Shakespeare
A young man from a small provincial town — a man without independent wealth, without powerful family
connections and without a university education — moves to London in the late 1580’s and, in a remarkably
short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How was this achievement of
magnitude made? How does Shakespeare become Shakespeare?
Akimbo
Akimbo, this must be one of the odder-looking words in the language and puzzles us in part because it
doesn’t seem to have any relatives, What’s more, it is now virtually a fossil word, until recently almost
invariably found in arms akimbo, a posture in which a person stands with hands on hips and elbows sharply
bent outward, one signalling impatience, hostility, or contempt.
Yellow
Yellow is considered as the most optimistic color, yet surprisingly, people lose their tempers most often in
yellow rooms and babies will cry more. The reason may be that yellow is the hardest color for eyes to take in, so
it can be overpowering if overused.
Yellow Tulip/Square Root
How do we imagine the unimaginable? If we’re asked to think of an object – say, a yellow tulip – a picture
immediately forms in our mind’s eye. But what if we try to imagine a concept such as the square root of
negative number?
Grand Canyon
Few things in the world produce such amazement as one’s first glimpse of the Grand Canyon; it took around
more than 2 billion years to create this vast wonder in some places. 17 miles wide, largely through the
relentless force of the Colorado River, which runs 277 miles along its length and a mile beneath its towering
rims.