd7Bx6JCIqJppjfU https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkhLf7TR2Y9Vd6jHbRcHw3s How long before you find out if you’re really good, or you’re really lucky? Cole Trickle, Days of Thunder (1990) Is Elon Musk a genius or an idiot? Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 7 November 2022 These two quotations, one from a movie character played by Tom Cruise, the other from a newspaper business columnist, … Continue reading Keuschnigg et al.: The Plateauing of Cognitive Ability Among Top Earners →]]> Wed, 07 Jun 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkhLf7TR2Y9Vd6jHbRcHw3s https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlop6CDRz0DJmhamfNIiY2W I am quite clear in my own mind that I’d set my face in the right direction, though I don’t pretend to know why I should be destined to visit Greenland any more than Timbuctoo. Maybe I’m not, and I shall be able to visit Timbuctoo another day, for one journey leads naturally to another. … Continue reading Isobel Wylie Hutchison: Peak Beyond Peak →]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlop6CDRz0DJmhamfNIiY2W https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXn8DWKVpQR93FT72x6uxjiK The feeling of the entire group was that, we might be stranded in the middle of nowhere, but it certainly wasn’t the end of the world, after all, most of us had endured worse hardships during the war and overcome. So, we made up our minds to make the most of our un-scheduled break from … Continue reading Irene & Dorothy Topping: Legacy →]]> Wed, 12 Apr 2023 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXn8DWKVpQR93FT72x6uxjiK https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlO-KQFGfbrJAaB2UxGNFpJ “The world of thoughts, ideas,” Aunt Hilda began again slowly, as though groping for the right words, “is a very real one. There are many other worlds, you know, besides the one we see. Indeed, perhaps we all live in slightly different worlds—I don’t understand these things. But I think I have made a pathway, … Continue reading Joan North: The Whirling Shapes →]]> Wed, 08 Mar 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlO-KQFGfbrJAaB2UxGNFpJ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkvCpcoZoTBIXtuT6pSmY81 Say that you are in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone, and you decide to spice up your vacation by going on a crime spree. You make some moonshine, you poach some wildlife, you strangle some people and steal their picnic baskets. Brian C. Kalt “The Perfect Crime” Georgetown Law Journal (2005) The content of Kalt’s … Continue reading Brian C. Kalt: The Perfect Crime →]]> Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkvCpcoZoTBIXtuT6pSmY81 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmiCRKV6_vgLUFW8UNEQjUn What can readers expect?If they’re already familiar with the other Fractured Europe books, it’s more of the same kind of stuff. Pocket universes, insanely-complicated intelligence ops, hotel breakfasts, huge conspiracies, Texel sheep, trains. That sort of thing. Dave Hutchinson, talking about Cold Water (2022) I’ve reviewed Dave Hutchinson’s previous novels from the Fractured Europe Sequence … Continue reading Dave Hutchinson: Cold Water →]]> Wed, 11 Jan 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmiCRKV6_vgLUFW8UNEQjUn https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnOZpD_WQJKY1RpWVnEcNkS In the following pages I shall try to trace the unpremeditated steps by which a few army officers, with no initial thirst for exploration, and no desire to do anything unusual except to see the country they were in came gradually to break away from this conventional city outlook towards things outside; and how, beginning … Continue reading Ralph Bagnold: Two Memoirs →]]> Wed, 14 Dec 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnOZpD_WQJKY1RpWVnEcNkS https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXk93EnrGDM_R5ONpYks2fGs Although the hole made by the meteorite was too small to be readily seen, the hiss of escaping air was unmistakable. They were in dire peril, the worst that can befall a man in space. Philip Latham, Missing Men Of Saturn (1953) A while ago I wrote about two series of science-fiction-juvenile novels, written by … Continue reading Philip Latham: The Juvenile SF Novels →]]> Wed, 19 Oct 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXk93EnrGDM_R5ONpYks2fGs https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkF6tjoYe1KgrG7Iy_4u0x9 I stood in the rain at the foot of the Inaccessible Pinnacle’s east edge, that ‘easy edge’, looking up at it, trembling a little. True, I was overawed by its history, its odd and discomfiting form, its dizzying position — but I think I was basically just very scared. In the part of your brain … Continue reading Simon Ingram: The Black Ridge →]]> Wed, 21 Sep 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkF6tjoYe1KgrG7Iy_4u0x9 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkWYC_H4qx1EkZPHFZJLI3I Last time, I introduced the concept of “Hillwalkers’ Gaelic”, which I abbreviated “HG” to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic (“SG”). I did so in the context of a comic poem entitled “The Climber’s Guide to the Pronunciation of the Gaelic Tongue“, which appeared in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal of 1897, probably written by the … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 2 →]]> Wed, 31 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkWYC_H4qx1EkZPHFZJLI3I https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnLSauX503dN--bbeigX9oC It was long past lunch-time when I finished the story. My throat was dry with talking and Jean’s eyes had grown big and round. ‘It’s like something from the Spanish Main,’ she said. ‘Or a Hammond Innes thriller. Is the gold still there?’ Desmond Bagley, The Golden Keel (1963) I first encountered Desmond Bagley’s work … Continue reading Desmond Bagley: Four Novels →]]> Wed, 24 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnLSauX503dN--bbeigX9oC https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnkLTmYVcVVX6vLeqE6yv18 The pronunciation of Gaelic hill names is fraught with difficulty for the non-Gael. One problem is the striking way in which some consonants are not pronounced at all. This is the Gaelic phenomenon of lenition, in which the addition of an “h” to a consonant changes and softens its pronunciation. Some lenited consonants, particularly “dh” … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 1 →]]> Wed, 03 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnkLTmYVcVVX6vLeqE6yv18 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksZXccyQtn3Fe5jCclomp- The view had a massive visual scale. It felt cinematic: an epic horizon like the opening credits of a David Lean film. A path scrolled out ahead of me, eventually fading into the middle distance. Across the plateau I could see other tors emerging from the mist: dark, maritime shapes, spectral galleons held up on … Continue reading Patrick Baker: The Cairngorms—A Secret History →]]> Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksZXccyQtn3Fe5jCclomp- https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkcT5qb5T7mMlhGNgNo2_0q “Suppose now you were to build a more or less conventional airplane to fly in space. What I mean is, suppose you built a space ship in the shape of an airplane. The actual shape wouldn’t mean a thing as far as flying goes outside of the earth’s atmosphere. There’s no friction and therefore no … Continue reading John Ball: Flying-Boats In Space! →]]> Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkcT5qb5T7mMlhGNgNo2_0q https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXl_WPw4_ABQYdaXKMm36c-X For its entire breadth the Meadow supported only hard vacuum on its pseudosurface. Fixed ashiness that no breeze would ever stir, twisted by ancient gravitational gradients. Space below the space where things of nature or things of man could exist naturally, unattended. Subspace that could be moved across, but not resided in except as on … Continue reading Robert Wilfred Franson: The Shadow Of The Ship →]]> Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXl_WPw4_ABQYdaXKMm36c-X https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksfVCeExHMhp8v71dCn6bG The Cairngorms lay beneath what was now a local bonnet of cloud. Everything else was in sunshine and dazzling with colours, cobalts and browns and bright greens, all the peaks around glowing with the pristine pigments of an illuminated manuscript, as far as distant Lochnagar and Beinn a’ Ghlo. Then even the interior gloom began to … Continue reading Sydney Scroggie: The Cairngorms Scene & Unseen →]]> Wed, 04 May 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksfVCeExHMhp8v71dCn6bG