US Represented

Writings

A Full-Tilt Tribute to the 1896 Harmonica

A harmonica? The thing’s only four inches long! All kinds of notes are missing! Harp players have to show up with a briefcase full of different keys, just to play! They’re so tinny and shrill! So why would a serious musician ever choose the harmonica to play music on? Admittedly, this is good question. But

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Basic English on Mt. Fuji

The marriage of C.K. Ogden’s work with that of I.A. Richards yielded Basic English, an extreme narrowing of the English language whose principal aim was to eliminate misunderstanding due to clumsiness in manipulating the semiotic triangle. Reducing the dictionary to 850 words (with various ancillary vocabularies tailored to specific disciplines) would greatly reduce the possibility

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