Welcome to MindScribbles—the place where minds go to scribble. Think of Scrabble, but with a different vowel.
How does one keep order? How do teachers correct wayward students? How do political protesters make key points on posters? With red ink, of course. What's the throughline between order and marking papers, though?
Today's word, of course! It is: rubric.
Today, we think of rubric as providing a structure for evaluation or guiding directions. Perhaps Johnny crafts his essay in line with his teacher's rubric, or the head honchos at an insurance company evaluate the pros and cons of a patient's operation from a rubric of risk factors. Yet the word originates from the red headlines and bold instructions that appeared at the top of religious directives—the divine form of TL;DR. Sit, rise, stand, pray, give money, repent, sing.
The "red" here is key—the Latin "rubrica" or "rubrus" for "red coloring matter" or simply "red" forms the foundation for this finding.
Rubric (n): an established rule, tradition, or custom; a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests.
Shoutout to Merriam for this one (definitions 3 + 4 used here, since we've never heard 1 + 2 used in everyday speech).
What's dark and savory (and whose origins have a not-so-savory slant rhyme with 'dark') and eaten all over?
That's right! Today's word is: pumpernickel.
Of course it hails from our favorite Phalia, namely Westphalia and 1600s Germany. Per our friends at the Online Etymology Dictionary, pumpernickel is an amalgamation of a fart and our ol' pal Nick. More specifically, pumpernickel was "originally an abusive nickname for a stupid person, from pumpern "to break wind" + Nickel "goblin, lout, rascal," from the proper name Niklaus."
So the next time you think of Jolly Old Saint Nick, make sure you spare a penny or two for his intelligent backwinds.
Pumpernickel (n): a dark coarse sourdough bread made of unbolted rye flour.
Wildfires in Hawaii have attracted American media attention. Over 1,100 buildings in Lahanai on Maui's western coast burned. The problem continues to exist away from US shores; wildfires rage around the world. Check out NASA's FIRMS website for a (shocking) overview of fires around the world in the past 24 hours.
Who said analog was dead? Vinyl has been surging amongst Brooklyn hipsters (and wannabe Brooklyn hipsters) for some time, but David Hinton, "godfather of AI" or "dogfather of AI" for the fellow dyslexics out there, is getting in on the act. Hinton famously quit Google several months ago to gain the latitude (why not longitude?) to talk more openly about the dangers of current and expected AI models. Now he thinks analog computers might be the answer to fending off the potentially-impending robot takeover. WIRED has the inside story here.
A landing softer than a baby's bottom? It seems more and more possible, according to the WSJ. Talc not necessary, unless you want to wind up like J+J.