Merriam-Webster in Ebony

Given the all-white world of Merriam-Webster’s 1965 and 1966 Life advertisements, I wondered: did the company ever advertise its products to African-Americans? I checked the Google Books holdings for Ebony and Jet and found a single ad, which appeared in Ebony in October 1967. It’s clearly pitched to parents wanting to do right by their children. No reference to “friends at the office” or “families having fun with word games and puzzles”: here the dictionary is a means to academic success. Which it is. Consider The Dictionary Project.

And now I remember what we had in the house when I was a kid: the World Book Dictionary, and of course, the World Book Encyclopedia. Great bathroom reading.

But that table, that chair: now I’m back in my high school’s library. It’s study hour again.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard)

Merriam-Webster holiday shopping

[Life, November 26, 1965.]


[Life, November 25, 1966. Click either image for a larger view.]

Sixteen of twenty people on your Christmas (or “holiday”) list need a Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. I used to recommend that students acquire and use a collegiate dictionary. Now I say college-level . Can you guess why?

The four people who have no need of a dictionary will be happy with Parker T-Ball Jotters.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard)

Thanksgiving 1914

[“Army of Beggars Mars Thanksgiving: Thousands of Ragamuffins in Fantastic Garb Beset Persons in the Street. Churches Hold Services. Turkey and Cranberry Sauce Provided for the Destitute and for Jail Inmates.” The New York Times, November 27, 1914.]

My 2012 and 2013 Thanksgiving posts also dropped in at the Ludlow Street Jail.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Recently updated

Grammarly, WhiteSmoke WhiteSmoke now has a demo, and the results do not inspire confidence.

Old Grote

[2" x 1 1/8". 1 7/16" x 5/8". Click for a larger view.]

From a brief history:

In 1943, the Grote companies combined under the name Grote Manufacturing Co. Like most other manufacturers of the time, Grote refocused its production on the war effort. It began making items for paravanes (devices that cut underwater mine cables), acrylic radio-controlled shells, and blackout lights. Once the war was over, the company converted its metal stamping machines to make medicine cabinets.

Grote Mfg. Co. sold its medicine-cabinet division in 1970. As Grote Industries, the company rolls on.

Our Grote medicine cabinet is now gone, along with our other bathroom fixtures. Goodbye, old Grote. Goodbye, inside-cabinet-door labels. Bathroom-wise, we are stepping into the world of tomorrow, or at least the world of the next week or two. I had to stop myself from saving the blades of shavers past.

Supporting the Ferguson Library

We are open 9-4. Wifi, water, rest, knowledge. We are here for you. If neighbors have kids, let them know teachers are here today, too.

— Ferguson Library (@fergusonlibrary) November 25, 2014

I don’t know who first suggested donating to the Ferguson Library, but I like the idea:

Ferguson Municipal Public Library
35 North Florissant Road
Ferguson, MO 63135

A call-number surprise

I was browsing in the library and noticed Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier. I still have it in paperback from undergrad days.

And then, just two books away on the library shelf: Ted Allen, et al., Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Did someone stash it for further browsing, as library patrons sometimes do when they’d rather not borrow a book? No.

Let’s review our Library of Congress Classification Titles:

B: Philosophy. Psychology. Religion.

BJ: Ethics.

BJ1518-1697: Individual ethics. Character. Virtue. Including practical and applied ethics, conduct of life, vices, success, ethics for children.

Castiglione’s call number: BJ1604 .C43 1967. Allen, et al.: BJ1601 .Q44 2004.

A related post
Know Your Library of Congress Classification Title (Fun, really)

The past, for sale

[Click for a larger view.]

For sale: a letter of transit, used only once. Also a piano, restored. And many other pieces of film history. The New York Times has an article about a Bonham’s auction.

*

November 25: The Times article now has auction results. The letter of transit sold for $118,750; Sam’s piano, for $3,413,000.

Word processing, c. 1987

In Fall 1986 and for a semester or two thereafter, I taught first-year college composition, “freshman comp,” with word processing. I was the first person in my English Department to do so. My enthusiasm waned when I saw no evidence that word processing made for significant improvement in students’ writing. If anything, it seemed to offer a too-easily-taken shortcut to a finished essay, without the large-scale rethinking and revising that might best take place on paper, with the aid of arrows, asterisks, staples, and tape.

In April 1987 I wrote up some thoughts to share with colleagues about freshman comp and word processing. Here’s an excerpt, with a word or two changed:

Computers are no quick solution to the problems of our freshman comp students. A computer cannot tell a student that a thesis is too general or that an essay lacks specific details and is illogical. A computer cannot spot punctuation errors (programs that claim to do so, such as Sensible Grammar, in reality find mere typos, like a space before a comma). There are word-processing programs that can catch some spelling errors, but they cannot tell when “to” should be “too.” The claims made for computers as thinking machines are enormous, but real intelligence can lie only in the hands on the keyboard. God knows we have all read inane, jargon-ridden, stultifying prose produced with the slickest of word processing programs. My claim is more modest: a computer — used intelligently — makes life easier.

Twenty-seven years later, I think that these observations still hold. Nothing can yet replace writerly scrutiny of grammar and spelling. I still see no evidence that word processing has made for better writing. And it amuses me to realize that while many an English Department still houses a “computer lab” (a classroom filled with the hum of machines), the prospect of writing in a word processor has come to feel faintly quaint. With so many minimalist apps available, the work of composition can happen in distraction-free environments far more congenial than Microsoft Word. And anyway, writing is not word processing. Margins, fonts, and pagination are matters of document design, not writing. I design documents all the time, but I cannot recall when I last wrote in a word processor.

Related reading
“Don’t be a brute” (Writing ≠ word processing)
Grammarly, WhiteSmoke (Unreliable witnesses)
On “On the New Literacy” (“I’m not persuaded”)
Writing by hand (“A draft is a draft”)
Sandeep Krishnamurthy, A Demonstration of the Futility of Using Microsoft Word’s Spelling and Grammar Check

Ace Combs; or, Things Ain’t What They Used to Be

[Life, June 6, 1955.]

It’s sad to see a once-great brand sink into crappy cheapness. I know that Ace combs are no longer made of hard rubber. But I’d at least expect a plastic Ace to comb hair without raking and scraping the scalp. No such luck.

I bought an Ace yesterday and tossed it after one use. That’s how bad it was. If, however, tiny ridges and “burrs” are your thing, today’s Ace is what you’re looking for. Ouch.

I still own a hard-rubber Ace, many years old. That, friends, is a comb.

[No, you may not borrow my comb.]