A couple of columns ago I used the typically Indian phrase 'with folded hands', a gesture implying, among many other things, entreaty or surrender. A reader has pointed out that while the phrase is, indeed, in common use, it represents an anatomical impossibility much more so than that suggested by the other choice Indian Englishism: my head is eating circles (a direct translation from the Hindustani 'Mera sir chakkar kha raha hai').
I’ll start the new year off with one of my favorite things (e.g.), writing
in praise of books — to wit, Ed Simon’s Literary Hub essay Nothing Better
Than a...