"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Says Ralph Waldo Emerson. With surprising frequency I hear this misquoted as "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," but that is just stupid. There are many, many, many things in life where consistency is terribly important (e.g. it helps if the guy that monitors the guages at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant shows up to work consistently.) But foolish consistency is the Siamese twin of dogma, and 2nd cousin to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
Early on in blogging I decided to always use one-word titles for my blog entries. It was an interesting constraint to put on myself. A couple of times I dabbled in two word titles, but always returned to that single word idea.
It was, as I noted, an entertaining constraint - but the entertainment was primarily for myself. It makes it hard for readers to know what they might be about to read, and if it will be something that would interest them. I have decided that always using single-word titles is a foolish consistency. So, though I may title the occasional future blog with a single word, this is the final posting that is intentionally monolexical. [Yeah, yeah, I'm slightly misusing the word "monolexical." Well, screw all y'all lexicographers ;-) .]
Popular Posts
-
California Bay (left) and True Bay (right) Living here in the San Francisco Bay area, I find that there is a lot of confusion about... -
I recently stumbled across a blog post discussing the idea that a lot of people think that there are 52 states in the Uni... -
Several years ago I planted an Australian finger lime bush (Citrus australasica). It took a few years to get established, during which ti... -
aka, How Andrew Likes to Waste an Incredible Amount of Time. DISCLAIMER: The information provided here is for entertainment purpose... -
Five or six years ago my neighbor Bill suffered a very unusual stroke. The stroke destroyed his ability to form new memories. I am t... -
Introduction For several months I have been watching the YouTube channel, Tasting History with Max Miller . It's great. His mix of hu... -
In 1947, Churchill said, ‘“democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried.”’ When qu... -
Introduction Recently there has been a swirl of news related to the sudden, meteoric rise in the price of GameStop stock (as well as t...
Subscribe
Posts
Comments
0 Comments - Add yours!:
We love getting comments! Thank you. Your comment may require moderation. If so, we will get to it as soon as possible.