From Leddy’s Imaginary Dictionary of Usage (2016).
Also from this non-existent volume: Nice .
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Usage tip of the day
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Michael Leddy“Orange Crate Art” is a song by Van Dyke Parks and the title of a 1995 album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. “Orange Crate Art” is for me one of the great American songs: “Orange crate art was a place to start.”
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Nancy, October 19, 1950.
“Who are we as a country?”
Michael Leddy
Don’t look for premiums or
coupons, as the cost of
the thoughts blended in
ORANGE CRATE ART pro-
hibits the use of them.
Comments are welcome, appended to posts or by e-mail. I moderate comments to keep out spam, so please be patient.
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Top twenty tags
Words to live by
Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
*
Νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἥλιος. [The sun is new every day.]
Heraclitus
*
Every day is a new deal.
Harvey Pekar, “Alice Quinn”
*
Nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances, ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres. [Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.]
Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
*
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
*
I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.
J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction
*
I’m not afraid to get it right
I turn around and I give it
one more try
Sufjan Stevens, “Jacksonville”
*
L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. [Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.]
Simone Weil, in a letter
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
*
Νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἥλιος. [The sun is new every day.]
Heraclitus
*
Every day is a new deal.
Harvey Pekar, “Alice Quinn”
*
Nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances, ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres. [Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.]
Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
*
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
*
I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.
J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction
*
I’m not afraid to get it right
I turn around and I give it
one more try
Sufjan Stevens, “Jacksonville”
*
L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. [Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.]
Simone Weil, in a letter
#1 hit
In memory of
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October
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- Into the frying pan
- From an old notebook
- Stale candy
- “Seriously”
- Interagriculturaltextuality
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- An anecdote from Mark Shields
- Usage tip of the day
- From an old notebook
- From an old notebook
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- Sarcasm and irony
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- Klinkenborg’s October
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- Our state rep in action
- Homer’s Odyssey, Joe Sachs’s translation
- Twelve more movies
- Mildred Bailey sings
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- From the Saturday Stumper
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- The new normal
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- Priorities!
- Reality TV?
- Ginsberg Zippy
- Usage tip of the day
- ZNH
- David Letterman on Donald Trump
- ★☆☆☆☆
- Tertan and Blackburn and Howe
- Word of the day: ambisinistrous
- Words, words, words
- “Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong?”
- How to improve writing (no. 68)
- From an old notebook
- Recently updated
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- Nancy, Sluggo, God
- Donald Trump on PTSD
- Steve Bushakis and Donald Trump
- xkcd : “Work”
- A joke in the traditional manner
- Mail chutes redux
- Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley
- Like hell
- Advice for academics
- The color of blue
- The Awkward Party
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▼
October
(85)
favorite posts
- Against “deep reading”
- Alkalize with Alka-Seltzer
- At the World Trade Center and St. Paul’s Chapel
- Being wrong about beauty
- Bobbing for apples
- “Bon Appétit!”
- “The Case of the Purloined Prairie”
- ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems
- “The ’Clipse”
- Couric and Palin and Orwell
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- Happy birthday, Mr. Piletti
- Hoagies, pizza, and English studies
- Homeric blindness in “colledge”
- How to Write a Sentence
- Imaginary liner notes
- Invisible man: Louis Armstrong and the New York Times
- Invitation to a dance
- Is there a pencil in The House?
- John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat
- A Kerouac notebook page
- The kitchen shink [sic]
- Klenosky!
- “Make My Jotter Quit!”
- Lady Elaine’s can
- Mysteries of the tollbooth
- National’s et cetera
- Nick DeMaio and the Eldorado
- Obama revisions
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- On “On the New Literacy”
- On “Politics and the English Language”
- “On the Road”
- The Oteris and Marty
- The other little book
- Out of the past
- Peppa Pig and the Brontës
- Phones Are For People
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- “The Poet”
- Proust: involuntary memory, foolish things
- P.S. 131
- Pullum on Strunk and White
- Re: the Beloit Mindset List
- Some have gone and some remain
- “The Spokesmen”
- Sports Illustrated and Proust
- The Springfield Daily Gazette
- That (in)famous line
- Things I learned on my summer vacation
- Van Dyke Parks in Chicago
- W(h)ither grammar
- What I hear in “Walk Away Renee”
Nancy, October 19, 1950.
comments: 6
I believe the original context of this version of the verb was a listener acknowledging that he/she understood a joke. Usually in conjunction with the unspoken thought, "I'm not stupid, you don't need to explain it to me."
With jokes, esp. bad ones, I’ve heard people say “I get it” (as in “I get it — I just don’t think it’s very funny”). I’ve heard “I get that” so often on cable news that I think I’ve forgotten about other contexts for it.
With all due respect...
Yes! I associate that one (or the short version, minus with ) with The Sopranos .
My bank held a legislative forum this week with Illinois federal and state legislators. I'm one of the few liberals in the bank, and couldn't help but notice that all of the ire directed at the politicians during Q&A was toward the Democrats. And in every single instance, that ire was prefaced by "With all due respect." Which is another way of saying "I think you're a moron and you're spectacularly wrong, but I'm trying to be tactful."
Ha! Remarkable that a phrase that announces respect implies the opposite.
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