I read an article on dragons in the New York Times today. It touches on all the usual Jungian-fears-meet-dinosaur-fossils business, but there was a passage I found particularly amusing:
Dragons were clearly a hybrid, part snake, part bird and part bat. In the 17th century, they were explained by the newly popular "spermatick principle," which held that semen formed creatures and that the egg was a mere food source. Sometimes, scholars surmised, sperm from different species could mix and make a monster.
Mr. Lhwyd of the Oxford museum argued that semen from fish and snakes could rise high into the air with evaporation, rain down again and end up in the high aeries of eagles and vultures. In a lucky process called "fermentational putrefaction," the mix could produce a winged snake.
So, there's that.
You can find more of the interesting word usements I structure* on Apple.com.
Read my article, Better Writing Through Design, on No. 242 of A List Apart.
Pick up issue 176 of .net magazine to read my thoughts on creating outstanding web copy.
Watch a video of the Design Eye for South By panel at SXSW Interactive 2008. Or view the slide deck at DesignEye.org.
*With apologies to Harris K. Telemacher.