The Wolfman is opening in theaters this week in the United States and El Papi Chulo to end all papi chulos, Benicio del Toro, has been in full force promoting the movie. This video is from 20minutos, in Spain.

So y'all know he's not just that gruffy voice and killer bedroom eyes, he's got producer credits for this little cinematic beast. From Benicio Del Toro - Wolfman Inspired By Del Toro's Memorabilia Collection - Contactmusic News:

We went to Universal with the idea. That is how you do stuff. You go to the studio."
And Del Toro is convinced his hairy appearance when he went to meet movie bosses persuaded them he was the right man for the lead role.
He adds, "I was in the middle of getting ready to do the Che movie. So I looked pretty much like a Wolfman! I looked either like The Wolfman or a smaller version of (Star Wars character) Chewbacca."

In this video, El Papi Chulo talks about approaching Universal with the Wolfman idea, watching old horror classics in Puerto Rican TV and identifying with the misunderstood monsters more so than their killers.

Awww!

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Maegan Ortiz, aka @mamitamala and publisher of Vivir Latino, was here this past Monday and one of the things we were remarking about was the fact we have to write in English on account of our audiences.

I was born in NYC but I was raised in Puerto Rico and lived there until the age of 20. I spent all my formative years in Puerto Rico. In my house we only spoke Spanish. I attended the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras for two years before transferring to New York University to get what I thought would be a better opportunity to continue my studies of Latin American politics, economics and history.

I've written this somewhere in the blog, but let me repeat it here again: Writing, especially in English, didn't click for me until I was well into my 20s. I couldn't write a decent paper during my college and even graduate school years without a lot of gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes.

Essays would leave me emotionally exhausted.

Yes: I couldn't write well, neither in English nor in Spanish, until I hit about 25 years of age. And it wasn't really until I started blogging almost 10 years ago that I actually became insanely prolific to many of my readers.
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It has been just over a year since I learned about the site Free Rice. I got addicted, then forgot about it. Now I am reminded of it again and getting readdicted.

Free Rice is fun and feeds the poor around the world. You play educational games and for every answer you get right, rice is donated to feed the hungry. Last night my wife and I had a nerdy good time with world capitals, chemical symbols and famous paintings, and in the process donated some 16,000 grains of rice to feed the hungry. Given that sometimes I get addicted to this kind of nerdy game anyway, it''s nice to be able to feed some people as well.

Do you know the capitals of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan? How about the difference between a Fanz Hals and a Bruegel? Learn math, science, Spanish, French, famous paintings, etc. while helping to feed the hungry. What could be better?

About a year ago I introduced readers to a neat little site called "Free Rice." Basically back then you could play a vocabulary game and for each answer you got right sponsors would pay for 20 grains of rice to feed the poor around the world. In their first month of operation last year this effort raised enough to feed 50,000 people for one day. Not a huge thing, but a nice little effort.
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Check out the etymology of the word bad (via Volokh Conspiracy who got it from Language Log) :

Prof. Zupitza, with great probability, sees in bad-de (2 syll.) the ME. repr. of OE. bæddel ‘homo utriusque generis, hermaphrodita’ ... and the derivative bædling ‘effeminate fellow, womanish man ...’ applied contemptuously; assuming a later adjectival use, as in yrming, wrecca, and loss of final l as in mycel, muche, lytel, lyte, wencel, wench(e. This perfectly suits the ME. form and sense, and accounts satisfactorily for the want of early written examples. And it is free from the many historical and phonetic difficulties of the derivation proposed by Sarrazin [which ends up relating it to an OE. word meaning ‘forced, oppressed’] .... No other suggestion yet offered is of any importance; the Celtic words sometimes compared are out of the question.

Oh snap!

If ever a bill needed a thoughtful veto. . .

I know how to make a plural form from a proper noun than ends in “s” like say, Jess or Missus.

. . .or ARKANSAS!

Put the apostrophe after the “s” and you’re done. And if you don’t have a clue or aren’t completely sure, don’t go around telling people you are, much less legislating that they do it your way. And then people won’t think you dumb. How hard is that?

This goes for academics, not just lawmakers. Think through your own case before you go setting standards for the whole population. Otherwise you might make apple-arkansauce of the whole mess. Or maybe this prescriptive English professor's argument is just too subtle for me (?)

Apostrophes will disappear because
1) We read and write less now, AND
2) We read and write more now.

The apostrophe may be disappearing in part because students increasingly learn by hearing, rather than by reading and seeing words, and many people communicate electronically, Slattery suggested.

“The culture is more aural than in the past,” Slattery said. “Conventions are evolving for communicating electronically. For many people using e-mail, there is a sense that prose doesn’t have to be technically correct. It’s especially difficult with instant messaging to proofread and to write in standard usage.”
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