and speaking of single-celled organisms...

The polysemic champion must be 'set'. Superficially it seems like a wholly unseeming monosyllable, the verbal equivalent of a single-celled organism. Yet it has 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb, and 10 as an adjective [and] it take the OED 60,000 words...to discuss them all.
—Bill Bryson

Man, I love the word polysemic, and not just because it sounds totally dirty, yet isn't. It's also one of those words I keep forgetting the English language has, and it always takes me by surprise when I remember it. It always feels like rediscovering it every time I come across it.* When I'm translating, and I come across the Norwegian word "flertydig" or "mangetydig" (which are far more commonly used than their English equivalents), I try to work out a series of words in my head meaning the same thing**, elaborations like "having several meanings", "multiple meanings", etc. And then I remember polysemous or its partner in crime multivalence** and I'm home free.

* Any double-entendre in the previous two sentences is completely unintended. Seriously.
** Did you realise that polysemic is the equivalent of multivalent? So many levels, dude.

Ting-a-ling, you son of a bitch

Kurt Vonnegut died last night. So it goes.

Being a humanist means that you try to behave as decently, as honourably, as you can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. When we had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, I spoke at it and said at one point, 'Isaac is up in heaven now'. It was the funniest thing I could think of to say to an audience of humanists. Believe me, it worked - I rolled them in the aisles. If I should ever die, god forbid, I hope people will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now'. That's my favourite joke.
Kurt Vonnegut: Timequake