How to improve writing (no. 23 in a series)

David Frauenfelder, whose Breakfast with Pandora is fine reading for anyone interested in language and myth and storytelling, wonders what I would do with the following sentence, from a Los Angeles Times article by Rachel Abramowitz:

Of all the major American artists, [Woody] Allen has experienced one of the cruelest and most violent whipsaws of fortune, of tumbling from audience adulation to mass approbation.

David notes the various problems with this sentence: "preposition abuse," "false genitive," "a terrible mixed metaphor," "and to top it off, a hilarious malapropism at the end."

Preposition abuse: check. Of all . . . , one of . . . of fortune, of tumbling . . . . The repetition is awkward; the final of could be cut with no loss.

False genitive: check. The genetive or possessive case "marks a noun as modifying another noun." "[A]udience adulation" should be "audiences' adulation." (I'm grateful to know the name for this problem, which I correct often in my students' writing.)

A terrible mixed metaphor: check. P.R. Wilkinson's Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors (London: Routledge, 2002) defines whipsaw as "A double disadvantage; bad dilemma; something that cuts both ways and is injurious whatever you do [Amer]." Nothing to do with tumbling, and nothing to do with what happened to Allen. The writer may have been thinking of whiplash or backlash, though those tired metaphors too don't go well with "of fortune" or "tumbling."

A hilarious malapropism at the end: check. Approbation is "an act of approving formally or officially." David suggests that the writer was in search of opprobrium: "something that brings disgrace," "public disgrace or ill fame that follows from conduct considered grossly wrong or vicious."

So what to do with the original sentence? I'd revise to give a clearer sense that Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn generated more widespread interest than his movies. I'd also remove the pretension of "major American artists" and the melodrama of "fortune." Reversal of fortune is a trope that applies to, say, Oedipus or Lear. Such reversal follows from choices made with inadequate knowledge, by those who have no way to foresee what will befall them. It's reasonable though to anticipate disapproval when embarking on a relationship with the adopted daughter of one's long-time partner. My sentence:

Once celebrated by critics and fans, Allen is now a figure of scandal even among those who have never seen his films.

[This post is no. 23 in a very occasional series, "How to improve writing," dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose. And by the way, I like Woody Allen's films, or most of them.]

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Hi and "Lois"

Today's Hi and Lois features another dictionary with thumb-notches at the tops of pages. I didn't expect to see one of those again. There's also an assortment of disappearing objects (collect them all!), an off-kilter wall, and a mutant iPod (the iPod enormo). But what's most disturbing here is the teacher, who looks an awful lot like Hi Flagston in drag. Yikes.



Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

Overheard

A hallway exchange:

"Where is the A?"

"There is no A."

Creeping realism, I guess.

Related reading
All "overheard" posts (Pinboard)

Clapathy

At Urban Dictionary, B. Kennison has posted a well-made word, clapathy. Its definition: "When an audience grows weary of clapping, either at a ceremony or musical performance."

As I write, clapathy is being voted down by UD's readers. If you like this word, you might want to visit its page and give it a thumbs-up. Browse the comments (and the rest of the site) at your own risk: Urban Dictionary contributors are a pretty salty and saucy group of neologists.

Prophylactic medicine: "Please hold your applause" helps prevent clapathy (I speak as both audience member and occasional emcee).

"The experiment is over"

Yes, thank goodness.

If you'd like to guess what happened to the man in this Alfred Eisenstadt photograph, leave your answer in a comment. When you give up, you can find the answer here.

This photograph is one of several million (?!) from Life magazine, now hosted by Google in its Life photo archive.

Willa Cather and James Schuyler

From James Schuyler's "Hymn to Life" (1974): "Willa Cather alone is worth / The price of admission to the horrors of civilization."

Like James Schuyler, I like Willa Cather. (Also James Schuyler.)

Earphones and trolleys

In today's news:

A 21-year-old man wearing earphones walked in front of a Green Line train and was struck by a trolley near Boston College, according to an MBTA spokesman.

The Boston College student suffered head injuries and facial lacerations and was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital, said Joe Pesaturo, the spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. He was conscious and talking as he was transported to the hospital, Pesaturo said. . . .

Witnesses told investigators that the man was wearing headphones when he walked across the trolley tracks. "The trolley operator attempted to get his attention by blowing the horn, but it was to no avail," Pesaturo said.

T: Student wearing earphones hit by Green Line trolley (Boston Globe)

Meme of seven

My wife Elaine has tagged me with with the meme of seven. Thank you, dear. The rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog — some random, some weird.

3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

5. If you don't have seven blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers.

Like Elaine, I'm reluctant to tag people. But if, reader, you would like to explore the meme of seven, consider yourself tagged. Here are my facts:

I am a distant relative of Tess Gardella, an actress and singer who performed in blackface under the name "Aunt Jemima." Tess Gardella was Queenie in the original 1927 production of Show Boat. (Miss Gardella had no connection to pancakes.)

As a fourth-grader, I had the lead role in a school play. I was Cos, a visitor from outer space who arrives in a department store at Christmastime. On the night of the performance, I had a very high fever and did the play anyway. I remember the beginning of the play, when I was hiding under a table in the store, with a foil-covered box (i.e., helmet) on my head.

For an elementary-school talent show, I sang George and Ira Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm": "Oh, how I long to be the boy I used to be! Fascinating rhythm, oh, won't you stop picking on me?"

I love liverwurst, a food from childhood and delicatessens, whose arrays of cold cuts, salads, breads, and rolls I always found fascinating (more interesting than supermarkets, more "city" too). I still buy liverwurst once or twice a year, but now even the people behind the supermarket's deli counter make faces about liverwurst, so I buy it pre-packaged.

I once tried to see how many steps of our Brooklyn stoop I could span by jumping up from the pavement. I believe the limit was two. The bruising on my leg was a wonder to behold.

Once, in my eagerness not to be late to a poetry reading by Gwendolyn Brooks, I ran into a glass door (which had been locked in the open position just a moment before). Nothing was broken, on the door or me. I applied a cold can of Coca-Cola to my head and went to the reading with my fellow grad students.

I have received only one ticket for speeding, in my early twenties, on the Massachusetts Turnpike. I was flagged for going 80 (the speed limit was then 55). That I have received no tickets since attests not to my ability to avoid capture but to saner driving habits.

Grace Hartigan (1922-2008)

[Salute: The Canal to the Sky, from The Salute Series. Screenprint, 1960.]

The painter Grace Hartigan died yesterday in Timonium, Maryland:

For many years, she also mixed with poets of the period in New York — John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and Frank O'Hara, with whom she was a confidante. . . .

"The air was electric," she told a Sun reporter in 1963 of the New York art scene. "We were each other's audience, meeting for coffee because no one could afford a drink, and all were talking about art. It was pure. There were no temptations because there was no money in it."

Grace Hartigan dies at age 86 (Baltimore Sun)

Frank O'Hara's poem "In Memory of My Feelings" is dedicated to Grace Hartigan. It contains these lines: "Grace / to be born and live as variously as possible."

"Plagiarism free"

Talk about an irony-deficiency!

I found the above (I won't link to it) via a Google Alert. Google Alerts are sometimes good "for to" learning.