i have no idea what a zompist might be, and all the better. perhaps zompists and nonists have something in common. anyhow, i clicked a metafilter link titled the zompist phrasebook this morning. it was funny. so, as i often do, i checked out the homepage to see exactly who served me this morsel.

what i found was not a pretty site, but a whole slew of interesting stuff none the less. some of my favorites:

1) they thought you’d say this which is a bunch of seriously unlikely phrases from real phrasebooks. funny.

2) the last century, what the heck was that. an editorial beginning “if an intellectual from 1900 could be bodily transported to the end of the millennium, top-hat, monocle, and all, he would explode in puzzlement.” about early 20th century intellectual suppositions and ideals not panning out as expected. very interesting piece. touches on so many subjects i wont even attempt a list.

3) facts from my bookshelf. just what it sounds like.

4) english as she is spoken vs. bablefish. a phrase by phrase comparison of the famously awful translations of a 1800’s portuguese translator and the artificial intelligence of bablefish.

others include the numbers 1-10 in over 4000 languages, is science killing science fiction? (which struck me as decidedly nonist), the excuse-o-mat, the new pseudo-science of memes, the language construction kit, and even a portal to an imaginary world called verduria. there is a lot of interesting stuff. categories include comics, linguistics, culture, language construction, science, science fiction, editorials, and diversions. 

most impressively it’s all done by one guy, a fella named mark rosenfelder. some might say he must have too much time on his hands. some evidently have. his answer to this, in his faq, is simply that he has no children and does not watch television. strangely, no one ever bothered to ask him what a zompist is. anyhow, bravo mark. good stuff.