Amnesia, Gianormous, Embiggens
From the news today...
(AP) WASHINGTON --- "The future is now," football coach George Allen once proclaimed. He didn't know it, but that seems to be quite literally true for people with amnesia.
It turns out that a common cause of amnesia also prevents its victims from imagining the future, forcing them to live only in the present, researchers report in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, studied people with damage to the hippocampus, part of the brain that is crucial in learning and memory.
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Now, that's just so sad. Imagine having no imagination!
Well, in another news...
I was watching the E entertainment channel the other night and the correspondent used the word “gianormous.” As in, “The TomKat wedding was a gianormous affair!!!” I suppose it’s a superlative, and that it means huge, splendid, great. Who makes up these things, anyway? And to say it on national television! For a made-up word, it doesn’t even sound right; it’s clunky. It doesn’t sound like a proper word, like “embiggens” from the Simpsons. Now, that’s a great contribution to the lexicon. And funny, too. From Jebediah Springfield: A noble heart embiggens the smallest man. Sounds just right.
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Elections are right on the corner so the next few months should be fun. Well, for us in the media, at least. A wizened old man, who claims to be a rock star, is running for a senatorial seat. Another guy who claims to be the husband of the offspring of a famous politician also filed his candidacy. Here comes the wacko parade. Heh.
(AP) WASHINGTON --- "The future is now," football coach George Allen once proclaimed. He didn't know it, but that seems to be quite literally true for people with amnesia.
It turns out that a common cause of amnesia also prevents its victims from imagining the future, forcing them to live only in the present, researchers report in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, studied people with damage to the hippocampus, part of the brain that is crucial in learning and memory.
***
Now, that's just so sad. Imagine having no imagination!
Well, in another news...
I was watching the E entertainment channel the other night and the correspondent used the word “gianormous.” As in, “The TomKat wedding was a gianormous affair!!!” I suppose it’s a superlative, and that it means huge, splendid, great. Who makes up these things, anyway? And to say it on national television! For a made-up word, it doesn’t even sound right; it’s clunky. It doesn’t sound like a proper word, like “embiggens” from the Simpsons. Now, that’s a great contribution to the lexicon. And funny, too. From Jebediah Springfield: A noble heart embiggens the smallest man. Sounds just right.
*
Elections are right on the corner so the next few months should be fun. Well, for us in the media, at least. A wizened old man, who claims to be a rock star, is running for a senatorial seat. Another guy who claims to be the husband of the offspring of a famous politician also filed his candidacy. Here comes the wacko parade. Heh.