I know I’m not the only one who spent some quality time in elementary school looking up off-color words in the dictionary. Now you can ramp up that exercise with An Encyclopedia of Swearing, located in the Coe Reference collection. It offers social history of your favorite expletives and additional insight on usage.

My favorite entry is “Flexibility” about using curse words as various parts of speech. An excellent illustrative table is reproduced below. See if you can fill in the blanks:

Flexibility in Swearing Terms:

1. Personal: “You ____!”
2. Personal by reference: “The ___!”
3. Destinational: “____ off!”
4. Cursing: “____ you!”
5. General expletive of anger, annoyance, frustration: “____!”
6. Explicit expletive of anger, annoyance, frustration: “____ it!”
7. Capacity for adjectival extension: “___ing” or “___y”
8. Verbal usage: “to ____ about”

How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords offers great tips for creating better passwords and reminded me that cracking passwords is not so difficult. The chart below shows just how your quickly your security could be compromised.

The Microsoft secure password tester will tell you if your passwords pass the strength test. Thankfully mine all do! How did your passwords stand up?

[via lifehacker]

The following classes will meet in the Coe Library Electronic Classroom on Wednesday:

• 8:00 – 8:50 a.m. ENGL 1010 (Dresang)
• 1:10 – 2:00 p.m. COJO 1001 (Roberts)

The famous Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated will be delivered to all subscribers this year, after the publisher initially declined to send it to schools and libraries. SI spokesman Rick McCabe indicated that for some libraries the risque issue would not be “an acceptable thing for them to have or to share with their constituents”.

Librarians protested and the publisher backed down, calling the original plan to withhold the issue a “bad decision”. McCabe added “the essential thing about this whole discussion is, it should be left up to the individual librarian or teacher to decide which materials are appropriate and which are not.”

Have no fear, swimsuit fans. The UW Libraries’ copy is on order and will be available at Coe when it arrives.

** Update! Today we received what should have been the Swimsuit Issue but were sent a duplicate copy of a regular issue instead. Does SI still think we can’t handle the swimsuits?**

Recent theft in Coe Library causes me to remind everyone: please keep close watch of your valuables while in the library. Remember, if someone steals library books the alarm will sound, but if someone takes your laptop/backpack/phone/etc. they can walk out the door undetected.

And to all library thieves: beware the twin threats of campus police and bad karma.

The BBC reports that publishers of a new book about Jane Austen’s life altered her image to make her more attractive on the book’s cover. Only two authentic portraits of Austen are known to exist, one of which is from the back and the other of which proves Austen no supermodel.

Since when do we expect authors of classics to be lookers as well?

[via lisnews.org]

The following classes will meet in electronic classroom of Coe Library on Monday:

• 8:00 – 8:50 ENGL 1010 (Norek)
• 10:00 – 10:50 ENGL 1010 (Barstow)
• 1:10 – 2:00 COJO 1001 (Roberts)

The reference librarians are delighted to introduce instant messaging service for all of your research questions.  Ask us directly from our web page or add us to your buddy lists!

Our IM handles:

• UWCoeRef (AOL Instant Messenger)
• coeref@gmail.com (Google Talk)
• coeref@hotmail.com (MSN Messenger)
• coe_ref (Yahoo Messenger)

IM reference is available the following hours:

• 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. Monday – Thursday
• 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Fridays
• 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. Saturdays
• 1 p.m. – 9 p.m. Sundays