“Liberty”…
“Ad Lib”…
Get it?
OK. I have to admit. It is a bit of a stretch. At least from a literal standpoint. The “lib” of “ad lib” doesn’t stand for “liberty.” It’s actually the short form of the Latin phrase ad libitum.
Ad libitum literally translates to “at one’s pleasure.” There’s no “liberty” in it at all. Our word “liberty” derives from the Latin word liber. In Latin, liber and libitum mean two different, albeit not wholly unrelated, things.
The Latin liber means “free” or “unrestricted.” You can easily see how we get “liberty” from Continue Reading “The Liberty of the Ad Lib”
Media Literacy Will Destroy Civilization
This was back in the 1990s. I was on what was then called the HF-L Technology Committee because of my computer background (and also because, as Town Board school liaison, I had to be on some committee). Today, those complaints seem naïve. And they were. But not for reasons you think.
It turns out secondary school students aren’t the only perpetrators of media illiteracy. We all Continue Reading “Media Literacy Will Destroy Civilization”