Obama's "I"

Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman, in today's New York Times:

Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using "I" instead of "me" in phrases like "a very personal decision for Michelle and I" or "the main disagreement with John and I" or "graciously invited Michelle and I."

Given the state of presidential English (aka "American") between 2001 and 2009, it seems a bit absurd to criticize the new president for a single pronoun problem. I too though would like to hear "me."

I've wondered: might Obama's "I" be intended to avert perceptions of error that might follow from the proper use of "me"? No, I don't really think so either. My guess is that the "I" is a matter of long-standing habit, which also explains why I still say "stove" for "oven."

Today's Hi and Lois

Today's Hi and Lois: where to begin?



With the Slylock Fox angle. Kids, can you find five differences between the two panels? (There are at least five, possibly six if you're a stickler.)

The semantic comedy reminds me of The Honeymooners episode "Head of the House," in which Ed Norton tells the Questioning Photographer that he is "an engineer in subterranean sanitation." Norton's joking; he helps out the mystified newspaperman with "I'm a sewer worker!"

But here the punchline is unfunny, partly because such a course would indeed likely be called "Suburban Archaeology." A slightly better punchline: "Yeah, but his students call it 'Garbage.'" Or "Otherwise known as 'junk science.'" Note that the punchline supplier appears to be carrying garbage toward the Flagston house. That's funnier than his punchline, and funnier too than either of mine.

The punchline supplier's name, by the way, is Fitch. The man in blue is Abercrombie. These terranean sanitation engineers have always had these names. Given what's become of the clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch since Hi and Lois began, it seems best that these men now work in the strip in relative anonymity.

Yes, terranean is a word.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

Bach branches

E.S.P. Bach, L.O.L. Bach, O.T.B. Bach . . . the gang's all here, or there:

Lost Branches of the Bach Family Tree (Musical Assumptions)

The American List

From A Continuous Lean, a list of 100+ companies whose stuff is made in the United States: The American List.

Fair warning: you might end up buying something. (Like, say, a Leatherman Multi-Tool.)

Real Thin Leads

[1 3/4" x 1 1/4".]

I admire this arrangement in ivory and black: the tilting balloon of "ONE GROSS," the lower-case "e's" and "l" of "Real Thin Leads," the jaunty cent sign, the chuckle-headed repetition. Real Thin Leads. Real Thin Lead. Ask for it by names! And I admire the cursive Autopoint, the forward-looking sort of cursive one might see on a home appliance.

And I like that this little package has been marked by history: at least three different writing instruments, green, red, and purple, have been tested on its surface. Just scribbles — no room to inquire Does this pen write? One side of the package has been resealed with tape in a hapless effort to honor a stern directive: "SEE THAT THIS SEAL IS NOT BROKEN." Ah, but it has been.

The "2H" correction — made in the store, I assume — is a reminder that some people are persnickety about their pencil leads. The potentially misleading "Extra" won't do when the unambiguous "2H" is at hand.¹

I found these Real Thin Leads circa 1998 during a going-out-of-business sale at a downstate Illinois stationery store. The store alas had been quietly going out of business for many years before having a sale about it.

¹ In grading lead, B signifies blackness; H, hardness. 2B lead is darker than B; 2H, harder than H. HB is the familiar "No. 2 pencil."



[This post is the first in what will be an occasional series, "From the Museum of Supplies." The museum is imaginary. Supplies is my word, and has become my family's word, for all manner of stationery items.]

Dave McKenna, playing, talking

Chris Lydon has put together eighty-seven minutes of private recordings of pianist Dave McKenna playing and talking. Available for online listening or for download as a 40MB mp3:

Dave McKenna: My Private Collection of the Master (Open Source)

A related post
Dave McKenna (1930-2008)

(Thanks, Timothy!)

Subways singing "Somewhere"

Since 2000, some subway trains in New York City have been singing the first three notes of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen's Sondheim's "Somewhere" while leaving a station. Sort of:

The sound is a fluke. Newer trains run on alternating current, but the third rail delivers direct current; inverters chop it into frequencies that can be used by the alternating current motors, said Jeff Hakner, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union. The frequencies excite the steel, he said, which — in the case of the R142 subway cars — responds by singing "Somewhere." Inverters on other trains run at different frequencies and thus are not gifted with such a recognizable song.

Stop, look, and listen:

Under Broadway, the Subway Hums Bernstein (New York Times)

(Thanks to Stefan Hagemann for making sure that I saw this article.)

Creamsby's Sheaves

Stationery in the "news":

Loan officers at the First National Bank of Kansas City defended their decision to lend local man Tim Creamsby $650,000 to open a small stationery store Monday, explaining that, while the business's long-term prospects were poor, the idea was "simply too pathetic and heartbreaking" not to sign off on. . . . Several factors reportedly contributed to their generous offer, most notably having to watch the kind-faced old man pull from his pocket a small, dog-eared slip of paper—worn soft as felt from years of repeated handling—on which he had written a number of potential store names, including "Notable Notes," "The Jottery," and "Creamsby's Sheaves." "I was about to suggest that he consider a more practical business, like a coffee shop or a hat store, but then he brought out that list of names," bank vice president Nathan Bergeson said while attempting to remove some dust that had gotten into his eye. "I think the bank's going to have to eat this one." Plan To Start Little Stationery Store Too Sad For Bank To Deny Loan (The Onion)

Richard Feynman on honors

"I don't like honors. I appreciate it for the work that I did, and for people who appreciate it, and I notice that other physicists use my work. I don't need anything else. I don't think there's any sense to anything else. I don't see that it makes any point that someone in the Swedish Academy decides that this work is noble enough to receive a prize. I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me. I don't believe in honors. It bothers me; honors bothers me. Honors is epaulettes; honors is uniforms. My poppa brought me up this way. I can't stand it; it hurts me.

When I was in high school, one of the first honors I got was to be a member of the Arista, which is a group of kids who got good grades — hmm? Everybody wanted to be a member of the Arista. And when I got into the Arista, I discovered that what they did in their meetings was to sit around to discuss who else was [in a lofty tone of voice] worthy to join this wonderful group that we are. Okay? So we sat around trying to decide who it was who would get to be allowed into this Arista. This kind of thing bothers me psychologically for one or another reason I don't understand myself. Honors — and from that day to this — always bothered me.

I had trouble when I became a member of the National Academy of Science, and I had ultimately to resign. Because there was another organization, most of whose time was spent in choosing who was illustrious enough to be allowed to join us in our organization. Including such questions as 'We physicists have to stick together, because there's a very good chemist that they're trying to get in, and we haven't got enough room for so-and-so.' What's the matter with chemists? The whole thing was rotten, because the purpose was mostly to decide who could have this honor. Okay? I don't like honors."

From a 1981 BBC interview, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (my transcription)

[Richard Feynman was a joint-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.]

Domestic comedy

"Remember when you were all pretzeled-out?"

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All "domestic comedy" posts