Carb-14 Freebies

There appears to be a predictable, asymptotic rate of consumption when free food is left among people who share an office or living space, given the unspoken rule that the person who eats the last bit must be the one to clean the mess up.

Consider: a plate of bagels and a knife is left in the office kitchen. On my first few passes by the kitchen, they appeared to be disappearing rapidly, two or three at a time. Then, for awhile, a lone bagel sat on the massive plate. The next time I walked by, someone had taken the top half. Later, the bottom half, too, had been halved. The resemblance to the half-life of radioactive substances was both startling and amusing.

Knowing this rate of carbohydrate "decay", one could theoretically predict the original number of bagels. Except for that pesky tendency of certain humans with low tolerance for messes who'll grumble to themselves and just clean the damn thing up.

Leavening the Lexicon

Certain words are just too fun to pass up or let die. They're hidden, imprisoned, aquiver with forced inactivity in the dusty tomes of classic literature. They demand to be taken off the shelf and dusted off, set loose among the staid, tech- and pop-culture-heavy parlance of today. It'd be like bringing back Ben Franklin, Aphra Behn, Jane Austen or Leonardo da Vinci and seeing what they'd do with a blog or tweeting....

Here are just some words with which I've decided to spice up my lexicon:

• kerfuffle
• lollygag
• traipse
• gallivant
• vexed

A shot of linguistic champagne straight to the brain. Isn't it the cat's pajama's?

Idle Ponderment

A couple of questions that have broken into my idle or distracted moments:

- Regarding Wikileaks' recent publication of secret diplomatic cables - Has anyone else been struck by the strange lexical anachronism of "sending cables" in today's age of texting, Twitter and posts?

- Why do garlic, onions and coffee smell so delicious, yet produce the most foul breath?