Parvum Opus 346: A Practical Education

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

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Without Literary Merit

I sent my l limerick from PO 344 (“There was a young girl named Begonia”) to cartoonist Tony Cochran, who kindly wrote back: “I love it!!! It is useless and without literary merit, just like me! I will probably steal it. Tony Cochran”

I am huge fan of his cartoon, Agnes, and hope he does steal it.

A Practical Education

Thanks to Pat Geiger, a sister English grad student and teaching colleague when we were mere tadpoles, for this item about a new class at The U. of Akron, Profiling Serial Killers. I guess it’s another step in becoming a high-level trade school. As Bill Habbeck, a 20-year-old student from Hartville, said, ''Compared with math and English, this is stuff you can actually use.'' Another student, Anthony Tomei of Akron, said, ''She teaches you to guess. You can't figure out anything if you don't guess.” Yep, you don’t need to speak, write, or calculate as long as you can guess. Somehow I think the students misunderstood the instructor. But logicians need not enroll.

The journalist, who possibly graduated from Akron U. without needing language or logic, wrote that the teacher profiles serial killers as people who have no “controls on their inhibitions”. As Rod Stewart sang to a “virgin child”, “Just let your inhibitions run wild.” I would think serial killers already have their inhibitions thoroughly suppressed, but I’m just guessing.

Nonument

I don’t know who coined this word but a Cinci blogger recorded “nonument” as an empty store or building left standing too long.

And Now for a Hymn

In Hank Williams, Sr.’s great song “I Saw the Light” he sings “for strait is the gate and narrow the way”. Strait here is not to be confused with straight. Strait means tight and narrow, like a strait jacket or the Straits of Gibraltar.

You Can’t Say That or That

Politics always makes everyone crazy one way or another. In this week’s off-year election, people find it hard to speak or to listen clearly.

A Cincinnati Enquirer headline read, “Tuesday's voter: Older, whiter”. The idea is that in off-year elections, most of the people who bother to vote on things like city councilmen and local taxes and other uninteresting but locally important issues are older, and also white, and often live in the suburbs. That’s a fact. But several people were mightily offended at this headline and complained to the paper. Imagine if the headline was “Voters are blacker”, they whined. Well, what if it was? Where’s the insult? Do readers imagine that voters were individually becoming more white? Are they offended by the facts of voter turnout? I don’t get it.

And then there was the return of the “retardation” squeamishness. This week’s election presented a tax levy for an MRDD program because it was too late to legally change the agency name to DD. “Developmentally Disabled” includes “Mental Retardation” but it is felt (not thought) that “retardation” is offensive. The term “mentally retarded” was a pseudo-scientific sounding replacement for old terms such as simple, backward, slow, or natural (just as “developmentally disabled” replaced the earlier euphemism “handicapped”). But now the MR euphemism grates on some people’s ears, as if it’s an insult. You might as well say that “broken bone” is offensive to people who break a bone.

Some people can’t speak the truth without twisting themselves into a knot. The truth is that some disabilities are mental. Nobody’s fault, but many can’t be cured, corrected, or changed. Perhaps there used to be more acceptance of this kind of natural “diversity” when people weren’t so exercised as to how to speak of different kinds of people.

There will always be people who abuse others verbally, as when schoolyard bullies call each other “tards” whether or not they are in fact mentally handicapped. If the term “retarded” is retired and replaced with something more vague, the bullies will find other words.

The Poetry Corner

We’ve had mice and bought mouse traps. So far we’ve caught half a dozen mice and carried them, both live and late, over the hill at the end of the street to give them a natural burial in piles of leaves, or possibly a chance for escape and recovery in a couple of cases. I feel sympathy for the little guys, yet we can’t have mice in the kitchen. The live trap didn’t attract any mice.

Robert Burns turned up mouse’s home with his plough and wrote the famous poem “To a Mouse” expressing the human sense of compassion for the fellow creatures we disturb and kill. At one time, I even left house spiders alone, thinking they would eat other insects, until I saw that they bit my children. I had a friend who was a very clean nurse but also a Buddhist and like Albert Schweitzer, who escorted the flies outside, would carry cockroaches outside. It’s not a matter of whether spiders and mice have a right to live, it’s a matter of self-defense.

Last year in Scotland, Carol Anderson, owner of Bridgefield Books in Stonehaven, mentioned Robert Burns and said no girl would have a defense against a man with such poetry. True. But Burns had to farm, and we have to keep vermin out of our house. (I’m not sure but I think the book Carol is holding in the photo in the link maybe be about Burns; can’t quite make it out.)

Go-To Brit

Mike Sykes wasn’t familiar with the expression “go-to” as in “my go-to Brit”. I explained that it means my expert source (on British English).

As such, he says he’s never heard “to shop around the corner” meaning to be gay, though he searched around and found one example in the Guardian. He also found more on kludge, and also dug up a long list of programming epigrams, one of which is,

Get into a rut early: Do the same processes the same way. Accumulate idioms. Standardize. The only difference (!) between Shakespeare and you was the size of his idiom list — not the size of his vocabulary.

I think not. Shakespeare originated a lot of idioms, but he did more than that.

Regarding movie remakes, Mike commented on a very early Hitchcock movie, The 39 Steps, which he thinks is awful. I’ve seen it and it has a weak plot (and I don’t think it’s been remade), but has a period charm for me. But you’d probably have to be a huge Hitchcock aficionado to really like it.

Interestingly, both Mike and Dave DaBee were surprised at the Acorn story. I wouldn’t expect Mike to be at all aware of Acorn, and American Dave has been very busy with his big new projects and can’t keep up with all the news. So Dave didn’t know the story — perhaps it was skipped past quickly in the major media — and Mike couldn’t quite believe it. Regarding which, see my Examiner story below, “News sources editorialize by omission”.

The Gritty Bits: My Week on Examiner.com

News sources editorialize by omission

Friday, November 6th, 2009

The Cincinnati Enquirer ran two stories this morning about the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, yesterday by an...

Rally for Rifqa Bary in Columbus on November 16

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

A rally is scheduled to support Rifqa Bary, the 17-year-old girl who said her life was threatened after she...

Anita Dunn speaks for Obama

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Obama's communications director, Anita Dunn, said her favorite "philosophers" are Mother Theresa and...

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ONLINE PUBS

I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.

The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.

A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)

The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.

Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.

Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.

Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.

Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.

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BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

No Pain, No Pain

Star o’ the Bar

Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia

Flash in the Pants

If you're so smart why aren't you me?

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I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron)

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Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus 345 ~ Befriend Berate Betrend

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

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Lon Don Undone

Mike Sykes, our go-to Brit, wrote about whether “Lon Don” is pronounced like “Don John” in the south of England:

In a word: No! I've never heard of it, and although I come from the north I've heard plenty of southerners, not only on TV, and I've never heard the second syllable stressed. Many natives call it Lunnun, or Lunn'n (if there's a difference). Round here it's mostly Lundun.
What intrigues me it that a son & family have just moved from London to Loddon — change one consonant and the vowel sound changes from u to o. Oh well.

I guess if we went into the histories of the names London and Loddon we’d find the key to the pronunciation and spelling.

Possibly the Lon Don man I heard was a foreigner who’d been there a long time but not long enough. Or he may have had a speech impediment, or suffered the effects of a stroke. Some years ago I had a burst blood vessel in one eye which probably signaled something else going on inside the brain, and my speech slowed slightly (a disadvantage in Boston where they talk fast and think everyone from west of Philadelphia is a farmer, i.e. stupid, partly because everyone else not from New York or New Jersey speaks more slowly) and one particular phrase was noticeably harder to enunciate at normal speed: “That’s a good idea.” Apparently I say that often enough that I noticed I couldn’t spit it out fast enough. It’s better now. But you never know what’s going on with people. “Hey, are you deaf?!” Maybe. Congenitally deaf people not only can’t hear, they don’t speak exactly the same as everyone else either.

Speaking of British English, I have a scrap of paper in my pile noting that the expression “to shop around the corner” means to be gay.

Oh Kludge Bill Roberts wrote about kludge: Used it for decades—it is both noun and verb. “That’s a kludge, but it’ll hold.” “We’ll kludge that back together and it’ll be okay until we get back in.” Pronounced “kloodj”. He added that it does sometimes rhyme with “fudge, or even rougher”. And he added, “Remember that a boatswain’s mate can frequently achieve an f-word percentage of 75 percent (that’s number of f-word uses divided by number of words in the sentence) and still communicate.” The f-word can function as most parts of speech, except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions, those relationship function words. It does very well as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. Twice Is a Trend This week I heard, “We friend our teenagers”, the idea being that we don’t parent them. “Parent” has already been turned into a verb anyway, without quite meaning “sire”, “mother”, “teach”, or any other action that might be attributed to a parent. But why “friend” when the perfectly serviceable Old English “be” prefix produces “befriend”, which is still extant? Then I heard it again this week in the new sitcom about a community college called Community: “…and friend the hell out of that green-tea drinking…” You can watch all the episodes online (the one about the “human beings” team mascot is hilarious), and I listened to it a couple of times just to be sure of the verb “friend”. Of course there’s a history to both forms, as in bewitch and witch, yet “to witch someone” means something different from “to bewitch someone”. Bewitch means to enchant or charm in the positive, glamorous sense; to witch means to use witchy spells. Ms. Somehow I thought “Ms.” was invented by Gloria Steinem or somebody just before Ms. magazine appeared on the stands, but Ben Zimmer writes in the New York Times that it was proposed as early as 1901. Not Enough Light On the radio a caller said, “Better not make too much light of this.” It doesn’t really matter what the subject was because his meaning wasn’t too clear. It seems to be a kludging of several idioms: to make light of (to treat as unimportant); and to make too much of something, which means the opposite of making light of. I couldn’t make sense of it. Directional and Hyphenated Teams Fred told me that former U. of Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins used to say that had he scheduled more games with directional teams and hyphenated teams, he would have had a better lifetime win/loss record. He meant teams from schools with names like Southwestern Podunk U. and Springfield-Rivertown Community Technical College. Fred said that isn’t as true anymore of directional and hyphenated football teams, though, which have beaten some big schools.

Imagine A local convenience store has a rack of incense sticks with names like: Patti LaBelle Paris Hilton True Calling Black Women Some of the names are conventional, like Egyptian Musk, but who knows what Paris Hilton or Patti LaBelle smells like? Product naming is an art of sorts. Lately two new terms for women’s pants styles are “Jackie” and “Audrey”. Jackie has a wider leg at the ankle, almost but not quite bell-bottom. Audrey is a very slim leg. Jackie is named for Jackie Kennedy, of course, who reigned in the era of the bell-bottom; Audrey is Audrey Hepburn, the very thin, elegant actress who wore slim Capri pants. Wearing these styles will not make you look like either woman. I know. D.O.A. Berated Noir I watched another bad remake of an old movie. I understand remaking a movie. As someone once said, it’s like a new singer covering an old song. But I usually like the original song better and the original movie is often better than the copy. (Warning: spoiler ahead.) This pair of movies is D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival). The original 1950 D.O.A. is a film noir classic starring Edmond O’Brien and other actors you’ve never heard of unless you’re a super film buff. A 1988 remake starred Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. The basic premise is the same — the protagonist is poisoned and tries to find out why in the remaining day or so he has to live. But everything else has been changed, including the characters’ names. Why? The original is a pretty good film noir, good acting and some good music in a hip San Francisco jazz club. The 1988 version shifts from a businessman trapped by criminals to an English professor attacked by a jealous colleague. The newer movie has more murders with more of a soap opera rationale. In the old movie, the protagonist realizes, as he is dying, that he loves his loyal long-time girlfriend, whom he’s neglected. In the new movie, as Quaid is dying he regains his enthusiasm for life, the loss of which drove his wife to divorce, and he and Meg Ryan (not his wife) exchange quips and body fluids even though his wife was just murdered and he’s about to die and can’t be feeling at all well. And if he’d had more time, he’d probably have gotten over his writer’s block too. The only explanation for the script rewrite is that the script writers were recent college graduates with degrees in English literature. By any other name… You may have heard about the recent sting on Acorn, which is willing to lend money for houses of prostitution. For the benefit of the IRS, one Acorn employee said to report their profession as “performance artist”. A shrewd lawyer could make that stick. Maybe. My Gritty Bits This Week on Examiner.com Reining in free speech fits a pattern Monday, October 26th, 2009 This story is in today’s Wall Street Journal. It is not about Obama. He became president … and set... Cincinnati Tea Party concluded four-day protest on Saturday Sunday, October 25th, 2009 On Saturday, October 24, Cincinnati Tea Party and Cincinnati 9/12 members came together for the conclusion of the... Cincinnati Tea Party continues today downtown Saturday, October 24th, 2009 The Cincinnati Tea Party: "Our resolve was tested as we stood in the rain yesterday, but we stood steadfast.... ______________________________________________ ONLINE PUBS I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com. The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel. A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.) The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella. Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story. Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story. Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article. Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay. Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns. 10% discount on my Lulu publications: Browse to: http://www.lulu.com/landing/lulu_coupon_10?a=4001629 Click "Buy" and enter 'BESTSELLER10' at checkout. Save 10% on your order. NEW PRODUCTS: Scot Tartans: T-shirts and more (custom orders available). T-Shirts & mug: FRESH PICT, with two ancient Pictish designs BUMPER STICKER: FRESH PICT, white on blue, with 10th Century Pict-Scot Merman Cross (blue on white also available) SIGG WATER BOTTLE, ORGANIC T-SHIRTS IN GREAT COLORS, MINI-CAMERAS, DENIM SHIRTS, MUGS, TOTE BAGS, MOUSE PAD, TEDDY BEAR, AND MUCH MORE AT Parvum Opus CafePress shop: (NOTE: There are problems viewing this site with Firefox but Earthlink seems OK.) NEW: FRESH PICT items Graphic covers of my books Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (Sweet, Useful, and Proper), title of new collection of Parvum Opus, Volume I BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum No Pain, No Pain Star o’ the Bar Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia Flash in the Pants If you're so smart why aren't you me? PWE (Protestant Work Ethic) I am here maternity tops I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron) If you don’t see exactly what you want — a particular design or text on a particular item — let me know and I’ll customize products for you. ______________________________________________ Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus 344 ~ Intellectual Dipstick

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

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Shakespeare and Che

This summer in PO 334 I wrote about a production of Romeo and Juliet that used political posters in its minimal set design, a sort of communist/capitalist theme that had nothing to do with the play. In a 2000 movie production of Hamlet set in contemporary New York City, Hamlet had a Che Guevara poster on the wall of his very expensive apartment. Even had Che been the sort of hero that so many imagine, this radical icon in the prince’s apartment makes Hamlet out to be a deluded juvenile rather than a young man wrestling with truth and shadows. These kinds of stage settings show more about today’s designers and producers than about Shakespeare’s intentions. Shakespeare didn’t write about econo-political systems. Modern stage settings work OK but the producers sometimes want to ignore the real themes of morality and spiritual struggle. Everyone seems to have been infected by the deconstructionist interpretation of everything in the world in class/race/gender political terms.

Thus Ammon Shea wrote on old dictionaries:

The view that it is necessary to use dictionaries from the historical era with which you are most concerned is apparently shared by certain judges, especially those justices on the United States Supreme Court who have embraced the constitutional theory of originalism. Of these justices, Antonin Scalia in particular has shown a marked habit of citing older reference works. …in addition to using modern standard dictionaries, Scalia employed Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), James Buchanan’s Linguae Britannicae (1757), Nathan Bailey’s Dictionarium Britannicum (1730), John Kersey’s New English Dictionary (1702), Thomas Sheridan’s General Dictionary of the English Language (1780) and John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791) — and that was just in the opinions he wrote from 1988 to 1992.

Judges should be learned in history as well, of course, to understand how people thought 200+ years ago and what they meant by their words, which may not be exactly what, say, David Letterman means, for instance.

Ammonia and Mutual Funds

Agnes, my alter ego, tells her friend she’s starting a syndicated column:

My syndicated column will be humor mixed with household hints and dovetailed into political opinion.

Wow!

Yes, wow…It will be one-stop shopping for all of your column needs … and I will do it all in less than one hundred words with few syllables. OK … what rhymes with ammonia and mutual funds?

All that and poetry, too…what’s not to like?

I have risen (or sunk) to Agnes’ challenge. Here’s my entry:

There once was a gal named Begonia

Who cleaned Wall Street out with ammonia.

She’d lost by the tons

In mutual funds

But said, “Rather clean ya than stone ya.”

Visual Thesaurus

Visual Thesaurus is an entertaining web site on words with features such as word lists and word mapping. They also publish a magazine for subscribers, but you can get a free 14-day trial.

The Full Socratian Monty

Now more than ever we need a good argument clinic. Here’s a web site on Socratian dialogue based on Monty Python’s argument clinic, where you can learn to discuss truth, justice, courage, and beauty.

While you’re at it, check out this blog in Latin that Tom Simon sent. You don’t think I really understand it, do you?

Kludge

You technical people probably know that “kludge” is a mechanical fix lacking in elegance. The OED lists 1962 as earliest appearance of kludge, though the German word “kluge” goes back further, at least to WWII. It’s like mechanical sludge. I learned the word from a fabulous web site called There, I fixed it. I’ve contributed my own photo to this site though I don’t know if or when they’ll use it. Since I don’t send attachments with Parvum Opus, I’ll explain: This week I took a photo of a house with the siding missing and the windows covered with plywood painted white that had sort of portholes badly cut out of them.

This Week’s Intellectual Dipstick Gauge

In a friend’s Facebook thread about Margaret Mead, I commented that her research or her theories had been discredited to some degree, and someone else quoted Derek Freeman, who described incongruities between Mead's published research and his observations of Samoans:

Freeman: In my early work I had, in my unquestioning acceptance of Mead's writings, tended to dismiss all evidence that ran counter to her findings. By the end of 1942, however, it had become apparent to me that much of what she had written about the inhabitants of Manu'a in eastern Samoa did not apply to the people of western Samoa.... Many educated Samoans, especially those who had attended college in New Zealand, had become familiar with Mead's writings about their culture ... [and] entreated me, as an anthropologist, to correct her mistaken depiction of the Samoan ethos.

Facebook guy: Anyway ... so what? Pretty much all of Freud's ideas have been [sic — discredited?] as well ... doesn't make his research any less important.

Truth is the “so what” trigger. This is what makes discussion so difficult. It doesn’t matter what’s true or false, it’s what you like to believe or are used to believing, or what or who is “important”.

Multitasking

This slightly edited conversation appeared on Overheard in New York:

Woman to friends: Girl, you know how to do some rollers?
Friend: Damn, honey, I don't know how to do none of that s**t. I could braid, I could perm, but that's it. You know that b***h Julia, she Mexican. She could do it. She know how to multitask.

The woman used “multitask” to mean knowing how to do several things, rather than doing several things at the same time. After all, you can’t roll, braid, and perm hair simultaneously. I wonder if this is a harbinger of the way this word is going to go in the future?

Not Quite Right

<|||> “…the most legendary creature of all time.” Are there degrees of legendariness? A creature is either a legend or it’s not. However, “legendary” is used sloppily to mean famous or impressive, which isn’t quite the same thing.

<|||> “the judge commands authority.” A judge may have authority, but he may command respect. Authority comes with the position. Respect or admiration may be commanded by behavior.

<|||> TV decorator: “Those are foundry parts native to this region.” Factory equipment is made, not born.

Lon Don

On TV a man from south of London pronounced it to rhyme with Don John rather than Fund’n. The vowels and the syllable stress were different, including the very slight pause between syllables. Is this pronunciation common in that part of England?

Demonstrative

Did you know that the root of the word “monster” is the same as of demonstrate, admonish, and monitor? They come from the Latin monstrum, divine portent of misfortune. Hmm. The outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual something or other? Halloween is coming, watch out.

Not Defunct

Over the years I have quoted from Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage from time to time. Garner is a lawyer and his tips on language are well thought out. Here’s his e-mail about the newest version of his book:

If you’re a fan of my usage tips and Garner’s Modern American Usage…I have a favor to ask of you as a loyal reader: In the next few hours or days, would you please go to www.amazon.com or www.bn.com and buy one or more copies of the new third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage as holiday presents? In fact, keep this gift possibility in mind through the end of the year, won't you?

I need your help in sending a message to the major bookstore chains: they’re not stocking the book because they’ve told Oxford University Press that they consider usage guides a “defunct category.” It’s maddeningly unbelievable. Please help me show them that they’re stupendously wrong.

Meanwhile, in the coming months you might ask about the book when you’re in a bookstore: ask the managers why they don’t stock copies, and encourage them to do so.

If you’re curious to see what effect you’re having, watch the rankings on Amazon.com or Bn.com in coming days and weeks. We’ll be alerting the major chains to those numbers, and we want to get as close to the top 50 as we can. If you're trying to order and see that the book is labeled "out of stock," order anyway: the effort is also to ensure that the online booksellers keep adequate stocks.

In return for this favor — it’s a grassroots effort — I’ll be happy to inscribe copies that you send to LawProse for that purpose, if you (1) include a filled-out FedEx airbill for returning them to you, and (2) suggest an appropriate inscription.

Thank you for whatever help you can provide in this endeavor to show booksellers that the concern for good English is alive and well.

Bryan A. Garner

The bookstores should not make “usage” a defunct category. Usage guides are not dictionaries, thesauri, or grammar books, and they serve a valuable purpose for those who enjoy language.

My Gritty Bits in This Week’s Examiner.Com

Cap and Trade = Scam and Greed

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Standing in front of the pictures by Norman Rockwell depicting our four freedoms, Mike Carey, President of the Ohio...
Prisoners of war committed hate crimes against non-protected groups

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

If Guantanamo prisoners are tried in American courts, will they be accused of hate crimes? They hate Westerners,...
The Freedom Center's "us/them" message

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

The Freedom Center is mounting an exhibit about lynchings of blacks in the United States between 1882 and 1968, to...
The "So What?" approach to truth is the path to demagoguery

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Scrutiny of sociologist Margaret Mead's research in Samoa cast doubt on her conclusions as to the freewheeling sex...
Fewer people are useful today

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Helen Keller was a supporter of the eugenics movement, and said, “Our puny sentimentalism has caused us to...

______________________________________________

ONLINE PUBS

I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.

The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.

A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)

The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.

Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.

Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.

Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.

Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.

10% discount on my Lulu publications:

Browse to: http://www.lulu.com/landing/lulu_coupon_10?a=4001629

Click "Buy" and enter 'BESTSELLER10' at checkout.

Save 10% on your order.

NEW PRODUCTS:

Scot Tartans: T-shirts and more (custom orders available).

T-Shirts & mug: FRESH PICT, with two ancient Pictish designs

BUMPER STICKER: FRESH PICT, white on blue, with 10th Century Pict-Scot Merman Cross (blue on white also available)

SIGG WATER BOTTLE, ORGANIC T-SHIRTS IN GREAT COLORS, MINI-CAMERAS, DENIM SHIRTS, MUGS, TOTE BAGS, MOUSE PAD, TEDDY BEAR, AND MUCH MORE AT Parvum Opus CafePress shop: (NOTE: There are problems viewing this site with Firefox but Earthlink seems OK.)

NEW: FRESH PICT items

Graphic covers of my books

Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (Sweet, Useful, and Proper), title of new collection of Parvum Opus, Volume I

BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

No Pain, No Pain

Star o’ the Bar

Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia

Flash in the Pants

If you're so smart why aren't you me?

PWE (Protestant Work Ethic)

I am here maternity tops

I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron)

If you don’t see exactly what you want — a particular design or text on a particular item — let me know and I’ll customize products for you.

______________________________________________

Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus 343 ~ Speak Softly and Carry a Nerf Stick

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

_________________________________________________________________________

Speak Softly and Carry a Nerf Stick

Mark Steyn wrote about Obama’s Nobel Prize, and quoted a letter from Judi Romaine to The Times :

"I'm afraid I've registered into a very conversative* [sic], fear-based world here but I'd like to suggest the incredible notion we all create our worlds in our conversations. What are you building by maligning rather than creating discourses for workability? Bravo to Obama and others working for people, however it appears to cynics."

I guess this means if you say only nice things, only nice things will happen? By “conversative” does she mean conversation? At first read it seems to have something to do with “converse” or opposition. Which is what conversation’s all about, silly girl.

In one of my Examiner.com bits this week, I wrote about the fact that so much political commentary these days is about political language, name-calling, definitions and redefinitions, and manipulation of language in general. This is nothing new, of course. Perhaps you’ve heard that those who organize and attend Tea Party protests to the health care bill et al are called “teabaggers”. This has an obscene meaning which you can look up for yourself if you care to. Name-calling is one way of trivializing and ridiculing your opponents to reduce their credibility, and to avoid dealing with the issues themselves, a technique of Saul Alinsky’s, though he didn’t invent it. Maybe it’s a step up from demonizing one’s opponents.

By the way, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient went to Rigoberta Menchu, who falsely claimed authorship of a 1982 autobiography which was later found to have been written by French Marxist Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. I had heard that Menchu’s story was largely fictional, but didn’t know she had a ghost writer. When the fraud was discovered, neither the Nobel committee nor the teachers who’d been using the book in classes really cared. They thought it was “truth” even if it wasn’t true. It’s hard getting at the truth through lies, but if you’re conversative enough…

Quoth the Maven

Ben Zimmer wrote a good article on the late William Safire, language maven. Maven is a Yiddish word for expert, and Safire kidded himself by calling one of his books Quoth the Maven.

The Middle Wife

David Rogerson passed along a funny story that’s been making the rounds of the ‘Net for a long time called The Middle Wife, ascribed to an anonymous infant school teacher. There’s no way to trace its origins, but it’s quite realistic in the verbal misfires children make. The story goes that a little girl in show-and-tell acted out her mother’s labor with a pillow stuffed under her sweater and talked about the day her brother was born, the highlights being:

“He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.”

“My Dad called the middle wife.”

“[My brother] was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mum's play-centre (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there.”

This reminds me of when one of my sons at age 4 excitedly recognized his favorite characters in The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Tin and Doorknob.

Mike Sykes Cracks Down

I wrote:

Theodore Dalrymple wrote about “antisocial” vs. “hate crimes” in the UK: “the seriousness of an offense committed in Britain now depends upon who the victim is.” For example, a murder is worse if the victim is gay or disabled, etc. Why?

Mike wrote:

That's rubbish. It's quite clear from Dalrymple's quote that the seriousness of a crime is dependent on its motive, among other things. And I suspect even he would regard the assassination of a president (for whom he has voted) as more serious than the killing of a down-and-out.

Not because it’s a “hate crime”, though, even if the killer is seething with political hatred. It’s more akin to the way cops don’t give any slack to cop killers.

I wrote:

Deviancy or deviance is a statistical term meaning variant on average behavior, though it has also come to mean psychological perversion.

Mike sent this correction:

Neither the OED nor dictionary.com suggest that deviance (or its synonym deviancy) has been used in statistics. The word there is deviation, as in standard deviation.

I never did take a statistics class.

I wrote:

"The people who built America did it with both guns and religion."

Mike wrote:

… and by getting the native population out of the way, and clearing the plains of buffalo, and in some places slavery. Not that they were the only people to behave that way of course. But some nations have managed to move on more than others.

I don’t know why the population isn’t pouring out of our borders as I write. Anyway, I didn’t mean to rag on England, because we have some of the same problems today, though perhaps Mike and I don’t have the same sense of what’s a problem and what’s not.

Sydney J. Harris

I used to read Sydney J. Harris in the Akron Beacon Journal when I was in college, and his short columns on whatever was on his mind, more than anything else in the paper, for some reason made me want to write a syndicated column. Unfortunately I didn’t get on it until the newspapers started to wane; nowadays they don’t need a constant content feed. Harris has passed on and I can’t remember anything he wrote, except one thing that irritated me, which was that men get more attractive as they age, what with character lines and gray at the temples, but women deteriorate. I assume he was speaking of himself and his poor wife. Of course older men’s attractiveness is often helped along by their success and money (e.g. Hugh Hefner). (This does not apply to Fred, who shines like a good deed in a naughty world, as Shakespeare wrote.)

Nevertheless, I got a collection of Harris’s columns from the library and found something I vaguely remembered over the years but couldn’t place. He had fun with pairs or trios of adjectives that we use to praise ourselves and condemn others. Example of two-parters:

My son is “high-spirited,” but yours is a “roughneck.”

The three-parters were the ones I kept trying to remember, in the I-you-he format; they have a nice weight and balance:

I vote for the man, not the label; you vote for the personality that appeals to you; he votes for a golden-tongued demagogue.

How about: “I am distinguished looking; you look lived-in; he’s a sway-backed, pigeon-chested, pot-bellied, rheumy-eyed wreck.”

You can make a party game out of this. See below.

Quote of the Week

Helen Keller was a supporter of the eugenics movement, and said, “Our puny sentimentalism has caused us to forget that a human life is sacred only when it may be of some use to itself and to the world.”

Are you being useful enough? “Usefulness” justifies all abortions, of course, since embryos are all pre-useful, parasitical actually, and their futures are unpredictable, though the aborted tissues can be made use of to patch up other people who are more useful. Old people who aren’t making money, but are costing money, can’t be said to be useful, even if they have so-called “wisdom”, which you can’t measure. The best that can be said for them is that they provide jobs for the medical profession.

Keller herself would have been a candidate for waste removal in some times and places; I suppose she thought she was useful because she went on to write and speak publically, but she was never self-sufficient.

Fred corrected me once when I said I wanted to be “useful”; he thought I should say “helpful”, the idea being that human beings should not “use” each other, because we are ends in ourselves.

I am useful; you serve as a bad example; he’s a waste of space.

The Gritty Bits: My Week in Examiner.com

Cincinnati Tea Party in the rain, October 14, 2009

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Tea Partiers' statement: "On a cold wet day, Patriots held their ground and rallied for freedom, while most...

Sharia law in Ohio

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Rifqa Bary, the 17-year-old apostate, is safe in Florida until October 27, according to Pamela Geller. Rifqa is the...
Plain speech is a rare and unwelcome commodity

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Especially since the presidential election, a larger than ever proportion of political commentary is about the...

Libraries should focus on books

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

The November ballot will contain a tax levy to support Hamilton County libraries. Libraries are among the most...

______________________________________________

ONLINE PUBS

I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.

The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.

A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)

The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.

Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.

Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.

Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.

Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.

10% discount on my Lulu publications:

Browse to: http://www.lulu.com/landing/lulu_coupon_10?a=4001629

Click "Buy" and enter 'BESTSELLER10' at checkout.

Save 10% on your order.

NEW PRODUCTS:

Scot Tartans: T-shirts and more (custom orders available).

T-Shirts & mug: FRESH PICT, with two ancient Pictish designs

BUMPER STICKER: FRESH PICT, white on blue, with 10th Century Pict-Scot Merman Cross (blue on white also available)

SIGG WATER BOTTLE, ORGANIC T-SHIRTS IN GREAT COLORS, MINI-CAMERAS, DENIM SHIRTS, MUGS, TOTE BAGS, MOUSE PAD, TEDDY BEAR, AND MUCH MORE AT Parvum Opus CafePress shop: (NOTE: There are problems viewing this site with Firefox but Earthlink seems OK.)

NEW: FRESH PICT items

Graphic covers of my books

Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (Sweet, Useful, and Proper), title of new collection of Parvum Opus, Volume I

BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

No Pain, No Pain

Star o’ the Bar

Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia

Flash in the Pants

If you're so smart why aren't you me?

PWE (Protestant Work Ethic)

I am here maternity tops

I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron)

If you don’t see exactly what you want — a particular design or text on a particular item — let me know and I’ll customize products for you.

______________________________________________

Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus 342 ~ Language-Change Index

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

_________________________________________________________________________

Thematic Nudity

Cheryl S. sent this explanation of the “thematic elements” movie rating:

With regard to The Time Traveler's Wife, I'm guessing that the reference is to a scene where the time traveler first meets the young girl who will, in the future, become his wife (when she becomes an adult). He has no clothes on. For some reason, when he time travels his clothes are always left behind.

Why not a nudity warning, then? Maybe nudity is OK but not in a scene with a man and a young girl. (The director was not Roman Polanski.)

As for time-traveling clothes, why did the Hulk always have pants on when he changed into the much larger green guy? Someday science will explain all that.

The Real Primrose Path

Herb H. wrote:

In Appalachia where I come from, the evening primrose blooms at twilight in one of the more remarkable displays on mother earth. Here's a wonderful video in real time.

Many a young lady, 'tis repeated in the folklore, has been taken by a man to see this wonder, a walk that leaves her out in the great outdoors with him as dark has fallen. She has been "led down the primrose path." And as the scoundrel has many times not been persuaded to the rule of not-below-the-neckline, that term means led on a path to hell in rather a specific way — not at all the life of ease that leads to fire and brimstone in the end.

Well, it seems easy at first.

InfoCision

Harry H. commented on worst-stadium-name, Akron U.’s InfoCision:

I remembered reading a recent story in the Beacon about the big wind we had come through town a week or so ago. And the paper showed a picture of part of the 'InfoCision Stadium' signage that had blown down. That, and an article by Beacon writer Bob Dyer, made me think it said only the letters 'd', 'i', and 'u' had fallen (I might be mistaken). But it occurred to me that a good nickname for the team might be the "D,U,I's".

I don’t follow sports myself.

The Common Army

Someone I know with a military education (though not in the U.S.) said the reason England has the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Royal Air Force, but not the Royal Army, is because the Army rose against the Crown some time in the 20th century. I’ve never heard of any such uprising. Wikipedia says, more believably, it’s because historically British Armies were composed of individually raised regiments and corps; “nevertheless, many of its constituent Regiments and Corps have been granted the Royal prefix and have members of the Royal Family occupying senior positions within some regiments.”

Right

Neil Cavuto talked about a “short-lived event” with “lived” rhyming with “strived” — the rarely heard correct pronunciation. The adjective “lived” comes from “life”, not from the verb “live”: something has a short life. He said it twice in one paragraph so it was not an accidentally correct pronunciation.

Wrong

Snatched from someone else’s messages: “You should be writing suspense scripts. I think my breath is actually baited.” If you know the difference between bated [abated] breath and baited breath, this comment will give you the amusing image of someone with a nightcrawler or a minnow in her mouth.

Two Wrongs

From an article on Bill Ayers: “In the 1990s, Ayers obtained Obama access to the deep pockets of Chicago foundations.” Should be “got Obama access”. Even though obtain and get are synonymous here, they are not grammatically equivalent and obtain doesn’t take an indirect object (“Obama”) unaided by a preposition (“for Obama”). I don’t know why.

It’s Not a Crime-Crime

More on the language of crime:

Theodore Dalrymple wrote about “antisocial” vs. “hate crimes” in the UK: “the seriousness of an offense committed in Britain now depends upon who the victim is.” For example, a murder is worse if the victim is gay or disabled, etc. Why?

Bertha Lewis, the head of Acorn, said about the Acorn employees who gave helpful advice to a supposed pimp and prostitute (“allegedly” according to CNN, which posted a video of them doing that very thing), “Acorn workers thought they were doing the right thing and were trying to be nonjudgmental.” Nonjudgmental, that is, about the idea of importing groups of extremely young girls into the country to work in a brothel. In what sense did they think they were doing the right thing?

Kathleen Parker wrote that more than 100 Hollywood people signed a petition for Roman Polanski’s release from his legal sentence. Parker said “we have reached the point, identified by the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at which deviancy has been defined down to such an extent that we no longer recognize it.” Deviancy or deviance is a statistical term meaning variant on average behavior, though it has also come to mean psychological perversion. Who can be judgmental about mere deviancy? The term reeks of science, not of evil. Yet even Parker writes, “That so many have rallied to protect him, insisting that he has suffered enough, is evidence of a much stranger development in human history than that a man has seduced a child.” Seduced? Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl; this is not Paul Henreid lighting two cigarettes for himself and Bette Davis. Polanski said he had a “penchant” for little girls, a simple matter of taste, like preferring mixed drinks to beer. You can hear a bit of his original statement in this amusing pastiche with an old Dragnet show.

Is it art? “At London's Tate Modern art gallery, a spotlight shines on a blank space where a photograph of a nude Brooke Shields, aged 10, was supposed to hang. A sign warns: "This room contains images that some visitors may find challenging." … The photograph … shows the young Shields standing in a bathtub and wearing heavy makeup.”

The choice of words is essential in making rape, murder, and pedophilia sound either intolerable or merely deviant.

Language-Change Index

From Garner's Usage Tip of the Day:

The most interesting new feature [of the third edition of Garner's Usage Tips of the Day, published by Oxford University Press in July] is the Language-Change Index. Its purpose is to measure how widely accepted various linguistic innovations have become. …

In these tips, the five stages are tagged as usages that are rejected (Stage 1), widely shunned (Stage 2), "widespread but . . ." (Stage 3), "ubiquitous but . . ." (Stage 4), or fully accepted (Stage 5). Here's a more thorough explanation:

Stage 1: A new form emerges as an innovation (or a dialectal form persists) among a small minority of the language community, perhaps displacing a traditional usage (e.g.: "notary publics" for "notaries public").

Stage 2: The form spreads to a significant fraction of the language community but remains unacceptable in standard usage (e.g.: "nuclear" mispronounced /NOO-kyuh-luhr/).

Stage 3: The form becomes commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage (e.g.: "octopi" used for "octopuses").

Stage 4: The form becomes virtually universal but is opposed on cogent grounds by a few linguistic stalwarts (die-hard snoots): (e.g.: "often" pronounced /OF-tuhn/).

Stage 5: The form is universally accepted (not counting pseudo-snoot eccentrics) (e.g.: "possum" for "opossum").

These stages may also be called:

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

The Gritty Bits: My Week in Examiner.com

Obama's Week

Friday, October 9th, 2009

President Obama's week: Prez O went to Denmark with lovely wife Michelle and glamorous friend Oprah to persuade...

Redistribution of wealth = reparations?

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Barack Obama seems intent on breaking down the American economy and culture to refashion them in his own image....
Gun show attracts a cross-section of Americans

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Bill Goodman's Gun Show at Sharonville Convention Center attracts a cross-section of Americans totally alien to...

______________________________________________

ONLINE PUBS

I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.

The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.

A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)

The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.

Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.

Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.

Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.

Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.

10% discount on my Lulu publications:

Browse to: http://www.lulu.com/landing/lulu_coupon_10?a=4001629

Click "Buy" and enter 'BESTSELLER10' at checkout.

Save 10% on your order.

NEW PRODUCTS:

Scot Tartans: T-shirts and more (custom orders available).

T-Shirts & mug: FRESH PICT, with two ancient Pictish designs

BUMPER STICKER: FRESH PICT, white on blue, with 10th Century Pict-Scot Merman Cross (blue on white also available)

SIGG WATER BOTTLE, ORGANIC T-SHIRTS IN GREAT COLORS, MINI-CAMERAS, DENIM SHIRTS, MUGS, TOTE BAGS, MOUSE PAD, TEDDY BEAR, AND MUCH MORE AT Parvum Opus CafePress shop: (NOTE: There are problems viewing this site with Firefox but Earthlink seems OK.)

NEW: FRESH PICT items

Graphic covers of my books

Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (Sweet, Useful, and Proper), title of new collection of Parvum Opus, Volume I

BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

No Pain, No Pain

Star o’ the Bar

Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia

Flash in the Pants

If you're so smart why aren't you me?

PWE (Protestant Work Ethic)

I am here maternity tops

I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron)

If you don’t see exactly what you want — a particular design or text on a particular item — let me know and I’ll customize products for you.

______________________________________________

Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus 341 ~ Thematic Elements

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

_________________________________________________________________________

Phantonym

William Safire died on Sunday, September 27. He wrote for The New York Times for many years on politics and language. I’ve referred to his work from time to time, and just before he died I landed on a recent column called “Phantonym” which was his coinage for a word that appears to mean something other than it actually does, thus tripping up the innocent.

A common example is the confusion of uninterested with disinterested. Logically they could mean the same thing, but historically they don’t, and we need both meanings. Uninterested = not caring, having no curiosity or desire for something: “She is uninterested in reading that book.” Disinterested = impartial, gaining no personal benefit: “The judge is invested in the plaintiff company therefore he must recuse himself because he is not a disinterested party in the case.”

In 2005 Safire wrote a dozen rules for reading a political column, three of the main points being:

· Beware when the writer uses a quote from the opposite political side to make a case.

· Ignore insider jargon.

· Consider the source, and whenever you see the word “respected” in front of a name, narrow your eyes.

These are legitimate rhetorical devices, but they are devices and as such should not distract you from the facts or the logic. From the truth, in other words.

Sorry to see Safire depart the scene.

The Not So Dark Ages

Maeve Maddox explains the Dark Ages in Daily Writing Tips: First, we mustn’t confuse the Middle Ages with the period from about the fifth through tenth centuries, between the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the establishment of more stable European governments. Also, it’s a mistake to think that all learning and civilization were “dark” for centuries. A lot was going on then. Maddox says,

Historians don’t use the term “Dark Ages” anymore. It was a term invented by the Italian poet Petrarch in the 1330s to convey his feeling that the culture of ancient Greece and Rome had been superior to everything that succeeded it.

If historians aren’t using the term, we shouldn’t either, even if we’re not going to study history.

Flim Flam

John McC wants to know why flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. I found a little bit of useless history about the words online — words introduced into the language, words declining in use — but the important thing is that they both mean able to burst into flame. Since no one is likely to mistake the meaning of flammable, that’s what you usually see painted on the sides of containers carrying hazardous materials. Inflammable could be confused with non-flammable, which no one uses. It’s a safety issue.

The prefixes non and in can both mean “not” (though they can also mean nine and inside or into, respectively), so they’ve been used interchangeably at. But sometimes we end up with one or the other possible form, or in this case both, just because.

In other forms of the word, we find that an inflammation is not a fire but “the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli”. Inflammatory words may incite to riot or at least to more inflammatory words. It seems that in no other formation does inflam- suggest “not firey” as inflammable seems to.

If flamenco dancing reminds us of flame

Would inflamenco dancing be tepid and tame?

Crimes by Any Other Name

The notorious Roman Polanski is back after fleeing 30 years ago to avoid major jail time for raping a 13-year-old girl. Some Hollywood types don’t think what he did was so bad. (You can look up the details for yourself). Harvey Weinstein referred to the “so-called” crime. It is not a “so-called crime”*, it was and is an actual crime. Weinstein apparently doesn’t want it to be a crime. Whoopi Goldberg said “it wasn’t ‘rape’ rape”, apparently because she doesn’t recognize statutory rape and/or Polanski’s variant on the physical crime.

Elsewhere on the legal front, Brian David Mitchell, the kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart, is the object of legal discussion about his “competency” to stand trial or be responsible for his actions. I never understood the rationale behind this defensive ploy. Mitchell was competent enough (1) to get what he wanted and (2) to try to evade capture. In a sense you could say that any violent, sadistic criminal is mentally unwell, but then what?

*When you add quotation marks to “so-called” does it mean “so-called so-called”?

Let’s Go to the Movies Safely

Movie ratings are getting more confusing. I don’t mean the PG, PG-13, R, but the growing list of qualifiers:

scary images

horror

some violence

violence

strong graphic violence

bloody violence

language

adult language

profanity (but not blasphemy)

brief drug use

drug use

partying

nudity

brief sexual content (!)

sensuality

mild sensuality

sexuality

sexual assault

mature themes (losing a job?)

brief disturbing images

But the one that puzzles me is for a PG movie (The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry) and a PG-13 movie (The Time Traveler’s Wife): “thematic elements”. I haven’t seen either one but they both seem to have carried over in theaters longer than some other movies, so they’re popular. If any of you have seen either movie, please share with us what “thematic elements” in them require cautions. Sperry seems to have a religious theme, specifically Christian, so perhaps that’s what the reviewer is warning potential viewers about. Time Traveler is sci fi so any religious stuff could be ascribed to fantasy.

The Stream of Literary Consciousness

I ran across a quotation from Samuel Johnson in Word Watch (Stephen Cox, Liberty Magazine, October 2009, pp. 10-11), which I recognized as the original of a paraphrase I remembered reading in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women:

Here’s Johnson on Lord Chesterfield’s too little-too late patronage (1755):

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it: till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

Here’s Alcott, through the character of Jo March, on being a writing spinster (1868):

An old maid — that’s what I’m to be. A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children and twenty years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps; when, like poor Johnson, I’m old and can’t enjoy it — solitary, and can’t share it, independent, and don’t need it.

This kind of literary borrowing is not plagiarism because Alcott the writer would assume her readers would be familiar with her own literary heroes, and would appreciate the allusion. And of course she mentioned his name. (By the way, some early feminist literary theorists thought that this style of sentence, the periodic sentence, might be an attribute of male writing, whereas a “female sentence” would just flow on. I don’t think so, even though Jo was a tomboy.)

Practically my only real contribution to scholarly publication was recognizing something that Jane Austen borrowed from Shakespeare when she described a character as “half mulatto, chilly and tender”. But it doesn’t mean what you might think, that the mulatto girl from the tropics was suffering in England’s climate. I happened to be taking a Shakespeare class that year and remembered this from All’s Well That Ends Well:

I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may; but the many will be too chill and tender, and they’ll be for the flow’ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.

Thus a chill and tender character is one that treads the primrose path to hell. Austen would have assumed her readers knew Shakespeare.

My Week in Examiner.com

Moore explains where dictatorships come from

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

A review of Michael Moore's new movie Capitalism: A Love Story (rated R for strong language) by New York Times...

Health care reform is about corruption and control

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Although this aspect of the health care proposal is attached to Senator Max Baucus's name, it won't float without...

Mr. America is off to Denmark with Oprah

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Here he comes, Mr. America…! After winning the coveted Mr. America crown, the charming Barack Obama, who...

Divert health care resources

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

A TV pundit laments the lives lost annually because people couldn't get adequate medical care on time. These would...

______________________________________________

ONLINE PUBS

I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.

The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.

A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)

The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.

Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.

Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.

Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.

Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.

10% discount on my Lulu publications:

Browse to: http://www.lulu.com/landing/lulu_coupon_10?a=4001629

Click "Buy" and enter 'BESTSELLER10' at checkout.

Save 10% on your order.

NEW PRODUCTS:

Scot Tartans: T-shirts and more (custom orders available).

T-Shirts & mug: FRESH PICT, with two ancient Pictish designs

BUMPER STICKER: FRESH PICT, white on blue, with 10th Century Pict-Scot Merman Cross (blue on white also available)

SIGG WATER BOTTLE, ORGANIC T-SHIRTS IN GREAT COLORS, MINI-CAMERAS, DENIM SHIRTS, MUGS, TOTE BAGS, MOUSE PAD, TEDDY BEAR, AND MUCH MORE AT Parvum Opus CafePress shop: (NOTE: There are problems viewing this site with Firefox but Earthlink seems OK.)

NEW: FRESH PICT items

Graphic covers of my books

Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (Sweet, Useful, and Proper), title of new collection of Parvum Opus, Volume I

BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

No Pain, No Pain

Star o’ the Bar

Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia

Flash in the Pants

If you're so smart why aren't you me?

PWE (Protestant Work Ethic)

I am here maternity tops

I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron)

If you don’t see exactly what you want — a particular design or text on a particular item — let me know and I’ll customize products for you.

______________________________________________

Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

Parvum Opus 340 ~ Blue Silk Stockings

Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere.

_________________________________________________________________________

We Keep On Trying

Karl Popper wrote, “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.”

Using three negatives as in that sentence is one way to be misunderstood, but it makes his point better than:

· It is impossible to always be understood.

· It is always possible to be misunderstood.

· You cannot always be understood.

Here are more everyday examples of the possibilities of misunderstanding:

1. Listen to “Pancho and Lefty” by Townes Van Zandt; also performed by Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, with lyrics on this web site. I also like the video with Willie and Merle Haggard. Listen, read, watch, and see what you think of these two interpretations on the Van Zandt link (note that the first two lines should read “Living on the road my friend / Was gonna keep you free and clean” instead of “Is gonna keep you free and clean”):

In this beautifully written and subtly intertwined narrative, Lefty sells out Pancho to the Federales to get the money to go back to Cleveland. "He only did what had to do." The Federales lie about the old days, Pancho is dead, and Lefty wastes away: "The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold." The brilliance is that the three sides never meet; their interaction is entirely inferred.

Pancho was a bandit that got killed. His brother, Lefty avenged his brother's death and now he is spending the rest of his days runnning from the law.

The first comment is better written, spelled, and punctuated, showing that the writer reads more and may be a better literary interpreter. However, I don’t know what he means by the three sides never meeting since the Federales definitely met with somebody. On the other hand, there’s evidence in the lyrics that Lefty sold out Pancho and is remorseful in Cleveland.

2. John McC, a mathematician, wrote vis a vis my question about the necessity of the ebola virus:

I believe the Ebola virus, and all viri, are not considered to be "living" and thus not a species, they are pieces of genetic material, which can replicate parasitically. The human Ebola virus is more like humans than it is like other viri.

I guess this means we need to define “living”. You go first. Anyway, does the Ebola become human-like when it eats us or do we become Ebolic? Do we become like cows when we eat a steak?

On my speculating on the necessity of good, bad, and ugly viruses in general, Mike Sykes wrote:

I've always felt that way about the lesser spotted owl or the greater crested newt. But I'm sure you've realised you've raised a number of not necessarily related questions. I seem to remember that the case for keeping the smallpox virus is based on its potential usefulness in developing vaccines for viruses yet to appear. Of course, nations have developed (illegal) chemical weapons in case they need them for retaliation — this is a tricky area. Plant diversity is valued for the possible discovery of useful compounds such as taxol.

3. On the windmills, Dave DaBee wrote:

Windmills kill a lot of bats, too. It's the cause of a whole wind farm near the Cape being blocked for years.

I’d always thought it was the NIMBY factor (not in my backyard). Fred works in a huge glass building that kills birds. They think they’re flying into more sky, then they smack against the glass. Should we accept windmills as we do glass buildings and roadkill? Maybe, if windmills were more efficient.

4. Herb H. isn’t giving up on “necker knob”:

The term "bluenose" applied not to just anyone who used the term, but those who gave the spinner the name "necker knob" out of choice ("spinner" is a LOT easier to say) as a pejorative against anyone who might drive with one arm around his girl. Even in the 1950s, "necker knob" was a bizarre term and "necking" a fairly bizarre word — I for one never understood what the neck had to do with anything.

I rather expected the term "bluenose" to be recognized as one used a lot by H. L. Mencken. Who, I believe, used a definition of someone haunted by the pervasive fear that somehow somewhere someone might be having fun.

Of course we have or used to have “blue laws” such as those that prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sundays. “Bluestockings” were educated women who accused of wearing ugly blue wool stockings instead of black silk. Risque comedians use “blue material”.

Anyway, even though I knew not of necker knobs, I did know of necking, which wasn’t bizarre where I lived. It meant making out above the neck, the carnal Mason-Dixon line. As Jesse Winchester wrote, “Me, I want to live with my feet in Dixie / And my head in the cool blue North.” (Does “making out” need to be explained?) Fred noted that alliteration was part of the charm of “necker knob” even though “spinner” is one syllable shorter.

5. On NPR, someone said that people on the right have been trying to present the recently late Ted Kennedy as “unappealing”. “Unappealing” is someone who doesn’t trim his nose hair. Leaving a woman to die demands a stronger word. Or have I misunderstood something again?

Trewly Pair

David Rogerson wrote from England that “trews is very much a Scottish word and means trouser (pants to you) made in Tartan” thus answering Anne DaBee’s query. She wrote, “After all, one MUST have an answer to the perennial question "What do they wear under the kilts?"

And Dave DaBee wrote, “My impression is that ‘pants’ in England (to this day) refers to undies. The Brits I know talk about trousers.”

Mike Sykes from England once more helpfully sent these two Oxford English Dictionary entries and confirmed Dave on pants/trousers:

OED: I heard an American student at Cambridge University telling some English friends how he climbed over a locked gate…and tore his pants, and one of them asked in confusion, ‘But how could you tear your pants without tearing your trousers?'

And:

OED: 1996 Woman's Day (Sydney) 10 June 37/2 (caption) This ever-popular boot style works very well under long-line skirts, boot-legged jeans and pants.

Mike then remarked:

I know what boot-legged means (nothing to do with illicit liquo(u)r), but there's evidently a distinction between jeans and pants that eludes me.

Jeans are pants but pants aren’t always jeans. Jeans are denim pants. Blue jeans. And when I wrote “Once more into the breach” about britches, Mike said “Surely you jest!” Well, yeah. But don’t call me Shirley.

New-Fire Words

Rich Lederer sent “A Man of New-Fire Words” from his book The Miracle of Language, about Shakespeare’s words. (It’s too long to include here but you should be able to find it in Google Books. Better yet, buy the entire book.) Lederer wrote, “Of the 20,138 basewords that Shakespeare employs in his plays, sonnets, and other poems, his is the first known use of over 1,700 of them.” Lederer also said that in some cases these words were first seen in print in Shakespeare’s work, but he did use an enormous vocabulary and was endlessly inventive.

In class today I explained to a student that although he constructed a word correctly — “I was cutting the bread uncarefully” — for whatever reason, the word we actually have is “carelessly”. So many possible English constructions haven’t stuck for some reason. But Shakespeare’s coinages often so precisely express an idea that they’ve lasted for centuries. However, what is brilliant in Shakespeare can become trite in the wrong hands.

“That love affair was the be-all and end-all for the once stony-hearted girl who was no longer fancy-free; though her towering passion made her a laughing-stock, she was tongue-tied yet hot-blooded and green-eyed with jealousy. It was a foregone conclusion that she would go off half-cocked someday.” — If you’ve read this more in sorrow than in anger, you know Shakespeare.

That stack of familiar phrases assembled from Rich Lederer’s article looks like a writing handbook for a bad romance novel.

My Examiner.com This Week

Clarification: I’ve been writing for Examiner.com for a few weeks. This is where I’m putting most of my political commentary, which should reduce the PO irritation factor.

Shrink bills to match Congressmen's capacity to read them

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

The health care bill and protests thereto have pushed off the front pages the nationalization of large auto...

The politics of church reform

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Sister Louise Akers and volunteer religion teacher Carol Egner have been prohibited from teaching in Cincinnati...

______________________________________________

ONLINE PUBS

I’m publishing for the Kindle digital reader with Amazon and now also on Lulu.com for download to computer and for printing. Most of these titles are available in both locations. Search for Rhonda Keith on Amazon.com Kindle store and Lulu.com.

The Man from Scratch is about cloning, escort services, murder, and restaurants in Akron, Ohio, featuring Roxy Barbarino, writer for Adventuress Magazine. Novel.

A Walk Around Stonehaven is a travel article on my trip to Scotland. Short article with photos. (Lulu.com only.)

The Wish Book is fantasy-suspense-romance featuring the old Sears Roebuck catalogues. Novella.

Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn is about a young gambler who finds himself upright in a cornfield in Kansas with his feet encased in a tub of concrete; how would you get out of a spot like that? Short story.

Still Ridge is about a young woman who moves from Boston to Appalachia and finds there are two kinds of moonshine, the good kind and the kind that can kill you. Short story.

Whither Spooning? asks whether synchronized spooning can be admitted to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Humorous sports article.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Cats: One woman's tale of menopause, in which I learn that the body is predictive; I perceive that I am like my cat; and I find love. Autobiographical essay.

Parvum Opus Volume I. The first year (December 2002 through 2003). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get PO’ed. Collection of columns.

10% discount on my Lulu publications:

Browse to: http://www.lulu.com/landing/lulu_coupon_10?a=4001629

Click "Buy" and enter 'BESTSELLER10' at checkout.

Save 10% on your order.

NEW PRODUCTS:

Scot Tartans: T-shirts and more (custom orders available).

T-Shirts & mug: FRESH PICT, with two ancient Pictish designs

BUMPER STICKER: FRESH PICT, white on blue, with 10th Century Pict-Scot Merman Cross (blue on white also available)

SIGG WATER BOTTLE, ORGANIC T-SHIRTS IN GREAT COLORS, MINI-CAMERAS, DENIM SHIRTS, MUGS, TOTE BAGS, MOUSE PAD, TEDDY BEAR, AND MUCH MORE AT Parvum Opus CafePress shop: (NOTE: There are problems viewing this site with Firefox but Earthlink seems OK.)

NEW: FRESH PICT items

Graphic covers of my books

Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (Sweet, Useful, and Proper), title of new collection of Parvum Opus, Volume I

BUMPER STICKER: Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

No Pain, No Pain

Star o’ the Bar

Veritas Vincit (Truth Conquers) with Keith clan Catti insignia

Flash in the Pants

If you're so smart why aren't you me?

PWE (Protestant Work Ethic)

I am here maternity tops

I eat dead things (doggy shirt, pet dishes, and BBQ apron)

If you don’t see exactly what you want — a particular design or text on a particular item — let me know and I’ll customize products for you.

______________________________________________

Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing, and reckoning: Parvum Opus discusses language, education, journalism, culture, and more. Parvum Opus by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens. Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/; 2009 issues are at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2009. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.