Distopian View Praising Second-Hand Knowledge

The first of these was the abolition of respirator. Advanced thinkers, like Vashti, had always held it foolish to visit the surface of the earth. Air-ships might be necessary, but what was the good of going out for mere curiosity and crawling along for a mile or two in a terrestrial motor? The habit was vulgar and perhaps faintly improper: it was unproductive of ideas, and had no connection with the habits that really mattered. So respirators were abolished, and with them, of course, the ter...

 Fun With the German Response to a Sneeze

Do you guys in the US really say ‘Gesundheit’ ? It is so cute to see one of our words (particularly one unrelated to war or anything like that) put to good use in a foreign language. As somebody pointed out, ‘gesundheit’ just means ‘health’, and I am sure that this is already an abbreviation of an older habit of saying ‘may you be in good health’ (which just takes too long to say). There are some other interesting cultural differences: I had no idea that ‘achoo’ is the s...