Tag: Humor

Cultural Codes: How T-Shirt Messages Connect Us Globally | June 19 2025, 16:13

I’ve long noticed that in the USA, people read the inscriptions on t-shirts and polos. When I lived in Russia, I remember, generally nobody pays attention to them. Or they do, and forget the next second. It’s normal for us to comment if we like something. I wonder what it’s like in Europe.

I have a t-shirt that says “2020 ★☆☆☆☆ Very bad. Would not recommend”. It’s already outdated, but I still regularly get comments on it.

In certain groups here, there’s a whole communication system based on what you wear. It seems among teenagers, it’s especially strict, and standing out isn’t welcomed, which is why many just dress like “carbon copies” — the same colors, the same brands 🙂 Well, obviously, students wear hoodies and t-shirts with their university’s symbols (I can hardly imagine putting my RGRTA on a t-shirt).

Exploring Faust and the Zoologist: The Dual Life of Translator Khodkovsky | June 18 2025, 04:06

I’m listening to the second part of Faust and simultaneously googling translator Holodkovsky. It turns out that translating Faust was something of a hobby for the scholar-zoologist Holodkovsky, spanning 60 years. Holodkovsky has hardly any original writings—only translations, and from the translations, everything else, as they say, is minor details.

That is, Goethe wrote Faust for 60 years, and the entomologist-translator translated it for 40 years and spent another 20 catching bugs, imagine? What a scale of projects.

In fact, apart from being the author of probably the best translation of Faust, Holodkovsky is almost absent in literature. But as a zoologist, he left much more of a mark. True, it’s hard for non-entomologists to read without a smile, but here are his main works: “Male Genitalia of Diptera,” “Atlas of Human Helminths,” “On the Oral Organs of Some Insects Parasitizing Humans,” “Coexistence and Societies of Animals,” and others.

Unraveling the Layers of Echidna: From Faust to Mythology | June 13 2025, 04:21

In the second part of Faust, he encountered an echidna and realized that he did not understand

“Oh wonder! The clew turned into an egg,

The egg swelled up — what is within?

Two dreadful twins emerged —

A vampire with an echidna — from the egg.

The echidna writhes here crawling,

The vampire hovers under the ceiling”

It turned out that in the lexicon of the 18th-19th centuries, an echidna was a venomous snake. I mean, sarcastic, spiteful, sharp, cunning, mocking me, of course, I know this word, but that it literally signified a snake, I learned for the first time. And in Greek mythology, the half-woman half-snake Echidna was apparently the mother of Hydra, Sphinx, Chimera, and Cerberus

The Curious Case of Rollerblades vs. Inline Skates: A Brand Name’s Journey to Common Use | June 02 2025, 18:14

I step into Starbucks, and there’s a sign in the parking lot. Why rollerblades? After all, blade means ‘blade’? If it came down to it, rollerblades should be something like a circular saw. Started figuring it out. Turns out, roller skates were originally called inline skates, but then the commercial company Rollerblade appeared and eventually became a generic trademark, like Pampers, Xerox, marker pen, Thermos, Play-Doh, or escalator.

But actually, the term Inline Skates exists, and it means any skates, and the company Rollerblade still exists. Interesting, did it influence the fact that its name was on the sign?

And what about the Russian name “коньки”? Is it a diminutive of “horse”? Yes 🙂 According to one version, like little horses, they carry you across the ice: ancient skates were decorated with a horse’s head at the front. According to another version, the name comes from the fact that the first runners were usually made from animal bones, most often horses.

It seems you speak in Russian, and only when you contemplate do you realize that ‘horse’ and ‘skates’ are related words.