This list of the 100 most-viewed wikipedia articles is even scarier and more fascinating than what some people search for.

[via Micro Persuasion]

If the one thing your life was missing was a way get personalized engraving (free!) onto your New Yorker collection, your day has arrived!

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brought to you by the new and improved kenspeckle.net

screenshot of the original WP Andreas07 0.2 template

As you can now see, the August hush that fell over kenspeckle.net was due to massive hustle and bustle on the back end. I've changed web hosts (to Blue Host), upgraded to Word Press (actual blogging software rather than the very simple perl script I started out with!), and redesigned to this lovely new template, based on WP Andreas07 0.2, which was originally designed by Andreas Viklund and coded by David Peralty and Stephen Lau.

To celebrate, here's the long-awaited release of top-secret kenspeckle.net search data. All searchers will remain completely anonymous and un-stalkable, no matter how much AOL stalker wants to make another database.

Nerdy Searchers

• how to pronounce theodore bikel
• etymology of busybody
• email address for giorgio agamben

I wish I could help these three. Unfortunately I can only guess at the pronounciation of Theodore's last name (I'd say "bee-KEL" myself) and the etymology of busybody, according to the OED Online, is ultra-simple:

[f. BUSY a. 5 + BODY n.]

The fifth definition of the adjectival form of busy, mind you, reads:

In bad sense: Active in what does not concern one; prying, inquisitive, meddlesome, officious; restless, fussy, importunate. Cf. BUSYBODY.

As for the Agamben stalker: If you had to google, he's probably not waiting to hear from you!

Satisfied Searchers

• meaning:conspicuous
• Scottish humorous words
• wheat thins "it's it's"

How could the first two searchers have been any more satisfied? Together, they found a very humorous Scottish word meaning, well, conspicuous, and an extremely thorough etymology thereof. I'd kind of like to know if the third searcher was the proofreader who realized his/her mistake or another blogger hoping to be the first to break wheat thins scandal, but either way, this was clearly a successful search.

Still Searching

• paranoid nutcase hacker
• curvier women manhattan

So sorry…gentlemen?…but what you're looking for simply cannot be found at kenspeckle.net. Move along now.

Slate.com's Jack Shafer wants you to know that "kenspeckle" is a $10 word that could lead you into the "faux-erudition trap that bedevils undisciplined, rich writers like Martin Peretz."

Kenspeckle.net's Lauren Sperber wants you to know that, although the quotes Shafer pulls from Peretz's articles make her wonder…why… anyone who wants their writing to be read and understood would use such words and phrases, learning big, scary words can be fun! You just have to be careful where you use them, or people might think you're a jerk.

She also wants you to know that she's never read anything by Martin Peretz and can't say for sure, but she's concerned that the word kenspeckle is being falsely associated with him. Kenspeckle is really a fun, light-hearted word that just wants to come outside and play after years trapped inside a musty, boring basement.

Alright, so it's a little showy. But it means showy, so there's a reason. I wouldn't recommend it for everyday use, but it's not like saying plenilune, people! (Just say there's a freaking full moon, ok?)

On a marginally related note, I've realized that kenspeckle.net, contrary to my first impression, is really more about language and internet culture than literature and technology—though admittedly it's more about the "anything conspicuous" bit than any of the other four attempts at a theme.