Jones was a submariner and could often confuse a batter with his unorthodox delivery.

Art. 41 [Earl of East Friesland loq.] I pray you, what be the commodities that come out of England, and by what means be they so profitable?

There were, of course, the hangovers. Mornings we’d wake up late, stumble to Veselka or Café Orlin in the East Village for something greasy and restorative, then trundle home to collapse on the sofa, felled by the cocktail flu, giving us permission to watch basketball doubleheaders and doze all day in each other’s arms, getting up only to be ill.

Dialectologists have produced dialect maps showing different usages in different areas. For example, in England, a map could show different terms for cross-eyed: cock-eyed in Northumberland, Westmoreland and parts of the Midlands, boss-eyed in South-East England and East Anglia, squint-eyed in Devon and parts of Somerset, and cross-eyed in Cheshire, Derbyshire and the Isle of Man […]