From the New York Daily News:
Mona Lisa Tello was busted after she allegedly submitted a fake jury duty letter rife with bone-headed misspellings to get out of class for two weeks.Spoken like a true Mona Lisa.
Tello spelled “trial” as “trail,” wrote “sited” instead of “cited,” and “mange” instead of “manager,” officials revealed Tuesday. . . .
“I have nothing to say,” Tello said when reached by telephone.
Edward Artin went to work at G. & C. Merriam in 1930. He began as a proofreader, later joined the pronunciation staff, and worked on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary:
It was the inadequacy of the historical files and a lack of confidence in the research underlying some of the Second Edition pronunciations that led Artin to embark on his extraordinary effort to record as completely and systematically as he could the actual pronunciations prevailing in different parts of the country and different English-speaking nations from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Extraordinary indeed:
Morton’s book is a great introduction to the world of lexicography.His wife Dorothy L. Artin, an editorial assistant for the Second Edition, recalls that “we were married in 1931, and I soon learned that much, indeed most, of our ‘free’ time was to be dedicated” to his consuming interest in how people pronounce words. “During the ensuing forty-three years … evening after evening, weekend after weekend, holiday after holiday, he listened to representative speakers, on radio, television, or face-to-face, all the while making … citations on three-by-five slips.”
Herbert C. Morton, The Story of Webster’s Third: Philip Gove’s Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
[“Evening after evening, weekend after weekend, holiday after holiday”: What tone do you hear in this phrasing? Amused tolerance, or disbelief?]
Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day:
kudos \KOO-dahss\ noun
1 : fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement : prestige
2 : praise given for achievement
Did you know?
Deriving from Greek, “kudos” entered English as slang popular at British universities in the 19th century. In its earliest use, the word referred to the prestige or renown that one gained by having accomplished something noteworthy. The sense meaning “praise given for achievement” came about in the 1920s. As this later sense became the predominant one, some English speakers, unaware of the word’s Greek origin, began to treat it as a plural count noun, inevitably coming up with the back-formation “kudo” to refer to a single instance of praise. For the same reason, when “kudos” is used as a subject you may see it with either a singular or plural verb.
Going to the movie: Now with links to theaters recommended by OCA readers. Thanks, readers.
Executive Suite (dir. Robert Wise, 1954) tells the story of the battle for the presidency of an American furniture company, the Tredway Corporation. The film has a great ensemble cast, with Louis Calhern, Paul Douglas, Nina Foch, Fredric March, Walter Pidegon, Barbara Stanwyck, and Shelley Winters, among others. Of greatest interest are the Wallings, McDonald (William Holden) and Mary (June Allyson). Don is a Charles Eames-like industrial designer whose plans for innovative products are stopped again and again by Tredway’s cost-cutting, chart-making controller Loren Shaw (March). Mary is no Ray Eames: we see her not as a collaborator but as a patient partner, appalled by the way Tredway frustrates her husband’s creativity. Avery Bullard, the company’s late president, hired Don with a promise that he could design and build whatever he wanted. But Don’s work on a “new molding process” has been stopped at Shaw’s directive. And the company’s most profitable merchandise is its Shaw-approved K-F line, cheap stuff with cracking finishes and legs that come loose.
The film’s interiors, by Emile Kuri and Edwin B. Willis, are rich in meaning: in the Tredway Tower, all is marble, stone, and carved wood — a contrast to the shoddy materials and workmanship of the company’s products. The Wallings’ house is modernity itself.
[The coffeemaker looks like a Cory.]
[That’s Mary coming through the door.]
[“If it hadn’t been for this room the past few months, you couldn’t have lived.”]
Compare photographs of the Eames house and office. If you look closely at the second photograph of the Eames house, you can see a dried desert plant, a signature Eames element, hanging in space. There’s something similar on the wall in Don’s studio, behind Mary’s shoulder. The 3 on Don’s wall is another Eames reference: it’s an Eames 3, or nearly one. And the reference to an unexplained “molding process” recalls of course the molded plywood of the Eameses’ chairs.
The most exciting moments in Executive Suite come in the film’s final boardroom scene. You can guess, I suspect, who gets to be president. The excitement in the scene comes from the clash between two different ways of thinking about the work of a corporation: one that seeks to cut costs, maximize profit, and pay stockholders a dividend; the other which bears in mind the need to build a future. As Don tells Shaw,
“We have an obligation to keep this company alive, not just this year or next or the year after that. Sometimes you have to use your profits for the growth of the company, not pay them all out in dividends to impress the stockholders with your management record.”Don’s dream, to make low-priced furniture “that will sell because it has beauty and function and value,” will now come true. As did the Eameses’ dream: “getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least.”
As I prepare for the spring semester, I face a crisis. In their efforts to look all folksy and down to earth, certain candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have — I’ll say it — stolen the elements of my style. My sweater-vests: gone. My signature look of button-down shirt and jeans: gone. Snatched, swiped, purloined.
I have prepared a sharp and decisive response: come Monday, I’m wearing a tie.
[If you haven’t been following fashion: Rick Santorum stole my sweater-vests; Mitt Romney, my signature look.]
Roger Ebert’s recently offered six reasons for the drop in movie ticket sales in 2011. His general conclusion: theaters “are losing their charm.” Yes, they are. Going to the movies at our nearby multiplex means going to the movies, literally: you can hear the crashes and explosions from whatever is playing next door along with the movie you paid for. It’s like living in an apartment building.
There are still great theaters though. Close to home, my favorite place to see a movie is The Art Theater in Champaign, Illinois. The Art offers intelligent programming, atypical and well-priced snacks and drinks, appropriate pre-movie music, minimal advertising, and a terrific sound system. There’s one screen, and the audience comes to pay attention: what a difference that makes. I also recommend the more majestic Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts. For one lovely year in the mid-1980s Elaine and I lived a couple of blocks from the Coolidge Corner and got to see a different double-bill two or three times a week. Now we try to see a movie there when we visit Boston.
I would hate to see independent theaters go the way of so many record stores and bookstores. You too? If you know of a great theater, please, write about it in a comment. And encourage your family and friends to go to the movie, not the movies.
Update, January 10: Here are links to theaters recommended by readers in the comments:
Los Angeles, California
Landmark Theatre
Chicago, Illinois
Doc Films
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Brattle Theatre
Harvard Film Archive
Traverse City, Michigan
The State Theatre
Columbia Heights, Minnesota
Heights Theatre
Minneapolis, MInnesota
Riverview Theater
Uptown Theatre
St. Paul, Minnesota
Mann Theatres
