The cool twists of language

David Bellos: Guardian letter writers have been enjoying dissecting the word 'cool' – it may have had a surprising path to its modern meaning

The rime of the raving dotard

Learning poems by heart at school has numerous benefits - not least having them shouted at you on the street by erstwhile pupils

Dennis Ritchie obituary

As co-inventor of Unix and the programming language C, he had a key role in shaping today's computing environment