| Thursday, November 8, 2007 |
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| What Do You See Here? |
SpotlightThere are aptitude tests and occupational tests, intelligence tests and personality tests. One of the most famous of the personality tests is the Rorschach — or Inkblot — Test. The psychologist shows you several cards with inkblots on them, and you describe what you see in the blots and how it makes you feel. Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist who created the test, was born on this date in 1884. In recent years, the inkblot tests have lost favor in the mental health community.
Word of the daypenny dreadful
The name given in the Victorian age to a kind of cheaply produced book containing bloodthirsty narratives of crime, sometimes merely plagiarisms from Gothic novels. In the later 19th century the term was extended to include tamer adventure stories for boys in cheap formats.
Usage: Despite the name, every now and then a penny dreadful harbored a rollicking, good story.
Learn about cyberpunk and antanaclasis, Fastnachtspiel and panegyric. The Literary Dictionary provides clear and witty explanations of terms from literature, plus traditional drama, rhetoric, literary history and textual criticism. It includes words and types of literature in many languages, and pronunciation guides for over 200 difficult terms.
Today's News
- Chicago: is home to the biggest caffeine consumers in the US; New Yorkers consume the least (story)
- Stata Center: MIT sues architect Frank Gehry over funky, flawed building (story)
- British laws: silliest ones include bans on mince pies on Christmas and on dying in the Houses of Parliament (story)
Today's History
- Louvre: former Paris palace opened as a museum (1793)
- Days of Our Lives: soap opera premiered on TV (1965)
- Three Gorges Dam: the Yangtze, China's largest river, was diverted in a massive ongoing construction project (1997)
Today's Birthdays
- Bram Stoker (1847-1912): author of Dracula
- Edmond Halley (1656-1742): astronomer who discovered Halley's Comet
- Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949): novelist, Gone With the Wind
- Parker Posey (39): star of Best in Show
