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I am NOT going to look that up.

Listerine was named after Joseph Lister, but it had no connection to him. (It was invented by a chemist in St. Louis.)

(It's not quite literally true that the word "halitosis" was invented by the marketing folks at Listerine, but it's damn close.)

Also, is there a sexier job title in the universe than Hannah Waddingham's stunt double?

OED, Collins, and AmHet, the other three I checked, all have it.

Yep. And the hyphenated version of "first-timer" is absolutely the default, with "first timer" a distant but solid second. I looked it up to make sure when you raised it, but there was zero chance that "firsttimer" was going to be the MW spelling.

It's so good.

It is impossible to express how simultaneously implausible and inevitable the existence of this movie is.

A ★★★★★ review of White Nights (1985)A Twitter thread from 2020: My one great calling in life is to spread the good news of White Nights (1985). Baryshnikov plays (basically) himself in the movie, a Soviet defector celebrity dancer. His ...letterboxd.com

Wow. Thanks.

(I Am Informed that the author's name is already out. My first hunch seems to have been mistaken. Still fascinated, not yet illuminated.)

Fascinating.

You're smug and puerile, and you've had enough of my time.

You've got to have rules in your life. Not using vicious, odious slurs as weapons is one of mine. Bye.

"I'm not justifying bullying or abusing anyone," says the person who just got done calling someone he disagreed with a "reeetard." Do you know anyone with cognitive disabilities who has been bullied and abused by people using that word?

Is it really your experience that in an argument between someone who is telling the truth clumsily and awkwardly and someone who is lying with passion, wit, pathos, and apparent command of fact, most people are going to find the truth-teller more compelling?

The quality of an argument and the truthfulness of a statement are not the same thing. And "polite" is not a catchall opposite of obnoxious, alienating, dismissive, and abusive.

(Although the next time I see you in the subway I might timidly ask you to play a capella for just a moment, just so I can get a sense of the sound on its own.)

I almost always find that the recorded accompaniment muddies up the effect of the live instrument, but yours complemented it beautifully—and for that song, with that lead instrument, it makes perfect sense.

Yep. Me as well.

(Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness)