It’s difficult not to think that the Occupy movement has something to do with this decision: In Retreat, Bank of America Cancels Debit Card Fee (New York Times). See also: Are big banks feeling pressure from Occupy Wall Street? (Washington Post). But the decision doesn’t seem to have made much difference at Zuccotti Park: Occupy shrugs off bank’s debit-card move (MarketWatch).
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
-wise-wise
In a recent post, I mentioned that in 1960 the suffix -wise “was very much in the air”: the object of lighthearted yet firm rebuke in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (1959), and a running joke in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960). Looking back at David Skinner’s 2009 article on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has reminded me that -wise was very much in the air in 1961 too, the year of that dictionary’s publication. As Skinner notes, Life magazine “singled out the ending -wise for condemnation” in its editorial comment on the new dictionary. Google Books has the passage:
Skinner notes that the Third New International labels irregardless as nonstandard and distinguishes enormity from enormousness. He also points out that concretize, finalize, and -wise “were all established enough to have appeared without warning labels in W2 [the second edition of the New International], the very dictionary Life’s editors claimed to know and trust so well.”
A weekly magazine editorializing (even if mistakenly) about an unabridged dictionary: those were heady times.
By Michael Leddy at 10:00 AM comments: 0
The American Heritage Dictionary,
fifth edition
The fifth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary is out today, in print and as an app, and with a free website of limited usefulness. (Compare, say, the treatment of irregardless in the online American Heritage and the online Merriam-Webster.)
I would like to go out and buy this dictionary today. O reason not the need, King Lear said. But with the Oxford English Dictionary, Webster’s Third New International, and at least a dozen other dictionaries in the house, and the OED online, and dictionaries on my Mac and iPad, I think I’m full up dictionary-wise (at least if I plan on buying the Fourth New International, whenever it appears).
*
June 24, 2012: The online AHD now has a lengthy usage note for irregardless. Hmm.
By Michael Leddy at 9:15 AM comments: 0
Michael Bierut's notebooks
“For the past three decades, [the design firm] Pentagram’s Michael Bierut has kept a numbered series of notebooks — plain composition books, filled with rough sketches, notes taken in client meetings, doodles and design ideas — that cumulatively provide a record of his working life.” The notebooks are the stuff of an exhibit at the College of Saint Rose (Albany, New York): 30 Years 90 Notebooks (via Notebook Stories).
A related post
Angelo Bucco’s composition book
By Michael Leddy at 8:29 AM comments: 2
An Iliad
“In their one-man adaptation An Iliad, Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare (TV’s True Blood) return Homer’s epic poem to the voice of the lone poet as he recounts a story of human loss and folly that resonates across three millennia of war and bloodshed.” An Iliad runs at Chicago’s Court Theatre, November 10 to December 11.
[Thanks to Music Clip of the Day for the news.]
By Michael Leddy at 8:19 AM comments: 0
Monday, October 31, 2011
Close-reading Herman Cain
The charge that Herman Cain sexually harassed two women when he headed the National Restaurant Association may indeed be false. But the candidate’s responses merit close reading.
“I never sexually harassed anyone,” Cain insists. Consider this statement in light of an exchange from Sunday’s Face the Nation (before the scandal broke), concerning an electric border-fence:
Bob Schieffer: You also said at some point that you might want to back that fence up with a moat and fill it with alligators. Was that a joke too?Thus “I never sexually harassed anyone” can easily translate to “That was totally in jest.” And of course the women involved need to get a sense of humor, &c.
Cain: That was totally in jest, Bob. Some people are getting used to my sense of humor and as I get more attention I will tone down this sense of humor until I become president because America needs to get a sense of humor.
Consider too Cain’s “Nothing happened.” What does this assertion deny? It might mean that no mingling of bodies took place: “We just talked. Nothing happened.” This denial too seems to deny, uh, nothing. It depends on what the meaning of nothing is.
Given this candidate’s willingness to joke (?) with the American public about electric fences and moats, I think it’s reasonable to wonder what he might say in private.
Related reading
Herman Cain claims on cash settlement raise questions (CBS News)
7:42 p.m.: There’s already more — an odd story about commenting on a woman’s height, and this exchange:
Judy Woodruff: Was there any behavior on your part that you think might have been inappropriate?Next day, 8:12 a.m.: And still more:
Cain: In my opinion, no. But as you would imagine, it’s in the eye of the person who thinks that maybe I crossed the line.
Cain Confident He Can Win Nomination, Says Harassment Claims Are “Baseless” (PBS NewsHour)
“I believe I have a good sense for where you cross the line relative to sexual harassment but you have to know the lady, the individual.”[In 1998, when Bill Clinton told PBS’s Jim Lehrer that “There is not a sexual relationship,” I immediately asked (yes, out loud), “But was there?” Would things have turned out differently had Lehrer asked that question?]
Herman Cain Changes Story, But Tells FOX He’s Innocent (Talking Points Memo)
By Michael Leddy at 7:07 PM comments: 0
Happy Halloween
By Michael Leddy at 5:50 AM comments: 3
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Word of the day: foo fighter
The Oxford English Dictionary word of the day is foo fighter:
Any of various unidentified lights encountered by airborne forces during the Second World War (1939–45), interpreted variously as enemy weapons, natural phenomena, or alien spacecraft.The term has its origin in the nonsense word foo, a staple of Bill Holman’s comic strip Smokey Stover (one of the great comic strips of my childhood). Alas, the OED misspells Stover’s first name.
More foo
Silence is FOO! (’t Is Goud)
Smokey Stover Online (full of foo and notary sojac)
[Do fans of Foo Fighters generally know the origin of the band’s name?]
By Michael Leddy at 4:19 PM comments: 1
Day & Meyer, Murray & Young
The New York Times reports on the storage warehouse of Day & Meyer, Murray & Young:
Behind the mute facade of a largely windowless neo-Gothic tower lies an ingenious system of steel vaults traveling on rails. Within those armored containers, which have been in continuous use since the Jazz Age, are stored some of New York City’s most precious objects and, presumably, a good number of its darkest secrets.It all sounds like something from Steven Millhauser’s wonderful novel Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1996).
Storing the Stuff of Dreams (New York Times)
By Michael Leddy at 1:42 PM comments: 0
Saturday, October 29, 2011
VDP on “Wall Street” and Wall Street
From Van Dyke Parks’s commentary on his song “Wall Street” and current events:
The Creed Is Greed, in a nation dominated by stone-age fundamentalism — despite the fact that Christ admonished against greed and usurious interests repeatedly, raising valid questions about how Capitalism-run-amok can square with Christian precepts.You can read the commentary and listen to “Wall Street” by following the link: Van Dyke Parks on “Wall Street” (Los Angeles Review of Books Blog).
The “Occupy” movement, while indistinct and lacking a theme song, is emboldening an all-too patient middle-to-underclass seeking a higher moral ground. It’s about ethics.
By Michael Leddy at 5:17 PM comments: 0