Extract from a conversation:

I wonder if it [“I need to talk to you.”] is one of the earlier instances of the overall bastardization of “need,” since people have been saying that one for a while. Now the use of “need” as an auxiliary verb has metastasized in really ugly ways. Say “I need to” as a way of slipping out from under your ethical responsibility for what you intend to do. Say “you need to” as a passive aggressive avoidance of asserting your desire or giving a command. Such filthy talk. And typically what’s asserted has little to do with the world of true need and necessity.

When you think you want to go for a walk, you should go for a walk. I found myself thinking about my mother’s last couple of years today, how inaction and slow deterioration went from “not feeling like it” to “not being able to” for her. Then, of course, after that came that the more fundamental and permanent inability to go for anything at all…eventually the things you don’t do become the things you can’t do. So go do them.

Better that than sitting there as your bones get brittle and your nerves conspire against you.

“[SOPA is championed by] politicians who are proudly unfamiliar with how the internet works, but who are well familiar with favors from well-heeled copyright extremists.” – Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro. Via Boing Boing.

“The present edition may well be called the final one. The wretched paper and the small print of Bekker will no longer task eyes which need extra patience on account of the subject matter. The splendid volumes of the present collection will I trust serve as wholesome stimulus towards the historical study, if not of the Greek language, at least of Greek grammar, and the substantial services of a number of classical scholars will receive renewed attention.”

Brilliant comments throughout:

You can’t combat piracy. Externalities are a cost of doing business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding him/herself. There’s exactly one way to maximize profit, and that is to deliver a product that people are willing to pay for at a price that they are willing to pay. The pirates were never your customers and never will be, and the sooner the companies accept that and focus on the real problems (massively overpricing everything when first released, delivering products that can’t easily be moved between devices because of the restrictive/broken DRM, and the declining quality of entertainment products in general), they’ll have better profits.

Source: Reddit, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter consider blacking out their sites in protest of SOPA

Physical or mental slothfulness, esp. as a condition leading to listlessness and lack of interest in life; apathy, lethargy, torpor; (also) †an instance of this (obs.).

Regarded esp. in early use as characteristic of or equivalent to the ‘deadly sin’ of Sloth, and in Christian asceticism as a condition to which monks and hermits were particularly liable.

?c1225  (1200)    Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 155   Þenne is hit scheomeles [read ȝemeles] under accidie, þet ich slauðe cleopede, þe ne warneð oðer of his lure oðer of his biȝete.

c1330  (1300)    Speculum Guy (Auch.) l. 121   Accedie is as sleuþes broþer, Wicke on and wicke oþer.

a1393    Gower Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) iv. l. 539   To serve Accidie in his office, Ther is of Slowthe an other vice, Which cleped is Foryetelnesse.

c1400  (1378)    Langland Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. v. 366   And after al þis excesse he had an accidie, Þat he slepe saterday and sonday.

1484    Caxton tr. Order of Chivalry 81   A man that hath accydye or slouthe hath sorowe and angre the whyle that he knoweth that an other man doth wel.

a1500    W. Hilton Mixed Life (Royal) in G. G. Perry Eng. Prose Treat. (1921) 23   Breke doune also‥flesshely likynges, oþer in accidie or in bodili ease.

a1586    Lindsay MS f. 76v, in Dict. Older Sc. Tongue at Surmount,   Quha that will overcum & surmont accidie him behuffit that in his hart he haue strenth.

1649    J. Gaule Serm. Saints judging World 13   That’s an humility or modesty reprehensible (both for dejectednesse, and pusillanimity, as also for accidie and sloathfulnesse) that shall lesse it self to Gods gifts and graces.

1775    J. Ash New & Compl. Dict. Eng. Lang.,   Accidie, sloth.

1858    A. J. Penny Afternoon of Unmarried Life xiv. 254   Will any one with the experience of middle age deny that there is much in every-day life calculated to produce accidie?

1891    F. Paget (title)    The spirit of discipline‥with an‥essay concerning Accidie.

1936    H. G. Wells Anat. Frustration vi. 54   There is nothing before you but sloth and apathy, accidie, which is a lingering suicide.

1961    K. Amis Let. 9 Apr. (2000) 590   Vacation accidie is upon me. I’m supposed to be writing this perishing film-script—haven’t touched it yet.

2006    Antigonish Rev. Summer 14   They knew their destiny but chose not to dwell on it, falling prey instead to a desperate, hopeless accidie.

Etymology:  < Anglo-Norman accidie (13th cent.), Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French accide (13th cent.; French accide , now arch.) < post-classical Latin accidia (8th cent. in a British source; also in an undated glossary; occasionally also as acidia and accedia ), alteration (see below) of acedia spiritual sloth, mental weariness (5th cent., as also as name of one of the deadly sins: see acedia n.). Compare accidia n., and later acedia n. and acedy n.

The post-classical Latin form accidia probably results either from folk-etymological association with accidere (see accident n.) or from a Greek sound change, or may partly reflect both causes. The rare form acidia probably reflects the (folk-etymological) association with classical Latin acidus sour (see acid adj.) recorded by Caesarius of Heisterbach (13th cent.). 

In Middle English and early modern English the position of the main stress apparently varied between the first and second syllables.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary, Third edition, October 2011; online version December 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/1068>; accessed 05 January 2012. An entry for this word was first included in New English Dictionary, 1884.

The Contribution of Trees to Our Lives

by Frederic Joignot

Via The Guardian

January 3, 2012

“Humans, with a mere 2 square metres of skin, underestimate the surface area of a tree. To calculate that you need to measure both sides of each leaf, add the surface of the trunk, the branches and boughs, the perennial and feeder roots and the absorbent root hairs, not forgetting the bark pockets. A 15-metre tree in leaf would cover a total area of 200 hectares, which is the size of Monaco. A tree doubles its weight when wet, and its entire surface breathes and allows us to breathe.”

continue reading….

Via thenearsightedmonkey