zombies, books, copyright, work

[cofax7]

Eeeeeeks! The end times are upon us! Vonnielake, bar the door! (That's if this isn't a joke: I got the link off Slashdot.) Also? Poor dogs.

I had a totally lovely day with the divine denyeverything1 yesterday. We had a yummy brunch and bought books (I forget most of them, except I got The Secret History and The Jane Austen Book Club and two Kate Ross Julian Kestrel

Comments

[laurashapiro]

Okay, I'm marginally freaked by the zombie dogs. But I can't seem to figure out what a boffin is.

[cofax7]

Me neither.

[laurashapiro]

Found a definition here. It doesn't offer any clues as to the veracity of the article, though.

Why have I never heard of a "boffin" before now?

[infinitemonkeys]

The article's right. It's English slang for a professor, possibly of the thick-glasses, absent-minded kind and it's been around for a very long time. It has also been used to refer to swots though I think that was mostly in the Bristol area.

It's one of those words that newspaper tabloids use as part of their argot, like dossier, gem, probe (noun, as in investigation) etc etc.

[laurashapiro]

Thanks for the info! I don't know "swot" either, so I'm off to look it up.

Newspaper argot is just baffling to me, even in my own country. Half the time I have to read headlines three times before I understand them, which sort of defeats the purpose of a headline.

[cofax7]

Cool.

And hi! I suspect I owe you mail. How are you?