A Curious Little Blog

Anyone following the debt-ceiling debate who is old enough to remember 1995 is bound to be thinking about it.  The Republicans had just won big in the off-year elections of a Democratic president, and their very first budget resulted in a showdown.  In that case, the Democrat won big, and was able to get re-elected in 1996. As a Republican, you have to be worried about this.  I am surprised to see them challenging Obama in a way that mirrors the negotiations with Clinton 16 years ago so closely.  Their position isn't even as strong now as it was then:  at that time, they controlled both houses of Congress.  Moreover, they did exactly what I would have recommended, which is to pass a budget and dare the president to veto it.  Then, I thought, the resulting government shutdown would clearly be Clinton's fault, and he would get the blame.  Instead, Clinton simply said that the Republicans needed to send him a bill "that I can sign," and for some re...

I have always liked the word "unicorn" for some reason that eludes me.  It just sounds beautiful.  And yet, why do we call it a unicorn?  The name is from Latin, "unus" = one, "cornus" = horn (e.g. cornucopia).  Every other animal, it seems, gets its name from Greek roots.  Thus, we have the hippopotamus, not the equuflumen, and the rhinoceros, not the nasocorn.  Dinosaurs have Greek names, too:  stegasaurus, "roof lizard," brachiosaurus, "arm lizard," and triceratops, "three-horn face."  (Although I should mention the oddity of tyrannosaurus rex:  tyrannosaurus is Greek for "tyrant lizard," but rex is Latin for "king."  Tyrannosaurus basileus, anyone?)  Even other mythical creatures usually have names of Greek origin, such as the phoenix and the chimera. According to Wikipedia, source of all knowledge, the unicorn originated in Greek myth.  Why, therefore, does it get a Latin name, unlike almost every ot...