Philip Gove on student writing

Before turning to dictionary work with the G. & C. Merriam Company, Philip Gove spent fifteen years directing freshman English at New York University. In the mid-1950s, he was at work with Merriam, editing Webster’s Third. The Dartmouth News Service wrote to offer Gove (a Dartmouth graduate) samples of student writing to illustrate current usage. He declined and explained why in a letter:

There’s an almost invariable rule that writing prepared under assignment and therefore artificially under pressure has certain forced awkwardnesses that make it quite different from genuine human utterances. Most of these writers, you will remember, didn’t want to write the theme in the first place, didn’t have anything they wanted to say in the second, and cared only about satisfying some artificial and quite likely false standards set up by their instructor. I know because I have read thousands of them.

Quoted in Herbert C. Morton’s The Story of Webster’s Third: Philip Gove’s Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

How to challenge the “almost invariable rule”? One way is to ask students to write critically about “college”: what it’s for, what’s wrong with it, how it can be improved. It’s exciting to see students become critical observers of their own experience.

Related reading
Paul McHenry Roberts, “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words”

Television antennas and other relics

Diane Schirf is remembering relics. The latest: television antennas. And previously: letters and mailboxes, “the one-color, non-sticky postage stamp,” and mail chutes.

[Yes, antennas. Garner’s Modern American Usage: “When the reference is to insects, antennae . . . is the usual plural. But when the reference is to televisions and electronic transmitters, antennas is better.”]

Overheard

While shopping:

“Holy crap — they have Valentine’s stuff out already!”

And they do, right next to the meat-flavor-flavored potato chips and other New Year’s Eve items.

All “overheard” posts (via Pinboard)

Meat-flavored potato chips

“We then top them with the flavor of thick and juicy steak”: Herr’s Kansas City Prime Potato Chips. The horror.

[As there’s no meat in these chips, perhaps I should’ve written “meat-flavor-flavored.”]

Improved to-do lists

“With the new year comes the urge to accomplish all the things that were meant to be done the year before, and it often starts with long to-do lists.” Thus Sue Shellenbarger offers some advice for making workable ones: Conquering the To-Do List (Wall Street Journal). The poster-like illustration seems especially helpful.

Other posts with lists
“Ambercroombie & Flitch” (Ways to be cool)
Amy Winehouse’s to-do list (“When I do recorddeal”)
Blue crayon (Supplies for an imaginary camping trip)
John Lennon’s to-do list (“H.B.O. Guy coming between 3–5”)
Johnny Cash’s to-do list (“Kiss June”)
Review: Liza Kirwin, Lists (Artists’ lists)
Whose list? (A found list)

Dead give-away

Why a dead give-away?

The Oxford English Dictionary explains. A give-away is “an inadvertent betrayal or revelation of oneself, of plans, the truth, etc.” Among the meanings of dead: “absolute, complete, entire, thorough, downright.” A dead give-away is “a complete betrayal; also, a person or thing that causes such a betrayal or revelation.” One more nagging question answered. Thanks, OED.

Recreational and recreative reading

From Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day:

“Recreational” is the standard adjective corresponding to the noun “recreation”; it’s about 1,000 times as common as its synonym “recreative,” a needless variant. But “recreative” is genuinely useful in the sense “tending to re-create” — e.g.: “The paradoxically destructive and recreative force of the mythical flood seemed as real to Friday’s performers as it must have to the composer.” Timothy Pfaff, “Innocence of Children Survives ‘Noah’s Flood,’” S.F. Examiner, 24 June 1995, at C1.

I remember some years ago hearing of a college administrator who characterized English studies as “recreative reading.” It seems appropriate that he chose the needless variant. Dumb and dumberer.

Bryan Garner, author of Garner’s Modern American Usage (Oxford University Press, 2009), offers a free Usage Tip of the Day. You can sign up at LawProse.org. Orange Crate Art is a Garner-friendly site.

Awesome People Reading

Awesome People Reading collects photographs of just that: a young Rachel Carson, Buster Keaton, Lisa Simpson, and many, many more. Above, the cast of Dracula (dir. Tod Browning, 1931). Click for a larger view.

Marshall McLuhan’s reading strategy

Marshall McLuhan’s reading strategy: begin on page 69.

(via Taking Note)

Duke Ellington and a Blackwing

[Photograph by Valerie Wilmer, 1965.]

Duke Ellington in a BBC studio, at work with a Blackwing pencil. Yes, it’s a Blackwing: the ferrule is the give-away. That’s most likely a Pall Mall in Ellington’s other hand. This photograph appears in Derek Jewell’s Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977). There appears to be no evidence that Ellington had any particular attachment to the Blackwing pencil, or to any writing instrument.

Related reading, via Pinboard
All Blackwing posts
All Ellington posts

[Note to a certain pencil company: Orange Crate Art is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License. No commercial use allowed. Thanks for your cooperation.]