A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward as forward, such as madam, racecar, or the number 10801. Sentence-length palindromes may be written when allowances are made for adjustments to capital letters, punctuation, and word dividers, such as “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!”, “Was it a car or a cat I saw?” or “No ‘x’ in Nixon”.
Tag: Wikipedia
Common Misconceptions, Wikipedia List
Ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand to hide from enemies.[265] This misconception was probably promulgated by Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), who wrote that ostriches “imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed.”[266]
Bats are not blind. While about 70 percent of bat species, mainly in the microbat family, use echolocation to navigate, all bat species have eyes and are capable of sight. In addition, almost all bats in the megabat or fruit bat family cannot echolocate and have excellent night vision.[264]
Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.[262] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century.[263]
Egg balancing is possible on every day of the year, not just the vernal equinox,[254] and there is no relationship between astronomical phenomena and the ability to balance an egg.[255]
Waking sleepwalkers does not harm them. While it is true that a person may be confused or disoriented for a short time after awakening, this does not cause them further harm. In contrast, sleepwalkers may injure themselves if they trip over objects or lose their balance while sleepwalking.[354][355]
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Diogenes, also known as Diogenes the Cynic
Diogenes (1882)
by John William Waterhouse
Diogenes made a virtue of poverty. He begged for a living and often slept in a large ceramic jar in the marketplace. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts, such as carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates, and sabotaged his lectures, sometimes distracting listeners by bringing food and eating during the discussions. Diogenes was also noted for having mocked Alexander the Great, both in public and to his face when he visited Corinth in 336.
Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gutenberg, c. 1400 – February 3, 1468 was a German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe with the printing press. His introduction of mechanical movable type printing to Europe started the Printing Revolution and is regarded as a milestone of the second millennium, ushering in the modern period of human history. It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
des·ul·to·ry \ ˈde-səl-ˌtȯr-ē , -zəl- ; di-ˈsəl-t(ə-)rē , -ˈzəl- \
Desultory notes, as in:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desultory
Definition of desultory
1 : marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose
- a dragged-out ordeal of … desultory shopping —Herman Wouk
2 : not connected with the main subject desultory comments
3 : disappointing in progress, performance, or quality a desultory fifth place finish a desultory wine
Not as in:
Wikipedia
Desultory was part of the first wave of Swedish death metal bands, alongside Entombed, Dismember, and others. Into Eternity, their Metal Blade debut following a lesser-known EP release, is standard for the genre, energetic and forceful, straddling the line between the more brutal American death style and the melodic Gothenburg variety.
Green ideas, though colorless, sleep with fury.
Chomsky writes in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
*Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.It is fair to assume that neither sentence (1) nor (2) (nor indeed any part of these sentences) has ever occurred in an English discourse. Hence, in any statistical model for grammaticalness, these sentences will be ruled out on identical grounds as equally “remote” from English. Yet (1), though nonsensical, is grammatical, while (2) is not grammatical.[2]
While the meaninglessness of the sentence is often considered fundamental to Chomsky’s point, Chomsky was only relying on the sentences having never been spoken before. Thus, even if one were to ascribe a likely and reasonable meaning to the sentence, the grammaticality of the sentence is concrete despite being the first time a person had ever uttered the statement, or any part thereof in such a combination. This was used then as a counter-example to the idea that the human speech engine was based upon statistical models, such as a Markov chain, or simple statistics of words following others.
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Poe’s Law
“Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers or viewers as a sincere expression of the parodied views.”