- Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.—Gravity’s Rainbow
‘Is it about a bicycle?’ he asked.—The Third Policeman
Tag Archives: language
Surnames
Seen on the rump of a car last week:
O’BAMA 2008
♣ Vote Irish ♣
And today: Jeff Greenfield on the American preference for presidents with unchallenging (i.e., bland, preferably mono- or bisyllabic Anglo-Saxon) last names. Could a George W. Dukakis ever have been elected? George W. Kucinich (or Voinovich)? George W. Deukmejian? A “nation of [...]
Pseudoconservatism
The other day my friend Thomas (aka The Newsrack Blogger) got into a fistfight at a local bookstore over the question of impeachment.
Okay, it wasn’t a fistfight—he had shouting match with Eric Alterman, author of Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America, during the Q&A at a book signing.
Okay, okay, the exchange wasn’t [...]
Shanty
Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum …
I always imagined fifteen guys stomping up and down on some poor guy’s chest. Maybe I’m the only one—I never really checked with anyone else. Well, today I came across this translation at a Russian blog: пятнадцать человек на сундук мертвеца, which back-translates [...]
Terser
Okay, I’ve got a thing about verbal economy, but maybe this is too damn parsimonious.
A while back the online magazine Smith presented a six-word “story” by Ernest Hemingway:
For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.
A remarkably concise tale indeed—pathos concretized pithily. Smith invited its readers to go mano-a-mano with Papa, and six-word memoirs from its readers came [...]
Triples
I learned something new today. (Did I learn something new yesterday? Hmm …) It’s New Year’s Eve, and I bought a beer I’d never tried—Bell’s Sparkling Ale. I’d tried several Bell’s brews and found them all excellent. Well, here’s how they tempt you on the back label of the tipple at hand: “Fill your glass [...]
:-)
How could I not take note of the fact that the smiley turned 25 today?
[Carnegie Mellon professor Scott E.] Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to [...]
Tormentee
The association where I work has just published a book for those who wish to be “mentors” in science education. That’s all well and good. The problem is that the persons at the receiving end of this guidance are called “mentees.” This is so grating to my eyes and ears that I came here to [...]
Assume
Happy Feast of the Assumption! We all make ’em, so let’s celebrate ’em (even if they sometimes make an ass of you and me).
Advice
I’m going to go ahead and swipe this right out of Harper’s. First of all, it’s the lazy thing to do. Second, they swiped it from the Chicago Manual of Style Online—specifically the section that’s a sort of “Dear Abby” for copyeditors. I happen to have been one, and like they say,* once a copyeditor, [...]
Drifting