Pointless Fun: T-Shirt Of Note

Is this not a great idea for a T-shirt, Anglophiles?

It comes courtesy of the good folk of Lichfield, an English cathedral town beloved by 18th-century hipsters including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick and Erasmus Darwin. I believe Dr. Johnson is cavorting on the shirt logo with his drinking buddy biographer Boswell. I don’t know if they’re still making them, but goodness, what a fashion statement.

Via the lovely blog Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington, which unfortunately appears to be on hiatus at the moment, but whose archives contain amusing musings about 18th-century personalities and culture.

OT: Grammar Lesson

My fifth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Ward, taught us nominative and accusative pronouns by teaching us to recite them like a football chant: “I! You! He-She-It! We! You! They!“
Well, Mrs. Ward would have loved this gem, shared by a friend on Facebook (original Facebook link here). I have to say it’s the most elegant, painless grammar lesson I’ve seen in quite a while, possibly since the football cheering pronouns.

From now on, every time I’m wondering about a grammar question, I’m going to be thinking about that bar.

Pointless Fun: My Cat Does Not Like Genealogy

In which my cat Mac* expresses his opinion of a National Archives video I was viewing. I do not share Mac’s sense of this presentation, you understand. I found it a good introduction to NARA’s records on Regular Army personnel, as opposed to volunteer personnel.

What do cats know?

*Mac is not named after my preference in computers. That would be totally clichéd. He’s named after a movie character (which is not at all a cliché’! Nope!) — Dr. MacDhui, played by Patrick McGoohan in The Three Lives Of Thomasina. And yes, Mac has a sister named Thomasina. Whaddya gonna do.

Royal Wedding Fun: Find Your Noble Name

Apparently only 6 percent of United States-ians really care about Will and Kate getting married tomorrow and whether they can save Great Britain, which last time I looked, seemed to be hanging in there.

But that shouldn’t stop us from playing silly Facebook games about this event! Priorities, people!

Here’s a funny one:

In honor of the big wedding on Friday, what is your royal wedding guest name? Start with either Lord or Lady. Your first name is one of your grandparents’ names. Your surname is the name of your first pet, hyphenated with the name of the street you grew up on.

I ended up with “Lady Eva CeeBee-Jackson.” (Which reminds me, I need to write that pets post about our dog CeeBee!)

But I am endlessly jealous of Mr. Archaeologist’s surname result of “Marmaduke-Farmingdale.” I am so stealing that for a fictional character.

(h/t to my Facebook friend Gigi!)