Parvum Opus 327 ~ Welcome to the Rorschach Arms

Ghost Writers in the Sky

There’s no shame in using a ghostwriter. Many celebrities do. They may not be very good writers, which doesn’t necessarily correlate with intelligence. The craft of writing takes time to learn to do well, and it even takes a lot of time to do it poorly. Thus there’s no reason to beat up Sarah Palin for having a ghost writer for her upcoming book.

Years ago I read two books by Tom Brown, Jr., a tracker in New Jersey, of all places. They were written in the first person, as I recall, though “as told to” two different writers, one of which was much better than the other. Now I don’t remember which was which; fortunately his story was stronger than the writing. Brown has produced more books since then.

Jack Cashill wrote Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture (which I haven’t read yet), and also “Who Wrote Dreams and Why It Matters” (which I did read) about Obama’s autobiographies. His literary detective work led him to believe that Obama did not write his books. Cashill’s evidence is the number of statistically unusual words, phrases, and images in Obama’s books that appear in the work of another writer, that writer being Bill Ayers. I find Cashill’s arguments pretty convincing though there’s no solid proof and Ayers, of course, denies it. It would be interesting to read Ayers’ work along with Obama’s books. However, even when I was intensely interested in learning more about him during the campaign, I started one of Obama’s books, but couldn’t finish. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on the self-preoccupation of young men.

While there’s nothing wrong with using a ghost writer, there is something wrong with not acknowledging it. Obama was not yet a huge celebrity when these books came out. He was, however, hugely ambitious, and maybe he (and someone else) thought his skills weren’t up to the job. Why not? And why publish the books at all, whether or not he wrote them himself?

Martin Luther King said “I have a dream.” Obama has said “I have a gift” and he meant an oral rhetorical gift, which is not the same as writing talent. He has the gift of making people think he believes what they believe.

Welcome to the Rorschach Arms

While I’m into the Obama hagiography, let us turn to Michelle Obama’s arms. No discussion of lovely arms is complete without attention to hers (to paraphrase S. J. Perelman). Sally Quinn waxed rapturous about them in the Washington Post. Michelle Obama’s bare arms are now “a transformational cultural symbol”. She’s young, tall, and slim and her arms don’t flap, so she looks good in sleeveless dresses, which makes her a great Earth mother and also threatening to certain men (probably only Republicans).

By the way, did you ever wonder why apartment buildings are called “Arms”? The best explanation I found is that it’s derivative of English pub names like The Something Arms with a noble family’s coat of arms on the sign.

Shakespeare

Joseph Pearce, author of Quest for Shakespeare, in his TV program on the same material, quoted a source from 1591: “…the priest does use to come very much to John Fortescue’s house…” We have retained the verb “use” in this sense only in the past tense: “he used to come.” This sounds exactly like “use to” so it’s easy to see here why the present tense requires the auxiliary verb “does”, though I wonder if anyone ever said or wrote “he uses to come”. I don’t know why we lost the present tense. Now we have to say something like “he comes often” or “he usually comes” or “he’s in the habit of coming”.

From a web site of Shakespeare sonnets in Latin, here’s one of the more familiar sonnets:

XXIX

Fortunae fugiens iras oculosque virorum
Sicubi desertum me miserumque fleo;
Sive deûm irrito frustra clamoribus aures,
Meque tuens fatis imprecor omne malum;
Vellem ubi me natum spe cum meliore fuisse.
Huius amicitiis, illius ore, parem,
Artemve alterius vel idonea tempora natum,
Quoque meum magis est hoc minus omne placet;
Tum, per eas idem curas me paene perosus,
Forte tui memini, laetaque cuncta reor;
Ac feror in cantus ut inerte a caespite surgens
Mane novo ad caeli cantat alauda fores.
Ditat enim sic ipse tui me sensus amoris
Vt mihi tum regum despiciantur opes.

XXIX
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Language Bits

[|] Writer’s Digest uses this example in discussing the use of “who” and “whom”:

You asked whom to the dance?

This is correct, but unidiomatic. I’d say “You asked who to the dance?” It doesn’t mean the same thing as “Who (or whom) did you ask to the dance?” It’s more of an incredulous reaction to information received. This is the kind of question and situation that calls for the colloquial. Formal speech or writing demands correctness.

[|] Dennis Miller got a caller on his radio show (May 20) who introduced himself by saying he’d had a stroke a couple of years before and his speech might still be a little rough. Miller pointed out an interesting fact, that when the man recovered his speech, he also recovered his Boston accent. You might think that if you have to relearn speech, you’d start with no accent. This would be hard to test. Presumably the man was surrounded by people with the Boston accent.

[|] I read the charming children’s book When Molly Was Six (Eliza Orne White, 1894) as a girl, rather more recently than 1894. In one chapter, Molly has been given a pencil and pink paper to keep her occupied during the long church service, which she used to copy out passages from the Bible. More than a century after Molly was published, I saw a little girl with what looked like a small DVD player in church. She wasn’t trained to be able to sit quietly for half an hour and look around at her environment. After a while she lay down on her stomach and stared at the screen and tapped her little feet on the back of the seat. She was quiet until the foot tapping started, but instead of electronic entertainment should have had paper and pencil and practiced her writing. So I say.

[|] Bob O. turned me on to a web site of good things, which reminds me of Grit magazine, to which my parents subscribed. Grit is aimed at rural audiences, and it’s all good news. The cheaper women’s supermarket magazines (not the gossip mags) tend to be very bright and colorful and upbeat too. We need to feed ourselves more simple goodness. Years ago, I had a friend who’d spent a year in prison for possession of marijuana, and he said it’s very important to be careful what you read when you’re locked up, to keep your head straight.

Don’t Shut Up

“Tell Cheney to shut the hell up” is the name of a group on Facebook to which a couple of my Facebook friends subscribe. I haven’t followed what Cheney has been saying, but I gather he’s been criticizing the current regime. “Tell Cheney to shut the hell up” isn’t merely rhetorical hyperbole. Some people would shut him up if they could, and presumably anyone who agrees with him or disagrees with them. It keeps coming up: shut him/them up, take away his/their mic, etc. Discussion of issues is not what’s going on here. The fundamental American value of free speech is losing a lot of ground, and that ground is to your left; watch your step.

Moving across the political and moral ground over the years as I have, I’ve found over and over again that a lot of people will not discuss differences of opinion or changes of opinion, or nuances, if you will. They tune out, make personal attacks, walk away, in person and in writing. The same thing has happened to Fred, in his correspondence with friends and family. The ones who wouldn’t continue a conversation with Fred on serious issues — ones they brought up in the first place —have been (1) the pastor of a certain fundamentalist church, and (2) what I will call Marxist fundamentalists. Actually, I think it’s because none of them can keep up with Fred’s erudition, but in my own less erudite experience, with my Marxist friends it’s definitely a one-sided conversation.

Personal disclosure: When I used to be of a strongly secular persuasion, I could not tolerate certain kinds of religious e-mails from friends. In fact it made me angry. I couldn’t bear to read anything from anyone who was against abortion, for instance. Granted, I tended to get big chunks of unannotated scripture or over-simplified, bumper-sticker kinds of messages, again without careful discussion but with lots of assumptions that didn’t take my assumptions into account, but I recognize the tendency to shut out what you don’t want to think through thoroughly. As my positions change or get more complex than the knee-jerk liberal-to-left-to-radical ideas of my college years, I’m much more willing to talk them over because I really do see both sides, having been on both sides, or three or four sides, of many issues.

So to all of you who’ve continued to read PO over the years, even while disagreeing with me, and especially you who will jump into the fray in a civil manner, you get my intellectual integrity award.

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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.

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:

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.)

Graphic covers of my books

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

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.

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

______________________________________________

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 326 ~ Foreword

I published the first year of Parvum Opus digitally this week, and although I have other material ready to use, I decided that this issue would carry the Foreword of Volume I, plus a list of all the titles, which I rather like seeing all together.

FOREWORD

Parvum Opus (Latin for small work) is a weekly column on the English language, and more, that I’ve been writing since before Christmas of 2002. I’m an English teacher, writer, and editor: one of those compulsive readers and proofreaders.

My original intention was to write a short note on one point of English usage per week. It would be not just a grammar tip, but a comment on the way language is used and misused. The first issue was on the word “actionable”, which I’ve heard misused quite a bit. (By the way, in PO 13, I explain why I gradually came to use the British punctuation system, putting the punctuation mark outside the quotation marks, when it belongs there.)

But it was impossible to confine myself to one item a week. There’s just too much material in print and on TV, and live too. So Parvum Opus gradually got longer, and now averages around 1,200 words a week. I usually take a couple of weeks off from writing every year, thus this first volume of 52 columns comprises the beginning columns of 2002 and all of 2003.

The content expanded also. Since language is always about something, I wrote about the substance as well as the form of language. I could not, for instance, ignore the Iraq war. My views on that and other public issues have shifted since this first year of writing, which lost me some readers in subsequent years. Nevertheless, PO has surprised me with its persistence and longevity.

Parvum Opus includes a lot of comments, questions, and information from readers who have been steady readers and writers over the years, and I thank them.

Someday, when I get to some round number such as 500, I may change Parvum Opus to Trivium Pursuit. In the Middle Ages, when the great universities were established in Europe, students studied the Trivium and the Quadrivium.

The Trivium consisted of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The Quadrivium consisted of arithmetic; geometry; music, harmonics, or tuning theory; and astronomy or cosmology. The Quadrivium is usually out of my range, but rhetoric and logic allow me to discuss politics and culture, which cover just about everything that’s not hard math and science.

Unfortunately, I’ve never actually studied Latin. I started to take it in junior high. I lived in Texas then, where classrooms were hot in the fall semester, and Latin required more of my adolescent attention than my hormones allowed, so I dropped the class rather than fail it. But I’m attracted to Latin, and since 2002 I’ve attached two more Latin phrases to my opus. Vincit Veritas (Truth Conquers), the motto of the Keith clan, my paternal family, is sort of a company motto (see http://www.cafepress.com/parvumopus). Dulce, Utile, et Decorum (pleasant, useful, and proper), combines two familiar Latin tags. Dulce et utile was Horace’s description, or perhaps prescription, of what literature is, or should be: amusing and instructive. Horace also wrote Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country). I have not been called upon to die for my country, but Dulce, utile, et decorum est pro patria scribere. If my Latin is incorrect, blame my 12-year-old self.

Any correct Latin comes from my husband, Fred, who stuck with four years of Latin in high school. Fred is my copyeditor and saves me from many errors. Again, the ones that remain are my own. Fred is also responsible for the change of my name from Rhonda Keith to Rhonda Keith Stephens in 2004.

A writer is always tempted to rewrite or add to earlier work. I’ve mostly resisted this urge, other than making corrections and adding a few notes here and there.

— Rhonda Keith Stephens

P.S. Utile: I sometimes refer to formatting problems caused by trying to send PO through the mail; I’ve tried to please readers and myself, but the technology sometimes dictates, thus formatting is inconsistent as I tried over the years to come up with something simple and clear within the constraints of the technology. (This applies to the Kindle upload as well.) I sometimes mention my typos but I’ve tried to correct them. Formatting has been inconsistent as I tried to work it out over time. You’ll also notice that links to some Web sites may no longer exist. Almost all issues are at www.keithops.us. In 2007 I began posting them also at http://cafelit.blogspot.com.

TITLES

1 Actionable 2 As Far As 3 Christmas Potpourri 4 New Year's Muse 5 Ghoti Hell 6 Deadheading 7 Fiercely Waging War Against Feisty Wordstyles 8 Relevant to What? 9 In the News 10 Articulation and Extrapolation 11 The Bad, The Good, and The Silly 12 The English Follies 13 Creative Wordcrafting 14 Punctuation: Separating the Dilettantes from the True Nerds 15 The Language Police 16 Tension 17 Who's Right? 18 Language Through the Looking Glass 19 All Intents and Purposes 20 Fine Indistinctions 21 Teutonization 22 McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader 23 My Week, and Welcome To It 24 Unruly 25 Reviews 26 Lost Worlds 27 The Blair Bitch Project 28 Be My Guest 29 Road Trip 30 The Universal Slagheap of the Particular 31 Assume a Virtue 32 Bumpers 33 Pronounce It Trippingly 34 Sentence Makeover 35 Word Noodling 36 Off Road Driving 37 Ladies and Gentlemen 38 Your Dime 39 Avoid Using Common Language Errors 40 English as a What Language? 41 Spell Spiel 42 An English Teacher Gone Wrong 43 Definitions of Sorts 44 Reflexions 45 Nucular Attack 46 Droning On 47 Public Discourse 48 Namely 49 The Thing's English 50 Word Imperfect 51 Majorly Thankful 52 52 Pickup 53 Lost in Translation 54 The Big Story 55 Yes, Spot, There Really Is a Christmas 56 Dulce et Utile 57 Dulce Et Futile 58 Comparisons Are Odious 59 Sentient Structure 60 Parvitude 61 Good Foolishness 62 Old Words 63 Shmembolism 64 All in Your Head 65 Veritas Vincit 66 Elitist Grumble 67 No End in Sight 68 Bad Writing 69 Let Us Define Our Terms 70 Why We're Confused 71 Something Blue 72 Something Old 73 Somethings Borrowed 74 Something New 75 You Said It 76 Make the Brains Run on Time 77 Now What? 78 Absolutely American 79 May I Have a Word With You? 80 Rhetoric: "I'm Shocked, Shocked!" 81 Haunted Words 82 Ironically Speaking 83 Reading Like a Banshee 84 Iconography 85 Feelin' Herby 86 Sensitivity 87 Tongue Lashings 88 Road Trip 89 Changing Course 90 Want Fries With That? 91 Name Those Parts 92 The Point of Balance 93 Teach a Person to Officiate... 94 Reason 95 Attention All You Well Known, Authors! 96 Notes from the Home Front 97 Wrap It Up 98 Up and Up 99 Code Switching 100 Happy Thanksgiving to All of You 101 No Bobtail Parking 102 Custom Spam 103 Portly's Complaints 104 Merry Solstice 105 Resolution Moon 106 Happy Winter 107 Learn Latin and Make the Big Bucks! 108 Little Latin, Less Geek 109 Shakespeare in Iraq 110 Verbal Implants 111 Wordcraft 112 Levels of Diction 113 No Accident 114 Plew 115 Crash Bam Alakazam 116 Persistent Vegetable Love 117 English Major's Reading of the Schiavo Story 118 Genie Us 119 Bleep 120 Heteronormative Like Me 121 Trader Joe's Novitiates 122 Hot Ice 123 Culture Noted 124 I Is You 125 Making Sense 126 O Beautiful 127 Be the Plucky Comic Relief 128 Summer Reading 129 Foot in Hand 130 The Issues Issue 131 Courage 132 Good Vibrators 133 Quite the Blitz 134 No Music-Only Lyrics Needed 135 Nifty Bits 136 Shakespeare Did Not Write This 137 Word Puzzle 138 Summer Scene 139 Not a Word 140 Be Prepared for Catastrophe; Do Not Commit Tragedy 141 Constant Proofreader 142 Than Which 143 Terms of Address 144 Walla-Walla and Rhubarb 145 Art, Law, and Truth, Part 1, Margaret Garner 146 Art, Education, and Truth, Part 2, Chronicles of Dylan 147 Need a Deadline? 148 Why Not? 149 Snidely Marmish 150 The Inimitable Jane 151 Thanks 152 Fun With Your Brain 153 How Swearing Works 154 Nuf Said 155 A Christmas Blessing 155 Lustrous Winter 157 Well Done 158 Scraps 159 English Math 160 Phemism 161 Phemes and Misnomers 162 Stet Happens 163 Next Time 164 Wergle Flomp 165 Countereditor 166 Audible Punctuation 167 Fightin' Words 168 Blak Market 169 Liber Education 170 So Shew Me 171 Call Me Becky 172 Misphiled 173 Lost by an Ethnicality 174 So Much Depends 175 Rage the Soup 176 Rough Stough 177 Effort This 178 So Called 179 Irony Bored 180 Logorrhea 181 What Are You Laughing At? 182 Wordplay 183 From Motorvatin' to Truckin' 184 Everybody Has a Book Inside... 185 The Breeder Next Store Waters the Cat 186 Na-Nish-Yazzie 187 Laissez le ton beau de Marot rouler 188 Peccable English 189 Flammatory Words 190 Unchurch Me, You Cad 191 Ephemera 192 I Don't Think, Do You? 193 Alien Writing 194 Logic-101 195 Good Nevsh 196 The Wordist 197 Travelogos 198 Glibly Retreat and Think of Cakes 199 Do Bust My Chops 200 Happy Thanksgiving 201 On a Wish and a Prayer 202 Standard Slaughter and Conquest 203 Nonce Words 204 Whaddya Say? 205 It's a Long Way to Literary 206 Happy New Year! 207 Love Me for My Floy-Floy Alone 208 Can of Words 209 Salty Dog 210 Golden Bull 211 Bogspot 212 Frim Fram Sauce 213 Lobal Cooling 214 Word Control 215 Bananas 216 Opuscule 217 The Ideas of March 218 The Sky Is Warming! The Sky Is Warming! 219 Sad Is To Stupid As Challenging Is To Cargo Cult 220 Dueling Aphorisms 221 Made You Say It 222 Creative Writing 223 Who's Your Daddy? Or What? 224 Anti-Irony 225 Prosaic Qualities 226 Insider's Secrets to Good Writing! 227 Professional Nitpicking 228 Pass on These Words 229 Distortion, Violation, Corruption 230 Swanning Around 231 Geek Chorus 232 Scot Logic 233 Tiki Talk 234 Typo Blood 235 Hari Kari 236 Let's Enjamb 237 The Glass Wind Eye 238 Language Profiling 239 Webly Words 240 Tiny Muskens 241 Civilly Defensive 242 Gitter Done 243 A Call for General Victory 244 This Is Your Brain On 245 Mongoose in a Mudhole 246 Shared Culture 247 Little Read Riding Herd 248 Meat Puppet on a Mission 249 Librivox 250 The Writester Stuff 251 Au Contrarian 252 I Preapproved This Message 253 Thanks 254 And Then There Were None 255 Confabulogistic 256 Tunavision 257 Bon Bon Mots 258 Special Effects 259 Smartastic 260 Smoke Filled Brains 261 Babel 262 Diverse Dispissal 263 Rectification of Language 264 Uncommon Reader 265 PO of Pallor 266 Giving Grammar Its Due 267 Nuancy 268 Nomenclatter 269 VIP RIP, RIP VIP 270 Foi Grace 271 Yo Grandma 272 American Tongues 273 Lying on My Mind 274 Inelegant Variations 275 Power Lines and Buzz Words 276 Standardized Egotesting 277 High Toned Vagaries 278 Veritas Vincit et Snafut 279 The Ivory Factory 280 Speak Softly and Carry a Big Axe Stick 281 Fierce Rhetoric 282 Fecieval Studies 283 'Tis a Gift to Be Simplex 284 Find Shades of Meaning 285 This Week in Literacy 286 LOL Writer 287 Happy Occident 288 Drop Rancor 289 Why I Am Called to This Work 290 Unrecovery 291 Hatable Slang 292 Vintage Hemlock 293 Into the Morass 294 Pleasant Shrewdness 295 Home to Home 296 Distractions 297 Font of Wisdom 298 Code Words 299 Bakers Dozens 300 Transgressive Reading 301 Hell in the Hallway 302 Taxonomy of English 303 Synchronized Spooning 304 God Speeden 305 Allegedly Happy Holidays 306 On Mendication 307 Cultivating Commas 308 Happy Hogmanay 310 Back in Business 311 Acronymical 312 Kindling 313 Plexiglas Belly Button 314 Grammatorically Speaking 315 Serial Killer Examples 316 An Education Carol 317 Person-Caused Weasling 318 The Invisible Circus 319 Eve Span 320 Quack 321 Endowed Purposes 322 A Few Choice Words 323 Screeching: Halt 324 Turf Language 325 Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

______________________________________________

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.

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:

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.)

Graphic covers of my books

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

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.

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

______________________________________________

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 325 ~ Dulce, Utile, et Decorum

Why a garden?
Today’s words: discrimination and choice.

While doing my minimal bit of garden today I reflected on the fact that so many people have written on gardens, on the physical garden itself; but inevitably gardening leads to meditation and metaphor.

First, there’s The Garden. The one in Eden. It wasn’t the Forest of Eden, the Jungle of Eden, or the Wilderness of Eden. Why was it a garden and not a wilderness? Because a garden means Someone has selected certain plants over others. Everything is available outside the garden, but everything is too much for humans.

Deciding what to plant is both the fun part and the hard part of gardening. Too much to choose from. In my little 3 x 6 foot patch by the front steps, we have pachysandra (which Fred planted some years ago; it flourished and then thinned out); three different small varieties of day lily; ferns and lilies of the valley from a former neighbor; a new mint plant called Kentucky colonel; one and a half hostas; portulaca in a concrete pot with four sort of Green Man faces all around; one hyacinth; and a few ornaments, with Saint Francis of Assisi overlooking it all.

I pull out the plants I call weeds, even when they aren’t necessarily less beautiful than the ones I plant. Some plants overgrow others and prevent them from growing. I can’t just leave the bindweed to grow as groundcover, despite its lovely white flowers, because it wraps itself around other plants in a menacing manner. The Virginia creeper has big underground roots that pop up just anywhere. A garden is all about discrimination, not about inclusiveness. If I were a farmer, I’d be even more ruthless.

Years ago I knew a young woman who didn’t think it was right to discriminate in her lawn. She let it grow wild — “natural” — but since her house was in a tract development, her neighbors complained because the small wilderness attracted rodents and snakes from the nearby woods. This is why even people who don’t care for gardening or for lush lawns keep a large cleared area around their houses: so they can see what’s coming at them.

Mike Speaks

● Regarding Michael Savage being banned from the UK, Mike Sykes writes:

It's not a problem. Why should we let him in, when we have enough obnoxious people in this country already?
● Regarding milk leg and wobbles on my mystery list:

You're right about [milk leg]: (1922 C. S. Whitehead & C. A. Hoff, New Eugenics (1928) I. v. 209.) It is technically called phlegmasia dolens, but from the fact of its resemblance to a thin bag of skin filled with milk, and as it was formerly thought that the milk from the breasts in some way managed to get there, it has been called 'milk leg'. When my sister-in-law had it it was called 'white leg'.
Wobbles: As you thought, a disease, as in 1895 Queenslander 7 Dec. 1090 Rickets or Wobbles in Cattle.
● Regarding Leonard Pitts’ religion, quoting Pitts:

I quote: ‘... my people — Christians — ...’.
“My people” could mean his family, or black people generally, but doesn’t necessarily mean it’s his religion too. In fact since he didn’t say “my religion” I’m inclined to think it’s not.

Dumber than Anvils

Bill R. referred me to Fred Reed’s blog again, a good rant on education, Coma in the Schools: Growing Up Dumber Than Anvils. (Sorry if this offends any students, grads, teachers, or anvils.)

Bill also wrote about turf language:

Specialist language used by specialists is often verbal shorthand for precise concepts. For example, in nuclear power plant engineering, “LBB” or “leak-before-break” names a very specific phenomenon. It may function as turf language—if you don’t know LBB, you’re not in the club—but its primary attraction is that it saves the professionals from a three-sentence description every time they talk about it.

A key difference between precision language and turf language is that for true turf language, there is no precise meaning. That would be the problem in education, I suspect. (Recall that part of the PhD is supposed to be an “original contribution to human knowledge.” If you can’t make one, you have to BS a “contribution” by dressing up something else in your language.)

I started out to get a degree in education but switched to liberal arts after my first semester, in order to teach at college level. I hadn’t been especially impressed by my first couple of education courses. With the increase in the "professionalism" of teachers, greater requirements for certification, etc., in the last century has come a decline in product quality.
An aside regarding unnecessary degrees: Many years ago I read about someone who was getting a PhD in physical education, and for her doctoral thesis, her contribution to the universe of scholarship, she did "original research" comparing bacteria levels on people who bathed and on bums who went for long periods without bathing. People who don’t bathe accumulate more bacteria on their skin, she found.

Grandma’s Button Box

V Found this while I was looking for an online Latin translator:

“Firstly I have to tell you that the name Tiffany does not exist at all in Latin and ...”

V In a catalogue: “Indian cotton skirt in a classical patchwork print.” Cute skirt but classical is the wrong word. “Classic” means something of high quality or an outstanding example of its kind. “Classical” means from an ancient period of art, especially from Greek or Rome, or, a certain kind and period of music. The print of the skirt is not of an ancient period; it’s vaguely patchwork and vaguely block print. You could call it classic, but that would be a stretch too.

V IMHO usually means “in my humble opinion” but some people think it means “in my honest opinion”, which shows why acronyms are a bad idea. Speaking of humble opinions, is that an oxymoron? Would you hold an opinion that you simultaneously thought was incorrect? Not unpopular or immoral, but just wrong? “You always think you’re right” is not a useful attack in an argument. Of course we always think we’re right. If we didn’t, we’d switch to another opinion, and this includes opinions about facts as well as values.

V “She actually was Miss Teen USA back in the day.” (Said of the Miss California runner-up in the recent Miss USA foolishness.) Back in what day? The old days? The girl can’t be 25 yet.

Proofreading Needs Bailout

Curiosities of Literature by John Sutherland (reviewed in the May 11, 2009 Wall Street Journal by Charles Harrington Elster; you’ll have search for the article; I wasn’t able to grab the URL, which is apparently protected) is a book of literary trivia. For instance, the first western novel was published in 1860, by a woman, Ann S. Stephens (no relation to Fred, as far as I know).

Elster notes that it suffers from lack of proofreading. You may have noticed more errors in books published in the last couple of decades than in older books. Publishers are cutting costs by eliminating proofreaders. Many publishing companies have been bought out by big corporations that don’t really love publishing; most manufacturers would not tolerate so many flaws in their products. Elster says he found more than 50 errors in the first 100 pages of this book, such as: “The poet Amy Lowell, was in the practice of renting five rooms in any hotel she booked into.”

Around Christmas I picked up a local city magazine and noticed errors on the cover. Inside, of course, there were more. I e-mailed the editor, who replied that they’d had a proofreader but she moved on, so I offered my services, but didn’t get the gig; possibly they found someone cheaper or continue to do it themselves. I haven’t bought another issue to check for errors.

Elster also complains that Curiosities of Literature doesn’t have an index. Indexes cost money. I’ve built indexes. Authors usually don’t do their own, and Sutherland obviously didn’t do much proofreading of his own galleys either.

Note to Readers

I will be publishing collections of each year of PO for Amazon Kindle and Lulu.com. Some of your letters have appeared in PO, for which I thank you. If you have any preference about use of your name, let me know.

If you’d like to send any sort of commentary or blurb for the book, feel free to write to me. I’m rather amazed that Parvum Opus has been going for so long, since just before Christmas of 2002. For which I thank you.

______________________________________________

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.

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.

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:

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.)

Cover graphics of my books

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

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.

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

______________________________________________

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 324 ~ Turf Language

Summer Fun

Free Online Courses

I know you have time on your hands, so instead of clocking in to the devil’s workshop, you can take free and pressure-free classes online. I’m considering ten hours of introduction to Latin and maybe Scottish heritage, but haven’t looked at all the possibilities yet. Check out:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)

Open University (open.ac.uk)

Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu

Tufts University (tufts.edu)

Stanford (stanford.edu)

University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu)

Utah State University (usu.edu)

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)

University of Southern Queensland (usq.edu.au)

University of California, Irvine (uci.edu)

Library Thing

Tim Bazzett recommends Library Thing, a web site where you can easily enter your own library list, books you like, rate them, read reviews, connect with other people who like the same books, and more fun stuff.

Online Etymology Dictionary

You can sponsor a word on the Online Etymology Dictionary, which would help them and could be fun for you. Give your loved one a word for six months. Or advertise super cheap.

Ysabella Brave Phonetic Alphabet

Isabella Brave is the pseudonym of a singer, songwriter, and speaker who’s become one of the most popular YouTube contributors, until she became very ill. One of her fans came up with the Ysabella Brave Phonetic Alphabet. It’s not likely to replace alpha-bravo-charlie, but it may inspire you to develop your own specialized phonetic alphabet. For business, you could start with accountant-budget-corporate; but you could do better.

While looking around for university jargon (academic-bursar-college) I ran across this article about buzzwords, quoting Jeffrey Mirel of the University of Michigan: "All professional language is turf language." Actually some professional language is necessary, as in the case of new technology, but not so with education.

EW

According to Daniel Hannan, my new British hero, the commissioner for information society and media*, Viviane Reding in the EU says there should be an Internet .eu domain to make the Internet “more accessible to women”. Huh? It doesn’t matter if another domain extension is added, but how would .eu help women? Even if it were “.ew”, for European Women, I can’t see that their lives would be changed.

* Why no comma after “information”?

The UK, by the way, has banned radio talkman Michael Savage from the land. Michael Savage does nothing but talk and he never has advocated violence, so what’s the problem? He’s obnoxious but not dangerous. Maybe it’s retaliation for the cheesy gifts Obama gave the Queen and Prime Minister, but they hit the wrong person. They also threw out Geert Wilders, whose problem was also speech that some people didn’t like. I’m thinking that if I were at all well known, I wouldn’t be allowed to go back to Scotland. I’d have to sneak in via rowboat on the North Sea to visit Dunnottar again. I’ll bring my claymore.

Things You Probably Don’t Have to Worry About Anymore

I found this list lying around but I can’t remember where I copied it from and I can’t find “thrumps” on the Web, which is unusual, though Donald Trump turned up. I’m pretty sure it’s a list of diseases, either human or animal, that I may have seen on old medicine bottles in an old Sears catalog:

milk leg

whites

wobbles

hollow hills

thrumps

Education

>>> Obama trimmed the trillion-dollar budget by cutting a school voucher program, which was a drop in the ocean of money he and Congress are spending. Why did he cut that? Discuss.

>>> John McC sent a neat little moral tale about education and also socialism; not sure if it’s it’s a true story.

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student but once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the third test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

I never did like group projects when I taught English.

I conducted a somewhat different experiment in my early days of college teaching. I said the students could have any grade they wanted, which I thought would make them pay attention to only the actual content of the class rather than their grades. The only stipulation was that they had to do all the work. I also asked them to meet me in my office to explain personally why they wanted the grade they did. I didn’t put grades on their papers but I marked errors and commented on the writing just as I always did. It was not an experiment in socialism; it was an experiment in intellectual liberty, or so I thought.

As I recall, there was no difference in the overall quality of work. Most of the students asked for grades a little higher than I would have given them, all As and Bs except for two, but some of them said, “I know I don’t deserve this but I need it.” Two students said, “I really would like an A but I know my parents wouldn’t believe it, so give me a B.” Some of them really believed they deserved the A, when I did not, but I didn’t tell them that. One student, who would probably have received an A anyway, didn’t like the experiment because he liked working for and earning his grades. At the time, I didn’t understand him, and thought he was too focused on grades and not on the content of the class, but now I understand that competition is a pretty good motivation for some people to learn or to do anything else. One student didn’t like having to explain what grade he wanted. Only two students asked for Cs. One was an older student, a black man who’d been in jail. He probably would have gotten a C; his writing skills weren’t very good technically, but he was bright and obviously had more integrity than a lot of the students. The other one was a young white guy, a musician, who was a somewhat better writer technically and was really interested in the work. I remember that he wrote something once about music, wondering why there were only eight notes in the major and minor scales.

Pitted

Pulitzer-prize winning syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts wrote an attack on Christians/Christianity that wouldn’t be possible if you substituted any other religion. These days telling the truth can be a hate crime, but Pitts was not truthful. He is ignorant of history yet he obviously has an axe to grind. I wrote a letter to the Cincinnati Enquirer, which they didn’t print:

The Enquirer has divested itself of staff so entirely that it cannot produce one locally written editorial a day now, and apparently no one on staff objected to Leonard Pitts' "Are Christians on God's side?" In the interests of full disclosure, we should know what Pitts' religion is. If he'd attacked any other religion, he might fear reprisal by rusty sword or ACLU (keeping in mind that atheism is a religion of sorts). Leaving aside the question of why some Christians don't object to an interrogation method used in training our own military, and probably in fraternity hazings, Pitts' knowledge of history -- as well as of the present -- is pitifully thin if thinks that only a few "iconoclasts" have done the "dangerous and moral thing" (and by the way, technically Unitarian Universalists are not Christians). I'm surprised he didn't list Jeremiah Wright as one brave Christian.

I consider this an attack on Christians not just by Pitts, but also by the Enquirer.

The letter Enquirer printed two letters on Pitts’ column. Neither criticized the newspaper, not that that has anything to do with their editorial decision. One supported Pitts and said he was just writing history. That’s balanced journalism. (You’ll have to study the history yourself.)

The only reason I didn’t cancel the subscription, not a thing I would ordinarily do, is because Fred pointed out that the current newspaper deliveryman (if it is a man) is so meticulous. He always places the paper on the porch, not in the street or under the shrubbery, and he even put it under the doormat yesterday. So Pitts and the Enquirer live another day.

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.

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.

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:

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:

Cool covers of my books

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)

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

______________________________________________

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.