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   Writing Slowly (writingslowly@aus.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Mar-2026 16:16:04 JST Writing Slowly

   Are you accumulating notes or actually creating something?

   Semyon Vengerov gathered two million filing cards but never finished his dictionaries. What lessons does this Russian scholar offer for modern personal knowledge management?

   https://writingslowly.com/2026/03/16/two-million-notes-and-no.html

   #PKM #Zettelkasten #Writing #History #Notes

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Mar-2026 16:16:03 JST Infoseepage

     in reply to

     @writingslowly Reminds me a bit of Phyllis Diller's joke card filing system. Saw it years ago when visiting the Smithsonian in DC.

     https://www.npr.org/2017/03/11/519807672/phyllis-diller-s-file-of-53-000-jokes

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Mar-2026 19:45:26 JST Infoseepage

     in reply to

     @writingslowly Also reminds me of how a violent schizophrenic was none the less instrumental in the creation of one of the most noted historical dictionaries of the English language, which involved the creation of hundreds of thousands of quotation slips showing actual usage of words in context at different points in time

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor

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     Writing Slowly (writingslowly@aus.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Mar-2026 19:45:27 JST Writing Slowly

     in reply to

     • Infoseepage

     @Infoseepage thanks! For comparison, Vengerov's collection would have needed more than 1,960 drawers instead of Phyllis Diller's 51. No doubt he had far fewer jokes though. https://www.si.edu/object/phyllis-dillers-gag-file:nmah_1218385

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     Infoseepage (infoseepage@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Mar-2026 20:02:18 JST Infoseepage

     in reply to

     @writingslowly I see reference to some of them being donated to other projects, such as one relating to changes in Latin usage over time, but it seems like the Oxford University Press still has many and some are displayed in their public museum.

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     Writing Slowly (writingslowly@aus.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Mar-2026 20:02:19 JST Writing Slowly

     in reply to

     • Infoseepage

     @Infoseepage nice reference! They had 2,500,000 slips by 1880 but unlike Vengerov's work, the OED involved societies, committees and volunteers (violently insane and otherwise). I wonder what happened to all those quotations.