The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

by James Gleick

We have met the Devil of Information Overload and his impish underlings, the computer virus, the busy signal, the dead link, and the PowerPoint presentation.

Language is not a technology, no matter how well developed and efficacious. It is not best seen as something separate from the mind; it is what the mind does.

Writers loved to discuss writing, far more than bards ever bothered to discuss speech.

This fellow doesn't know many filkers!

buggerie, coniunction with one of the same kinde, or of men with beasts

What? You use the first English dictionary to look up rude words!?

He and his band of lexicographers in Oxford were working on the P’s. Pletzel, plish, pod person, point-and-shoot, and polyamorous were among the new words entering the OED.

squeee!