whatever gets you here

a macguffin is a plot device - something to create a plot in a story - that, itself, is left very vague or unimportant. in the words of legendary filmmaker alfred hitchcock (the word's de facto founder):

"in a thriller the MacGuffin is usually 'the necklace'; in a spy story it is 'the papers'"

it doesnt matter that the theives are planning a heist for the necklace. it could be a painting or a stash of gold - but this macguffin's importance sets the scene for every character's intentions.

recentism alert! go see avatar. there is a human/alien conflict because the humans want to mine the mineral unobtainium, a valuable substance, from the alien homeworld. the audience does not care about the details of this mineral, the only important thing is the struggle to get it.

legally binding minestrone

de facto is a latin phrase for "unofficial" or "assumed" (literally "by fact"). it is used in situations to describe something that established in practice but not necessarily documented officially or legally.

example for lost fans: jack is the de facto leader of the survivors.

read these twice

an ambigram is a word or words that can be read from more than one point of view, usually with some artistic aspect. the picture shown here says "ambigram" even when rotated 180 degrees.

go hang a salami, i'm a lasagna hog

a palindrome is something that is the same backwards as it is forwards. this can be a number, a sound, a gene sequence, a word, or (as in the title) a phrase.

for the chocolate fans

i hear so many pronunciations for ghirardelli, and i never know which is right. Now i can say it in confidence, as the famous chocalatier's own website sheds some light:

ars linguisteresica

the latin word ars is the etymological root for the english word "art." art has come to have several meanings but the original ars has the particular usage as a learned skill, such as martial arts.

the art of using 'ars' is very old: in 18 bc horace wrote the ars poetica - "the art of poetry" yet the same naming convention is still in use today (e.g. the technology news website ars technica)