tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34915237393716752882024-03-12T20:47:58.657-07:00Publisher’s Round-upIndependence in PublishingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger360125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-24251463731902604772020-09-14T14:18:00.013-07:002020-09-14T14:38:26.520-07:00A Sequestered Travelogue<p><i>Notice: this is a bit off-topic, but I hope you’ll find it entertaining.</i></p><p>Like most people in our region I’m stuck at home sheltering from Covid-19 and wildfire smoke. Yet I seem to be scattered around the world today.</p><p>Twenty-some years ago a large number of us were teaching a two-semester sequence of courses on world civilizations at Washington State University, at that time required for most freshmen. Several of us decided that the various textbook readers available commercially were unsatisfactory. I in particular wanted to use more literary texts from the cultures we discussed. So ten of us joined forces to create a custom-published anthology of readings. </p><p>But it turned out that big-time publishers like Penguin and Indiana University Press wanted huge fees to allow us to reprint their translations even for a small press run (Pico della Mirandola may be in the public domain in <b>Italian</b>, but a satisfactory modern English version costs plenty). So we set ourselves to translating as many texts as we could from <b>French</b>, <b>German</b>, <b>Italian</b>, <b>Spanish</b>, <b>Latin</b>, <b>Chinese</b>, <b>Urdu</b>, <b>Sanskrit</b> and more, hoping to eliminate royalty fees and reduce the cost to our students.</p><p>The result was a pretty fantastic reader, titled <i>Reading About the World</i>, in two volumes. </p><p>But our money-saving scheme failed because commercial publishers that produced custom textbooks weren’t interested in saving their customers money and kept the retail prices high.</p><p>We decided to put our translations up online for all to share for nonprofit purposes and a small fee for commercial publication. Copyrights were retained by the translators.</p><p><a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/11/07/reading-about-the-world-vol-i/">Vol. I</a> <a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/11/07/reading-about-the-world-vol-2/">Vol. 2</a> </p><p>One of several translations I contributed was an excerpt from the 16th century <i>Descrittione dell’Africa</i> (<i>Description of Africa</i>) by Leo Africanus. Born El Hasan ben Muhammed el-Wazzan-ez-Zayyati in the <b>Moorish city of Granada</b> in 1485, he was expelled along with his parents and thousands of other Muslims by <b>Ferdinand and Isabella</b> in 1492. </p><p>Settling in <b>Morocco</b>, he studied in <b>Fez</b>, and as a teenager accompanied his uncle on diplomatic missions t<b>hroughout North Africa</b> and and to the Sub-Saharan kingdom of <b>Ghana</b>. Still a young man, he was captured by Christian pirates and presented as an exceptionally learned slave to the great Renaissance pope, Leo X, who freed him, baptized him under the name “Johannis Leo de Medici,” and commissioned him to write in <b>Italian</b> the detailed survey of Africa which provided most of what Europeans knew about the continent for the next several centuries. </p><p>The section we needed was <a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/11/04/leo-africanus-description-of-timbuktu-from-the-description-of-africa-1526/ ">a famous description of the city of Timbuktu</a>. Penguin was charging a fortune for reprint rights, so I decided to take it on.</p><p>At the time Leo visited the Ghanaian city of <b>Timbuktu</b>, it was somewhat past its peak, but still a thriving Islamic city famous for its learning. “Timbuktu” was to become a byword in Europe as the most inaccessible of cities, but at the time he visited, it was the center of a busy trade in African products and in books. Leo is said to have died in 1554 in Tunis, having reconverted to Islam.</p><p>Over the years my translation has been widely reprinted in course packs and in American and British textbooks. </p><p>Back in February I was approached by the <b>South African</b> branch of a major international textbook firm for the right to reprint a brief excerpt in a forthcoming textbook. Since I had dealt with their <b>British</b> branch in the past with no problems, I agreed to allow them to use it for my usual nominal fee.</p><p>Then they handed me off to their permissions department—in <b>India</b>. It turned out that a vast amount of paperwork including some information I was reluctant to give out would be required in order to reimburse me. I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and risk involved; so I declined, explaining that other publishers required much less. I wondered if all this was some sort of scam to get my info.</p><p>I didn’t hear anything back until last week, when I was contacted by one of their South African coordinators saying that they still wanted the translation, and that perhaps something simpler could be worked out. Could we discuss it online?</p><p>We had a terrible time connecting, partly because of the 11-hour time difference and partly because she had taken her laptop to the <b>United Arab Emirates</b> on a trip and had forgotten that while she was thinking in South African time, her laptop was thinking UAE time. She also wasn’t seeing the emails I was sending her, trying to connect.</p><p>But after a couple of hours of frustration we eventually got together on Zoom. I offered to just give them permission to reprint the item for free in their forthcoming middle school textbook, but it turned out doing it for free was almost as complicated as being paid. South Africa has very strong laws to prevent scammers from selling the work of others as their own, and barring the illicit use of copyrighted material—hence the need for all the invasive documentation.</p><p>I explained my much simpler experiences with the <b>London</b> branch and asked whether the UK office could buy the rights for them. No luck.</p><p>However she thought their <b>Indian</b> agent would help her work out something reasonable. </p><p>But the Indian agent is on vacation.</p><p>After a quick text exchange they agreed to try to work something out via Zoom next week.</p><p>So here I am, stuck in the house, with my brain zinging all over the globe.</p><p>I think I’ll go put my feet up.</p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-79833923032489606352020-09-07T15:34:00.004-07:002020-09-08T07:03:12.834-07:00Ghosting and Haunting<p>To “ghost” as a verb meaning to suddenly disappear—cease all contact with someone, especially in a would-be romantic relationship, mostly online—has become very popular usage during the past decade, and almost everyone knows what it means. </p><p>But it struck me recently that ghosts are traditionally known for the opposite behavior: unexpectedly <i>appearing</i> when the living original has <i>departed</i>.<br /><br />According to the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> the main traditional meaning of “to ghost” was “to haunt.” </p><p>However, a more modern usage suggests invisibility: someone who writes a book published under the name of someone else is said to be a <i>ghostwriter</i> who <i>ghosts</i> manuscripts for pay, like <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all" target="_blank">Tony Schwartz</a>. That may well be the inspiration for using “ghost” to mean “disappear.”</p><p>But using the contemporary idiom, you could certainly be haunted by the memory of someone who ghosted you.</p><p>See “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/ghosting-words-were-watching">A New Meaning of the Verb 'Ghost'“ </a>at Merriam-Webster.</p><p>Also “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/fashion/exes-explain-ghosting-the-ultimate-silent-treatment.html">Exes Explain Ghosting, the Ultimate Silent Treatment</a>” in the <i>New York Times</i>.</p>Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-82915223509296937542019-08-21T11:35:00.000-07:002019-08-21T11:42:28.212-07:00The Triumph of Late Capitalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some contemporary leftists love to talk about “late capitalism” as if the system were in its dying stages, destined to land on the trash heap of history as socialism triumphs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is BS, or at best wishful thinking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The phrase has been around for many decades but was more recently popularized by <span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;">Fredric Jameson, author of </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529;">Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;">(1991).</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It appears to most of us that history is moving in the other direction, with capitalism finding ways of developing in a variety of ways in purportedly socialist countries, for good or for ill.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Consider contemporary Russia, which abandoned its supposed socialism for an old-fashioned form of crony state capitalism. Russia needs a trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt type more than another Lenin. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I agree with those who argue that such systems are really closer to fascism, but I think it's confusing overkill to use that term.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">China’s leaders continue to cling to the term "communism" while fostering instead an even more classic sort of capitalist entrepreneurship.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #212529;">Cuba continues to discourage individual enterprise but it flourishes nevertheless. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;">In Vietnam capitalism also f</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;">lourishes</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;">, competing directly with China. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;">Even in North Korea the economy is being propped up by profit-seeking individual enterprises. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212529;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Those who describe contemporary Western economic systems as part of “late capitalism" sound as quaint and unplugged from reality as apocalyptic religious types who have been preaching for centuries that we are living in the latter days.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Capitalism has many problems, but it is metastasizing, not fading away. All around the world greedy profiteering is triumphing over working for the common good, with precious few nations moving in the other direction.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #212529; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I detest almost everything that Stephen Miller has said and done in the Trump administration, but I have to admit I agree with most of what he wrote in in his <i>Washington Examiner </i>article “<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/why-liberals-and-socialists-love-to-harp-on-late-capitalism" target="_blank">Why Liberals and Socialists Love to Harp on ‘Late Capitalism.’”</a></span></span></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-61672108653739951762019-07-15T10:33:00.000-07:002019-07-15T12:20:43.479-07:00Politically Healthy Language<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
During David Remnick’s interview with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on his recent <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-on-the-2020-presidential-race-and-trumps-crisis-at-the-border" target="_blank"><i>New Yorker</i> podcast</a>, he asked her why she calls herself a “socialist” when her ideas sound very much like New Deal liberalism. I was exasperated by her reply just as I’m exasperated by the way Bernie Sanders does likewise and also by the way he calls his advocacy of a program of reforms a “revolution.”<br />
<br />
The insistence by these very smart people in trying to reclaim their opponents’ accusations by adopting their terminology and redefining it to suit their own views strikes me as politically obtuse. Bernie belongs to the generation that thought moving from “protest” to “resistance” to “revolution” was a boldly courageous stand when instead it fractured the overwhelmingly non-revolutionary anti-Vietnam War movement and helped to promote opposition to it. Ocasio-Cortez should know better.<br />
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Merriam-Webster’s note on “socialism” makes clear that these politicians are being more provocative than accurate:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the many years since “socialism” entered English around 1830, it has acquired several different meanings. It refers to a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control, but the conception of that control has varied, and the term has been interpreted in widely diverging ways, ranging from statist to libertarian, from Marxist to liberal. In the modern era, "pure" socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few Communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as democratic socialism, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.</blockquote>
Neither of them advocates nationalizing American industries. At best they are Western European-style democratic socialists, advocating a system in which capitalism generates the wealth which can then be taxed and shared for social purposes.<br />
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The exception is the private health insurance industry, which both candidates have said they want to abolish.<br />
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I can’t help sympathizing, since I wish we had a single-payer government system like Britain’s; but the fact is the overwhelming majority of voters are opposed to this notion, and embracing it as an immediate goal just confirms in the public’s mind that the Republicans may have a point in claiming “The Democrats want to take away your health insurance.”<br />
<br />
Ezra Klein analyzes this problem thoughtfully in his Vox piece “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/8/20683368/democrats-2020-medicare-private-insurance-single-payer-debate" target="_blank">Abolish private insurance? It depends</a>.”<br />
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In my opinion a smarter answer to the question would run along these lines:<br />
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Private health insurance companies, both for-profit and nonprofit, have plenty of problems that need to be solved to provide affordable health care and reduce the amount Americans spend on it. Medicare and Medicaid have their own problems, but they are far more efficient than the private industry, and would be even more so if conservatives had not legally barred the government from seeking lower prices for drugs.<br />
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I prefer the proposal to open a program like Medicare to the general public as an option and let it compete on an even playing field with private insurance. Then we could see which was more attractive. "Free market" advocates don’t like government competing in the marketplace, but this is one instance in which the evidence is pretty strong that it would be healthier both economically and medically for the US to provide such an option. That would be a truly free market.<br />
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Just don’t call it “socialism.”</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-59894601820899721892019-07-15T08:48:00.000-07:002019-07-15T12:21:23.054-07:00When It Rains, It Pours<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A member of a Facebook photo-editing group I belong to writes that he did not like the “pail sky” in one of his shots, so he created a substitute sky with some wispy clouds in it.<br />
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Musing on what a “pail sky” might be, I realized it must be the kind from which it “rains buckets.”<br />
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Then I wondered if anyone had used the spelling “pail face.” Sure enough, there’s a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/pailface/" target="_blank">“pail face” hashtag on Instagram</a> that brings up images of people with very light complexions.<br />
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Some people have used “pail face” deliberately <a href="https://www.levellerspress.com/product/johnny-pail-face/" target="_blank">as a pun</a>, but this doesn’t seem to be a very common usage.<br />
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A sarcastic contribution to The Urban Dictionary defines “pailface” as “One who is shamed by having a pail or bucket placed on their head.”<br />
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“Beyond the Pail” gets more action, however. The Lucky Bucket Brewing Co. brews <a href="https://untappd.com/b/lucky-bucket-brewing-company-beyond-the-pail/522879" target="_blank">a pale ale which some people claim goes by that name</a>, though I’ve unable to confirm that on their own Web site.<br />
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For my discussion of this latter phrase, see p. 36 of <i>Common Errors in English Usage</i> (3rd ed.) or check out <a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/beyond-the-pail/" target="_blank">the online version</a>.</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-13434003955849472022019-03-27T10:46:00.002-07:002019-03-27T13:53:09.065-07:00Putting the “It” Back in “Anti-Semitism”<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
With the recent upsurge in anti-Jewish speech and acts there has been a great increase in the use of the words “anti-Semite” and “anti-Semitism” in broadcast news. These terms have long been widely used in as a polite synonym for "anti-Jewish," perhaps somewhat influenced by <a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/jew/" target="_blank">nervousness about the word “Jew” which I discuss in my <i>Common Errors </i>entry on that word</a>.<br />
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But I have noticed that many pronounce the fourth syllable in “anti-Semitism” as if it were spelled “met,” with a distinctly soft “E” sound, even though “antisemite” should remind us that it should sound more like “mitt.”<br />
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“Semitic” as a term designating certain people and languages has an interesting history. It originated in the 19th century as a term to designate a group of Middle Eastern languages including Hebrew, Aramæan, Arabic, Ethiopic, and ancient Assyrian. The name was derived from the name of Noah’s eldest son Shem, considered in Jewish tradition to be the ancestor of the Hebrews, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Lydians, other related groups called “Ishmaelite,” after Shem’s eldest son Ishmael.<br />
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Muslims consider the Arabs to be descendants of Ishmael and therefore qualified to claim the term “semite” as well. Some have argued that the term “anti-Semite” should therefore apply also to prejudice against Muslims. This is a bit of a stretch since most Muslims are not Arabs, and neither group has traditionally identified itself with the term “Semitic.”<br />
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Currently there is also a heated debate about the use of the term “anti-Semitic” to designate attitudes and speech which oppose the politics of the state of Israel. This is a political debate, not really a linguistic one, abundantly explored elsewhere.<br />
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For well over a century the word “Semitic” has most commonly been used as a synonym for “Jewish” and “anti-Semitic,” and those who argue that it should be extended to Muslims may be suspected of harboring anti-Semitic attitudes.<br />
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I don’t expect broadcasters to pay any attention to the distinction I’m making here, but it would be nice if more of them would put the “it” back in “anti-Semitism.”<br />
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<br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-19763789953395016662019-01-26T12:00:00.003-08:002020-09-08T07:14:26.587-07:00Who Was that I Met Last Night?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
I've noticed that more and more often people at informal gatherings are liable to introduce themselves by given name only, presumably because that seems more friendly; but if you want to establish any kind of ongoing connection you’ll need to provide a family name as well. There are times I have suspected that the other person is thinking “I don’t expect to ever see this guy again, so I’ll just go with my first name.”<br />
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Once the pattern is established, it’s awkward for a later speaker to give his or her full name instead—though that might be genuinely useful, especially if one anticipates working on a project with the new acquaintance.<br />
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The Japanese generally exchange cards upon meeting, which seems very formal to Americans but can be quite useful.<br />
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In a purely casual social gathering—such as encountering someone at a bar—one person may want to preserve her/his privacy by going with given name or nickname only, whereas the other person may hope to establish an ongoing connection by offering their full name. I see no way around this except to be conscious of what each pattern may imply.<br />
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If you intend your new acquaintance to get in touch with you, it’s best to go with full name. The same goes for praising individuals in a public speech, where you should try to make clear just who it is you’re talking about if not everyone in audience knows the individuals already.<br />
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<br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-79885193691704964672018-12-15T18:24:00.000-08:002018-12-15T21:06:35.659-08:00Alan Moore’s New "Jerusalem"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span id="goog_1207449714"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1207449715"></span>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://commonerrorspodcast.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/episode-7-reading-george-eliot-and-moving-back-in-time/" target="_blank">One of my earlier podcasts</a> explored a single dense, complex sentence
by George Eliot; and contrasted her style with the modern preference for short, simple sentences
with a minimum of modifying adjectives and adverbs, figures of speech, and
other verbal filigree.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve just finished reading a massive contemporary novel
which upends all the rules of contemporary straight-ahead prose. Alan Moore’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jerusalem, </i>published in 2016, is a
highly experimental work, with each chapter told from a different character’s point
of view, jumping around chronologically to visit times as long past as the early
Middle Ages and as far distant as the projected end of the universe. In these
ways it resembles quite a few modern novels.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But its prose is a marvelous tangle of description, simile,
and wordplay. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s begin with a feature that may well be off-putting for many
readers—the obsessive specification of the exact streets and landmarks among
which the action takes place: the grubby London Northampton area of London which Moore refers
to as “The Boroughs.” A map is provided in the endpapers of the book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s a typical paragraph:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He gestured drunkenly around them as they reached the bottom
of the rough trapezium of hunched-up ground called Castle Hill, where it joined
what was left of Fitzroy Street. This last was now a broadened driveway leading
down into the shoebox stack of ’Sixties housing where the feudal corridors of
Moat Street, Fort Street and the rest once stood. It terminated in a
claustrophobic dead-end car park, block accommodation closing in on two sides
while the black untidy hedges representing a last desperate stand of Boroughs
wilderness, spilled over on a third.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can follow the action along on the map if you wish, but
it doesn’t add a great deal to understanding the novel. Moore specifies street
names when a character goes for a walk, including each and every turn. No one ever
just walks down a generic street. This pattern is the one thing that annoyed me
about his prose because it is so repetitious and mostly irrelevant. But it’s
all of a piece with his desire to embed his fantastically baroque story in a
thickly woven web of specific detail. His style reminds me of those Medieval
illuminated manuscripts in which a text is ornamented with scrolls, flowers,
and fantastic beasts crowding all the margins and other spaces into which something
decorative can be inserted.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Note how it’s not just a driveway, but a “broadened
driveway; not a simple parking lot, but “a claustrophobic dead-end car park.”
The vast majority of nouns are modified, often multiply: adjectives and adverbs
abound.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the right sort of reader, the densely ornamented prose
is not a forbidding dark hedge, but a maze of wonders. His writing flows
nicely, even though reading some of his sentences aloud requires two or more
breaths.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He scatters metaphors and similes in profusion throughout the
text. For instance, consider the next paragraph:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When this meagre estate had first gone up in Mick and Alma’s
early teenage years the cul-d-sac had been a bruising mockery of a children’s
playground, with a scaled down maze of blue brick in its centre, built
apparently for feeble minded leprechauns, and the autistic cubist’s notion of a
concrete horse that grazed eternally nearby, too hard-edged and uncomfortable
for any child to straddle, with its eyes an empty hole bored through its
temples. Even that, more like the abstract statue of a playground than an
actual place, had been less awful than this date-rape opportunity and likely
dogging hotspot, with its hasty skim of tarmac spread like cheap, stale caviar
across the pink pedestrian tiles beneath, the bumpy lanes and flagstone closes
under that. Only the gutter margins where the strata peeled back into sunburn
tatters gave away the layers of human time compressed below, ring markings on
the long-felled tree stump of the Boroughs. From downhill beyond the car park
and the no-frills tombstones of its sheltering apartment blocks there came the
mournful shunt and grumble of a goods train with its yelp and mutter rolling up
the valley’s sides from the criss-cross self-harm scars of the rail tracks at its
bottom.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He piles one figure of speech atop another, explores them in
detail, indulges in word-play and creates prose that resembles less a walk
along a path than a complex ballet with the reader bewildered in its center.
Nothing much “happens” for long stretches, but the verbal action is relentless.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the world of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jerusalem</i>
the images of the dead are often accompanied by a string of after-images
trailing and fading out behind them. Time after time Moore comes up with a new
simile for this effect, clearly delighting in displaying his fertile
imagination. The idea never “goes without saying.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many readers will find this sort of thing off-putting; but
if, like me, you find it delightful, there’s plenty of it: the novel is 1,262
pages long.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
At times it seems as if the novel is aspiring to the qualities of film. We are told which way characters turn, what is going on in the background, and we are given vividly detailed descriptions of the settings. Perhaps a better analogy is that this is a graphic novel without pictures.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So exquisitely mundane is most of the early narrative that
the moments of fantasy leap out shockingly from the page, and even after these
have accumulated for hundreds of pages it is stunning to find ourselves halfway
through the novel plunged into an extraordinarily detailed and original afterlife
world where most of the characters are “dead.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much of the subject matter is grim, threatening, haunting
(in both figurative and literal senses); but the prose is exuberant, playful, often
amusing. Whereas most modern fiction pares away tedious description to immerse
us in the action, Moore immerses us in the funhouse of his prose where we’re sometimes
in danger of losing track of the plot altogether. In this book the point is in the
telling, more than in the tale.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moore plays all kinds of linguistic games, writing in varied
styles including Victorian gothic, Chandleresque hardboiled detective, and the
sort of experimental punning mish-mash that makes up James Joyce’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Finnegan’s Wake </i>in a chapter that
embodies the tale of the author’s mad daughter, Lucia: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Awake, Lucia gets up wi’ the wry sing of de light. She is a
puzzle, shore enearth, as all the Nurzis and the D’actors would afform, but
nibber a cross word these days, deepindig on her mendication and on every
workin’ grimpill’s progress.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I count at least ten puns or other sorts of wordplay in these
two sentences alone which open the chapter allusively titled “Round the Bend.”
It goes on like that for 48 dense pages.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One chapter is written entirely in verse, beginning thus:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Den wakes beneath the
windswept porch alone</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On bone-hard slab
rubbed smooth by Sunday feet</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where afternoon light
leans, fatigued and spent,</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ground to which he
feels no entitlement</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nor any purchase on
the sullen street;</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unpeels his chill grey
cheek from chill grey stone</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then orients himself
in time and space.</i></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The desire to be oriented in time and space is constantly
challenged. Although the novel is structured something like a mystery, there is
no culminating Big Reveal. One major hanging plot thread never gets wrapped up
at all. The last chapter brings together many scenes and characters earlier
touched on, but not in a way that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">explains</i>
everything. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moore is best known as a writer for DC superhero comic books
and as author of the similarly playful historical fantasy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i> (the graphic novel, much
better than the awful movie)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>But
this is his masterpiece: dazzling, diverting, and utterly delightful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-57187526579209410592018-12-11T15:45:00.002-08:002018-12-13T12:11:56.398-08:00Hyphenating Dilemmas (and Nothing about Baseball)A front office change over at <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/">Fangraphs</a>: Meg Rowley has taken over as managing editor and podcast host at the popular baseball site. Carson Cistulli, who was managing editor and podcast host for years, is moving on to work for the Toronto Blue Jays.<br />
<br />
I'm interested in the podcast because I like baseball, but what I've always appreciated is Cistulli's approach to the project. The podcast has never been only about baseball; there has been a fair amount of French philosophy and pop culture in the mix, for example (and trash culture, too, as you could count on professional wrestling to come up now and then).<br />
<br />
In the <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fangraphs-audio-carson-cistulli-fulfills-his-obligation/#more-300071">handoff episode</a>, where outgoing host Cistulli played guest to incoming host Rowley, they talked a bit about their disagreements on hyphenation:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<iframe height="160" src="https://wmjasco.com/podcasts/rowley-cistulli.mp3" width="440"></iframe>
</div>
<span id="goog_2111951110"></span><span id="goog_2111951111"></span><br />
I've written about hyphenating <a href="https://wmjasco.blogspot.com/search?q=hyphen">previously</a>, but that was an unusual circumstance. Rowley and Cistulli are talking about a traditional rule of hyphenation, one that says you need to insert a hyphen into a compound adjective when placed before a noun, so you're good to go with "grass-fed cows" and "cows that are grass fed."<br />
<br />
The case of "front-office decision" vs. "front office decision" is trickier, if you are open to the idea that the matter is open to interpretation. <i>The Chicago Manual of Style</i> has, in recent editions, backed off from their stance that the hyphen rule applies across the board. They now promote leaving out a hyphen if the reader will not be confused. This introduces ambiguity, to be sure, but dropping the hyphen can reduce clutter.<br />
<br />
Cistulli makes his case that hyphens can clarify things (is it an office decision that has a front, back and sides, perhaps?), while Rawley believes dropping the hyphen would not cause confusion, so this is a case where it could be dropped.<br />
<br />
It's subtle, and most often you just have to go with the traditional rule. Where do I stand on "front-office decision" vs. "front office decision"? Please refer to the first sentence of this post to see.<br />
<br />
___________<br />
<br />
You will find a good summary of basic hyphenation rules in the <a href="https://wmjasco.com/william-james-co/8-common-errors-in-english-usage-3rd-ed-9781590282632.html"><i>Common Errors in English Usage</i></a> book and <a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/hyphenation/">on the Web site</a>. You will find interesting discussion on bending and even breaking rules responsibly in <a href="https://wmjasco.com/william-james-co/55-far-from-the-madding-gerund-9781590280553.html"><i>Far from the Madding Gerund</i></a>. Both books are on sale this month—$15 with free shipping.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://wmjasco.com/william-james-co/8-common-errors-in-english-usage-3rd-ed-9781590282632.html"><img alt="https://wmjasco.com/william-james-co/8-common-errors-in-english-usage-3rd-ed-9781590282632.html" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcWLDrZW966n3Jjp1NFnAvtt-6tG1hSvKjFvC5hSK1nsLPFyOZh3xieTXC603jtkBOmqm9jXQUdnQzwFONBxS5BZuH0lzAuMpk6Z56X8Tz7wxdynbyWoc-J8MDAQTiXUlxWDnyIdI_CI/s320/9781590282632.jpg" width="208" /></a> <a href="https://wmjasco.com/william-james-co/55-far-from-the-madding-gerund-9781590280553.html"><img alt="https://wmjasco.com/william-james-co/55-far-from-the-madding-gerund-9781590280553.html" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyg8cYHoJx2ZWWBTxrr1QJxSz44MtLMCGgV4zE2je2sD2MJ47j8u3-Mht7fq9dzoBuxp1GDqdEsEqapMTztIVaEbJsgYd1m5LY2rDpBV-tAzYRzyDyYlqjgB8xk02I20SCf5RXF4eLTS4/s320/1590280555.jpg" width="212" /></a> <span id="goog_2111951156"></span><span id="goog_2111951157"></span></div>
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-39278546589873094882018-11-24T11:33:00.001-08:002018-11-24T12:51:30.842-08:00Hacking the Etymology of “Hack”<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Everybody’s talking about “life hacks” lately. This is not something that’s really grabbed my interest until recently, but today when I read <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/betty/2018/11/24" target="_blank">this <i>Betty</i> comic strip</a> contrasting positive and negative meanings of the word “hack” I decided to investigate it further.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/life%20hack" target="_blank">Merriam-Webster online</a> defines “life hack” as “a usually simple and clever tip or technique for accomplishing some familiar task more easily and efficiently.” The citation of the first use of the phrase in this sense is dated 2004.<br />
<br />
How did a word traditionally associated with crude and destructive behavior come to connote ingenuity and efficiency?<br />
<br />
The earliest meaning of the word in English cited in the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> is “To cut or chop with heavy blows in an irregular or random fashion; to mangle or mutilate, esp. with jagged cuts, so as to damage or destroy.”<br />
<br />
The first citation puzzled me a bit at first until I realized <i>bad</i> is a variant spelling of “bade,” the past tense of the word “bid.”<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>A maiden bad te kinge his heued, and he hit bad of acken.</i></blockquote>
So this means "A maiden asked the king for his head, and he asked for it to be hacked off.” This is from a early 13th century collection of sayings, so there’s no context given; but it sounds like an excerpt from the story of Salome, King Herod, and John the Baptist.<br />
<br />
The other earliest citation, from the <i><a href="https://user.phil.hhu.de/~holteir/companion/Navigation/Anonymous_Texts/Ancrene_Riwle/ancrene_riwle.html" target="_blank">Ancrene Riwle,</a></i> also denotes decapitation, with a very different spelling:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Hahackede of his heaued </i>[hacked off his head]</blockquote>
Hacking is mostly associated with rough, crude cutting, as in Shakespeare’s <i>Henry IV, </i>Part 1, where the cowardly Falstaff falsely claims to have fought ferociously: “My sworde hackt like a handsaw.” (He had actually deliberately damaged it by hacking at a stone in order to create evidence of his courage.)<br />
<br />
Certain sounds have been associated with hacking: chattering teeth, stuttering, quibbling—but the one that persists is referred to in the phrase “a hacking cough.”<br />
<br />
People could also hack unwanted trees and weeds, and hack through brush to get somewhere, leading to a whole tradition of positive meanings having to do with working one’s way through obstacles to reach a goal. By the 1930s, Americans were using the term to mean “manage,” “accomplish,” “cope with,” or “tolerate,” especially in negative contexts: “I don’t know if I can hack it.”<br />
<br />
Some speculate that this may be a variation on the earlier expression “to cut it” as in “cut the mustard” (see my comments on this on p. 74 of <i>Common Errors in English Usage</i> “<a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/30/non-error/" target="_blank">cut the muster</a>/cut the mustard”).<br />
<br />
"Hacking" became a computer term in the mid-1970s. The <i>OED</i> cites three successive meanings which are still current:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To engage in writing computer programmes or software, esp. purely for personal satisfaction. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To modify (computer software, code, hardware components, etc.), esp. in order to provide a (typically inelegant) solution or workaround to a problem, to provide (a solution or workaround) by doing this. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To gain unauthorized access to or control over a computer system, network, a person's telephone communications, etc., typically remotely. </blockquote>
It is this last definition that has stuck in the popular mind: computer hacking is seen as definitely a bad thing, whereas hackers themselves often have more complex attitudes toward the word. They often insist on using the word in positive senses. They tend to view hacking not as crude and destructive, but as creative and elegant, which leads by analogy to the expression “life hacking.”<br />
<br />
Those unfamiliar with any of these positive connotations for the word are mostly likely to use it negatively. People are always announcing on Facebook that their account may have been hacked because people they are already friends with are receiving fake friend requests. It doesn’t take advanced computer skills to set up a fraudulent FB account with your picture and name and send notices out to all your friends.<br />
<br />
“Hack” can have a host of other meanings.<br />
<br />
For instance, in American slang to hack someone off is to annoy them.<br />
<br />
But how about “hackneyed”?<br />
<br />
To understand this word we have to go back to an unrelated meaning of the word “hack” as traced in the <i>OED. </i>In the renaissance a hack was “a horse used for hire. Also: an inferior or worn out horse, a nag.”<br />
<i><br /></i>
But the word was modestly upgraded in the 18th Century:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A horse, esp. one of a calm disposition, used for general riding on a road, path, etc., as distinct from cross-country, military, or other kind of riding; a road horse. In later use also: a ridden show horse of any of several breeds and sizes, with a pleasing appearance and excellent manners. </blockquote>
So a carriage horse, particularly one pulling a vehicle for hire, could be a hack, as could the driver, and he could drive a hackney coach. Hackney cabriolets (two-wheeled carriages with a folding roof, drawn by a single horse) were commonly used for paid transportation: hence the word “cab” for such a vehicle. After the invention of the automobile, the term was transferred to taxis and their drivers, both being called “hacks.”<br />
<br />
But another variation of the word’s etymology branched off around 1700:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Originally: a person who may be hired to do any kind of work as required; a drudge, a lackey . In later use: spec. a person who hires himself or herself out to do any kind of literary work; (hence) a writer producing dull, unoriginal work, esp. to order.</blockquote>
Journalists, sometimes considered an inferior species of writer, also began to be called “hacks” and their writing “hackneyed.”<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wondering whether<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
had any life hacks to share, I thought about my technique for preparing green
beans for cooking, but a quick search demonstrated that <a href="https://youtu.be/fg9219FvCvM" target="_blank">it’s pretty common knowledg</a>e, if not yet hackneyed.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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I can hack this disappointment—not really hacked off at all.</div>
<i><br /></i>
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Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-52978326224757755802018-11-13T11:08:00.000-08:002018-11-13T12:33:50.350-08:00Stuck on Macs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Recently I was stuck on the tarmac at JFK in New York for about forty minutes waiting for my plane to take off and began musing on the word “tarmac.”<br />
<br />
It’s an abbreviation of “tarmacadam”: a mixture of tar and crushed stones originally used for paving roads. It was invented by Scottish surveyor John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836), but very early on the spelling mutated to “tar macadam” and other variants using the spelling “macadam” rather than the original “McAdam.”<br />
<br />
The French adopted the word with the same spelling of the inventor’s name: "Mac Adam" and “Mac-Adam.” It looks as if non-Scots were reluctant to use the original “Mc” form and resorted to the more phonetic spelling (though both spellings are common in Scotland).<br />
<br />
When you are “immortalized” by having your name misspelled it’s a mixed blessing.<br />
<br />
Newscasters love to use the word “tarmac” when discussing flight delays, though the airlines themselves are more prone to say “runway”; but the press did not invent this usage. By the second decade of the 20th century airport runways were commonly referred to as “tarmacs.”<br />
<br />
Even when runways began to be made principally of concrete, they continued to be called “tarmacs” in both the US and UK. However, in Britain “tarmac” is commonly used to denote ordinary road surfaces as well, whereas in the US the word has become restricted to airports and used almost entirely in the context of flight delays.<br />
<br />
Feeling stuck on my plane with the minutes ticking by, I felt a bit like Br’er Rabbit stuck to the tar baby in the 1880 Joel Chandler Harris <i>Uncle Remus</i> story. Harris may well have collected the tale from authentic African-American sources. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar-Baby" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> notes that variants of this story occur in many cultures, including West African, Native American, South American, and even Indian tales.<br />
<br />
Further musing on UK uses of “mac” I remembered that raincoats are commonly called “mackintoshes”—abbreviated “mac” or “mack” in Britain. The process by which such waterproof coats were originally made was invented by Charles Macintosh (1766–1843), according to the <i>Oxford English Dictionary “</i>consisting of two or more layers of cloth cemented together with India rubber dissolved in naphtha.”<br />
<br />
”Mac” became an informal name for any random Scot in England and was adopted in the US in the early 20th century as a generic term for any man whose name was unknown by the speaker, usually in an insulting or threatening context, often with the spelling slightly altered: “What’s it to you, Mack?” (Compare with “Bud,” used similarly.)<br />
<br />
I’m typing this on a Macintosh computer, commonly referred to as a “Mac.” You can always tell non-Mac users when they spell the word in all caps: “MAC.” (See <a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/24/mac-mac/" target="_blank">my entry on MAC/Mac</a> for more details.)<br />
<br />
Steve Jobs originally wanted to name the successor to the Apple II computer “McIntosh” after the apple thus named, but that spelling was already being used by the McIntosh Laboratory which built high-end audio equipment. The company refused to give him a release to use the name, so the spelling was changed before the computer was marketed.<br />
<br />
Well, I've been stuck on my Mac for long enough and I need to think about lunch—maybe a tasty bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-55935640883585754162018-11-04T07:42:00.002-08:002018-11-05T11:23:42.993-08:00A Bunch of Baloney<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Huffington Post writer Caroline Bologna reached out to me recently for a piece she was doing relating to her last name. She wound up quoting an excerpt from my entry on Baloney/Bologna: Common Errors in English Usage. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-is-baloney-spelled-bologna_n_5bd88319e4b07427610be221?" target="_blank">It appeared today</a>.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here’s the relevant paragraph:</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When it comes to the bullshit or nonsense definition, both Liberman and Zimmer agree that people should use the standard spelling “baloney” rather than “bologna.” Paul Brians, the author of Common Errors in English Usage, echoed that sentiment, writing on his website, “People who write ‘bunch of bologna’ are making a pun or are just being pretentious.”</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/bologna-baloney/" target="_blank">And here’s the entire entry.</a></span></span>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-92186872572074083422018-09-21T10:16:00.000-07:002018-09-21T10:18:13.499-07:00Getting Down with “Uppers”<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Recently I was reading a Latin American novel in a British translation and ran across the expression “on his uppers.” I’ve seen variations of this phrase before, always in negative contexts. It makes little intuitive sense to an American for whom “uppers” are usually stimulants or otherwise elevating experiences. The common contexts for this expression suggest something more like what we call “downers.”<br />
<br />
This time I decided to check it out.<br />
<br />
It does turn out that “uppers” is British public school slang for students of “upper schools,” sort of like our “secondary schools.” But that can’t be the meaning here.<br />
<br />
<i>The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms</i> provides a clear explanation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Poor, in reduced circumstances, as in . . . <i>The Smiths try to hide the fact that they're on their uppers.</i> First recorded in 1886, this metaphoric term alludes to having worn out the soles of one’s shoes so badly that only the top portions remain.</blockquote>
So it means roughly the same thing as British “skint” (US “broke”}.<br />
<br />
Other sources provide the fuller but seemingly paradoxical form of the expression “down on one’s uppers.”<br />
<br />
Having recently discovered a hole in the sole of my expensive Ecco shoes, I can understand continuing to use worn footwear; but one wouldn’t continue to wear uppers if the soles were completely gone, so this has to be a joking exaggeration enhanced by the addition of “down to.”<br />
<br />
The expression is so widespread in UK English that I wonder whether all speakers realize the allusion to worn shoes embodied in it.<br />
<br />
I also found that in my copy of the 1997 <i>American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, the </i><i> </i>proofreaders had missed a slip-up in their definition. The reason I inserted the ellipsis in my quotation is that the actual sentence begins: “Poor, in reduced circumstances, as in as in. . . ” Repetitions like this are notoriously hard to spot, but still—what a downer.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-87447258542510472302018-09-18T20:33:00.000-07:002018-09-18T20:33:15.445-07:00Taking Care<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</div>
Last night at the Emmy awards, the director of <i>Game of Thrones</i> told author George R. R. Martin, “Thank you for letting us take care of your people.”<br />
<br />Given the low survival rate of characters in the series, I take it this is the same form of the expression as when a Mafia hitman says, “Don’t worry about those guys any more, boss. I took care of them.”<br />
</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-49182435529416375752018-08-26T13:13:00.002-07:002018-08-26T13:38:35.424-07:00Rails and Walls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/us/pennsylvania-young-voters.html" target="_blank">story about newly registered young voters in the <i>New York Times</i> </a>(8/26/18) a young man is quoted as saying “The country has just gone off the walls since Trump got elected.”<br />
<br />
This didn’t sound quite right to me. The usual expression is “off the wall”—singular—not “walls.”<br />
<br />
In addition “off the wall” is normally used as adjectival phrase modifying some noun: “He made some off-the-wall remarks.”<br />
<br />
(Unless, of course, you’re discussing handball.)<br />
<br />
It refers to erratic, eccentric, unexpected actions. Occurring first in the 1950’s, it may have referred to the erratic, unpredictable behavior of balls bouncing off walls, such as baseball outfield fences.<br />
<br />
Then I realized that the young man perhaps had this phrase confused with the much older one, “off the rails.” It originated a century earlier when everyone was aware that a railroad engine running off the rails could cause a true disaster. It is used to describe things going not just unpredictably, but catastrophically.<br />
<br />
Its close relation is “trainwreck.” So a political campaign that goes off the rails will probably end in a trainwreck.<br />
<br />
Young people born in the 21st century probably don’t have railroads much in mind. Having heard the expression “off the rails” and confusing it with “off the wall,” the young man probably carried the plural S over onto the "wall” and came up with the expression “gone off the walls.”<br />
<br />
But there's also the expression “bouncing off the walls,” usually describing childish hyperactivity. That could also be the source of the plural form.<br />
<br />
Whatever he meant, congratulations to him for getting registered. We need a lot more young people to follow his example.</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-22125689249827601892018-08-26T12:47:00.001-07:002018-08-26T12:49:31.753-07:00Subsaharan Suffixes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I recently noticed in a story in the <i>New York Times</i> about efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Sahara to reach Europe that the adjective used in connection with the country involved was “Nigerien.” For a moment I thought shouldn’t that be “Nigerian”?<br />
<br />
But then I realized the story was about Niger, where the official national language is French, so the French suffix <i>-ien</i> makes perfect sense; whereas the official national language of Nigeria is English, so the <i>-ian</i> suffix is correct.<br />
<br />
Plus—that way you can tell them apart, right?<br />
<br />
Good to know.</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-17671938181502841492018-08-13T10:39:00.000-07:002018-08-13T21:15:40.399-07:00“Good” Usage or Just “Fair”?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Recently I heard someone being interviewed on NPR say “that’s all fair and well.” It took a few moments for me to figure out what bothered me about this phrase; then I remembered that the usual version is “all well and good.”<br />
<br />
But that led me to wonder what the distinction might be between “well” and “good.” The <i>American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms </i>seems to think there is none, calling it “a redundant phrase.”<br />
<br />
The <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> offers no comments on the meaning of the phrase, but notes that it first appears in 1548 as “wel and good.”<br />
<br />
At first it seems to have been merely an especially emphatic way of saying “it’s all good,” but by the late 19th century it had become mostly used in connection with some qualification or comparison, as in sentences like “that’s all well and good, but we need to actually do something now that we’ve discussed it for two hours.”<br />
<br />
Some sources suggest it now is used only in this sense, to prepare the way for a negative qualifying statement.<br />
<br />
From the<a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/well_2" target="_blank"> </a><i><a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/well_2" target="_blank">Oxford Advanced American Dictionary</a>:</i><br />
<div class="top-container" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px -6px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333;"><b>all well and good (</b><i>informal</i><b>)</b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333;">quite good, but not exactly what is wanted</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333;">That's all well and good, but why didn't he call her to say so?</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
From the <i><a href="https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/that-s-it-s-all-well-and-good" target="_blank">Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English</a>:</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>that’s/it’s all well and good</b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>spoken</i> especially British English used to say that something is good or enjoyable, but it also has some disadvantages </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Going off on foreign holidays is all well and good, but you’ve got to get back to reality sometime.</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
From the “Learn English Free”<a href="https://www.learnenglish.de/mistakes/goodvswell.html" target="_blank"> list of “Common Mistakes and Confusing Words in English”:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
You may hear the saying "That's all well and good." It means something is basically ok, but with some shortcomings.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.42857; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px;">
<blockquote>
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Building your own website is all well and good, but how will you encourage visitors?</em></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There are occasional exceptions to this pattern, but most often “well and good” is followed by “but.”</blockquote>
<br />
The <i>Oxford Advanced American Dictionary </i>pairs this expression with “that’s all very well,” which means the same thing.<br />
<br />
So how did “fair” creep into the NPR interviewee’s version? My suspicion is that he was influenced by the similar phrase “that's fair enough,” as in <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Richard%20Dawkins&page=3" target="_blank">this comment in the Urban Dictionary</a> about Richard Dawkins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You may disagree with his views, and that's fair enough, but to insult him because he says things you don't like just makes you look petulant.</blockquote>
<br />
Sometimes this mutates into “all fair enough,” which brings it closer to “all well and good.”<br />
<br />
Of course “fair enough” has an even more common positive use signifying agreement with a proposition.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You say you cooked dinner so I should do the dishes? Fair enough.</blockquote>
<br />
With nothing more to say on this subject, I bid you farewell.<br />
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-21521266156369296642018-07-22T08:37:00.000-07:002018-07-22T08:37:18.627-07:00One Small Example<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think a lot of cartoonists use strips like this to vent their own frustrations at English misusage while at the same time seeming to make fun of picky people.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.creators.com/read/one-big-happy/07/18/231364" target="_blank">This <i>One Big Happy</i> strip is a good example of what I mean.</a></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-9167107603321352732018-07-02T19:39:00.001-07:002018-07-02T19:43:08.953-07:00A Melange of Soup and Scones<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last Sunday in the <i>Seattle Times’ Pacific NW </i>magazine, writer Bethany Jean Clement wrote, in an article about the traditional potato-leek soup <i>vichyssoise</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The name is the fanciest thing about this summertime soup, and you don’t even say it the fanciest way. <i>Vee-she-swah,</i> the pronunciation that’s most divorced from actual letters—usually the way to go when it comes to French—is, in this case, incorrect. It’s <i>vee-she-swazz, </i>an even more hilarious hey-I’m-wearing-a-beret mouthful. After I said it recently, a friend of mine pointedly went with the <i>-swah,</i> clearly to demonstrate the error of my ways. I just let her do her. Life’s too short for pronunciation-shaming, and summer’s way too short. Plus it’s only soup.”</blockquote>
She went on to explain that the recipe was actually developed in America by the French chef at the Ritz Hotel in New York.<br />
<br />
But she does not explain that the rule about not pronouncing final consonants in French words does not apply when a silent E follows the final consonant.<br />
<br />
And how is publishing this story in a Sunday magazine not “pronunciation-shaming”?<br />
<br />
Anyway, good for her.<br />
<br />
However, later in the magazine in an article about a home remodel its author (who shall remain nameless), states:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Chak was a little unsure, only at first, about the scones at the base of the gracefully dramatic stairway designed by Stillwell.</blockquote>
Owners of the <i>Common Errors in English </i>book may remember the charming cartoon that editor Tom Sumner captioned to illustrate my entry on this goof:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoe-6nUK8xxDVOrgHjbC7RSKQ2gnCiFfM8hGRIpbgI0ejp_co6G8b41brpmALEu_Q_7EzN0aPUJHFZU8jVK8c5HUqk95_vGYE5t_E9n-w0xW-uKno3k1xPzmC-o4d4z23AI8AjAIjWZqM/s1600/scone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="846" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoe-6nUK8xxDVOrgHjbC7RSKQ2gnCiFfM8hGRIpbgI0ejp_co6G8b41brpmALEu_Q_7EzN0aPUJHFZU8jVK8c5HUqk95_vGYE5t_E9n-w0xW-uKno3k1xPzmC-o4d4z23AI8AjAIjWZqM/s320/scone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The book is worth buying for the cartoons alone, but here’s what I had to say in the associated entry:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you fling a jam-covered biscuit at the wall and it sticks, the result may be a “wall scone”; but if you are describing a wall-mounted light fixture, the word you want is <i>sconce</i>.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-27470545777860077592018-04-26T11:07:00.000-07:002018-04-26T13:38:52.876-07:00Kicking Against the Pricks (King James Bible: Acts 26:14)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
When the dental assistant was getting ready to inject me with a dose of lidocaine yesterday she warned me that I would “feel a little pinch.”</div>
<br />
Other medical practitioners have used the same expression on me in the past, and I have always wondered why they used that particular phrase. After all, a pinch consists of squeezing skin together and an injection punctures the skin—very different.<br />
<br />
Then it occurred to me they might be trying to avoid saying “prick” because of its anatomical meaning. Suddenly “a little pinch in your mouth” became more understandable.<br />
<br />
They could say “sting,” but nobody likes to get stung. It sounds unpleasant even if qualified by “little.”<br />
<br />
A pinch of saffron can make a dish delightful. Hot food fanciers may like their peppers to sting, though most people wouldn’t use that expression.<br />
<br />
“Pinch” can have other positive associations. In the days before makeup was considered quite respectable, young ladies would pinch their cheeks to give them a rosy glow.<br />
<br />
Men pinching women’s bottoms used to be considered a jolly gesture and was frequently joked about, though now it’s quite rightly seen as sexual assault. Children can’t sue grandmothers who pinch their cheeks, though they might like to.<br />
<br />
"Poke”? Too soft, nothing like a prick.<br />
<br />
So there we are—pinched.<br />
<br />
Looking for a respectable source for the headline on this post, I found this on the pious <a href="https://www.gotquestions.org/kick-against-the-pricks.html" target="_blank">Got Questions Website</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Question</b>: <b>What does it mean to kick against the pricks?</b></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Answer</b>: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture. An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even further into its flesh. In essence, the more an ox rebelled, the more it suffered. Thus, Jesus’ words to Saul on the road to Damascus: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Of the better-known Bible translations, the actual phrase “kick against the pricks” is found only in the King James Version. It is mentioned only twice, in Acts 9:5 and Acts 26:14. The apostle Paul (then known as Saul) was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians when he had a blinding encounter with Jesus. Luke records the event: “And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 26:14 KJV). Modern translations have changed the word pricks to goads. All translations except the KJV and NKJV, omit the phrase altogether from Acts 9:5. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The conversion of Saul is quite significant as it was the turning point in his life. Paul later wrote nearly half of the books of the New Testament. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Jesus took control of Paul and let him know his rebellion against God was a losing battle. Paul’s actions were as senseless as an ox kicking “against the goads.” Paul had passion and sincerity in his fight against Christianity, but he was not heading in the direction God wanted him to go. Jesus was going to goad (“direct” or “steer”) Paul in the right direction. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
There is a powerful lesson in the ancient Greek proverb. We, too, find it hard to kick against the goads. Solomon wrote, “Stern discipline awaits him who leaves the path” (Proverbs 15:10). When we choose to disobey God, we become like the rebellious ox—driving the goad deeper and deeper. “The way of the unfaithful is hard” (Proverbs 13:15). How much better to heed God’s voice, to listen to the pangs of conscience! By resisting God’s authority we are only punishing ourselves.</blockquote>
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Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-82460246524076475122018-04-11T09:23:00.001-07:002018-04-11T09:24:24.851-07:00Prehistoric Prescriptionism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The correcting of English usage is now as common in comic strips as slipping on a banana peel used to be.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2018/04/11" target="_blank">Non Sequitur</a></b><br />
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Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-44234360490849217382018-03-23T15:18:00.002-07:002018-03-23T15:18:34.712-07:00Hands-off Editing in The New York Times<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Print journalism is often thrown together hastily and unintended wordplay is sometimes the result.<br />
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In today’s <i>New York Times</i> there is a story headlined <i>Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash </i>in which the following passage appears:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A video shot from the vehicle’s dashboard camera showed the safety driver looking down, away from the road. It also appeared that the driver’s <b>hands were not hovering above the steering wheel</b>, which is what drivers are instructed to do so they can quickly retake control of the car. </blockquote>
Then just two paragraphs later:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unlike California, where Uber had been testing since spring of 2017, Arizona state officials had taken a <b>hands-off approach</b> to autonomous vehicles and did not require companies to disclose how their cars were performing.</blockquote>
Or is it possible that the reporter is making a deliberate play on words?<br />
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Not <i>The</i> <i>Times’ </i>style.</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-66207168364461871792018-03-22T10:30:00.002-07:002018-03-22T13:10:06.086-07:00 “Tape” Sticks Around<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I’ve written before on this blog about how the word “tape” continues to be used in this digital era to mean “recording,” both as a noun and a verb.<br />
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I was struck again by this yesterday when on NPR a correspondent kept referring to the video confession the Austin bomber left on his cellphone as a “tape.”<br />
<br />
I decided to look for other examples. Here are just a few out of many:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>CNN:</b><br />
The man suspected in a series of bombings in Austin, Texas is dead, after he confessed on <i>tape</i> and set off an explosive in his car during a police chase.<br />
<br />
<b>www.fox4news.com:</b><br />
Austin serial bomber left behind confession <i>tape</i><br />
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<b>The Daily Caller:</b><br />
Austin Police discovered a confession <i>tape</i> from the bombing suspect where he detailed how he made the bombs, the police chief said Wednesday.<br />
<br />
<b>The National:</b><br />
The man suspected in a series of bombings in Austin, Texas is dead, after he confessed on <i>tape</i> and set off an explosive in his car during a police chase.<br />
<br />
<b>Sean Hannity:</b><br />
BOMBER’S CONFESSION: Austin MADMAN Left Behind 25 MINUTE Confession <i>Tape</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b>New York Post:</b><br />
Austin bomber left <i>videotaped</i> confession, police say<br />
<br />
<b>Newser:</b><br />
[<i>In this case “cellphone recording” is used in the subhead to the story, but in its body the writers resort to “tape.” Clearly they didn’t do this to save space since it’s usually in headlines that shorter words are preferred.</i>]<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Cops Find ‘Confession’ From Austin Bombing Suspect</b><br />
<b>25-minute cellphone recording found with Mark Conditt</b><br />
Police have discovered a 25-minute recording on a cellphone found with bombing suspect Mark Conditt, and Austin Police Chief Brian Manley says he considers it a “confession,” the AP reports. He said at a news conference Wednesday that Conditt talks on the recording in great detail about the differences among the bombs he built. Manley says the <i>tape</i> is "the outcry of a very challenged young man."</blockquote>
</blockquote>
I suspect the source of the above and many other stories is a much-quoted passage from an <b>Associated Press </b>story, quoted by <b>Fox News</b> and many other news outlets:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
ROUND ROCK, Texas (AP) — Police have discovered a 25-minute recording on a cellphone found with bombing suspect Mark Conditt and Austin Police Chief Brian Manley says he considers it a "confession."<br />
<br />
Manley says at a news conference that Conditt talks on the recording in great detail about the differences among the bombs he built.<br />
<br />
He says that the <i>tape</i> is “the outcry of a very challenged young man.”</blockquote>
In fact Manley consistently called it a “recording,” not a “tape.”<br />
<br />
You can hear him at the <a href="http://xn--calls%20it%20a%20video%20recording-rh5u.xn--ivg/" target="_blank">press conference</a>, five minutes in<i>. </i>The rest consists mostly of officials congratulating each others’ agencies, none of them mentioning the recording.<br />
<br />
But during the question-and-answer period though one male reporter calls it a “video recording.” a female reporter uses the word “tape.”<br />
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So it looks like that one reference perhaps triggered the word “tape” in the AP writer’s brain and he or she associated it with the police chief’s presentation. And voilà, it’s all over the newsscape.<br />
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Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-38623546472644544432018-03-19T14:40:00.000-07:002018-03-19T14:40:06.810-07:00More Fulsome<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My entry for the word “fulsome” in my book says this:<br />
<header class="article-header" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #656565; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><hgroup style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>fulsome</b></span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">In modern usage, “fulsome” has two inconsistent meanings. To some people it means “offensive, overdone,” so “fulsome praise” to them would be disgustingly exaggerated praise.</span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">To other people it means “abundant,” and for them “fulsome praise” is glowingly warm praise.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first group tends to look down on the second group, and the second group tends to be baffled by the first. Best to just avoid the word altogether.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-weight: inherit;">
But now I have to add another note. Representative Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform panel, responded to President Trump’s criticisms of Robert Mueller ’s investigation of his campaign's connections with Russia by saying, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and thorough as possible.”</div>
<div style="font-weight: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-weight: inherit;">
<br /></div>
</hgroup></header>Gowdy not only thinks the word has positive connotations, he thinks it’s a synonym for “thorough.”<br />
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It’s easy to see how that first syllable would lead someone to think that it is an apt label for an investigation that will go fully into the facts. Now that it’s all over the news, I suppose we’ll be hearing more of it.</div>
Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3491523739371675288.post-35733342815336326322018-02-19T10:56:00.002-08:002018-02-19T10:56:46.933-08:00Non Sequitur on Usage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
English usage continues to be a very popular theme in newspaper comics. In the old days, it was all about banana-peel slips; now it’s linguistic slips.<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_597325626"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2018/02/19">http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2018/02/19</a><br />
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Paul Brianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09028062655512660933noreply@blogger.com0