World’s most confusing sentence

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Thank you, Seth.

Exam advice

[Der Schrei der Nancy.]

Coming soon to a week near you, perhaps: final examinations. In December 2005, after finding nothing online to my liking, I wrote out some advice for students: How to do well on a final exam. It’s good advice, free for the taking.

And for contrarians: How to do horribly on a final exam.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

[Nancy will do just fine on her exam.]

Henry calendar

[Henry, December 12, 2014.]

Not only do they have a mousehole in the baseboard (as a good cartoon-home should): they have a commercial calendar on the wall. It must be a gift from the coal company, or something.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

At the CPG Co.

I put in two-and-a-half hours last night. It’ll be the whole day today. Back tomorrow from the Continental Paper Grading Co.

Jane Freilicher on “the cutting edge”

Jane Freilicher, quoted in the New York Times obituary:

“To strain after innovation, to worry about being on ‘the cutting edge’ (a phrase I hate), reflects a concern for a place in history or one’s career rather than the authenticity of one’s painting.”

A related post
Jane Freilicher (1924–2014)

Jane Freilicher (1924–2014)

[Click for a larger view.]

Sad news in my e-mail. The New York Times obituary begins,

Jane Freilicher, a stubbornly independent painter whose brushy, light-saturated still lifes and luminous landscapes set in the marshes of eastern Long Island made her one of the more anomalous figures to emerge from the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan.

Is there an artist not in some respect “anomalous”?

A ninetieth-birthday celebration at The Poetry Project will now take place as a memorial.

More about Jane Freilicher
Jane Freilicher: Painter Among Poets (Tibor de Nagy)

Site Meter woes

Language Log reports ongoing problems with the counter service Site Meter. LL’s Mark Liberman goes so far as to call it malware. The look of the Site Meter website does little to inspire confidence.

A fine alternative to Site Meter is the free service StatCounter. I’ve been using StatCounter for almost ten years, starting with the free version in 2005 and later switching to a paid account. StatCounter is reliable, and its developers respond quickly and courteously to questions and reports of trouble. I recommend StatCounter to anyone who likes stats.

[StatCounter works as a visible or invisible little widget thingamajig. I keep it visible in the sidebar, looking like an odometer: 1437987.]

Words of wisdom from Albert King

Albert King to Stevie Ray Vaughan : “Most important thing: the better you get, the harder you work.”

Indeed. As one improves, the work gets more difficult, not less. It’s the beginner who slaps something together and thinks it adequate. It’s the 職人 [shokunin ], dedicated to a craft, who is ever intent on making it better.

I am always happy when students come to realize that the work of writing requires greater effort than they had imagined. As they become better writers, they have to work harder. There’s more to think about, more to try to get right.

A related post
Aaron Draplin on “good enough”

Enhanced euphemism techniques

On NPR earlier this morning, a Morning Edition interviewer spoke of “enhanced interrogation techniques, which many call torture.” Really, NPR? Must you continue to use a state-sponsored euphemism (sans quotation marks) in your reporting?

More appropriate: “so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which many call torture.”

More appropriate: “what the CIA calls ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ and what many call torture.”

The practice of “enhanced interrogation” has an interesting history.

A related post
Euphemism

The CIA and the English language

From a New York Times article quoting the Senate report on the Central Intelligence Agency and torture:

“Strongly urge that any speculative language as to the legality of given activities or, more precisely, judgment calls as to their legality vis-à-vis operational guidelines for this activity agreed upon and vetted at the most senior levels of the agency, be refrained from in written traffic (email or cable traffic),” wrote Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center.

Or in plain language: Don’t put questions in writing.

“Given activities,” “operational guidelines for this activity”: the Agency man writes in abstractions. “Strongly urge,” “be refrained from”: the Agency man writes without a sense of agency. It’s as if he’s read George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” backwards.

A related post
Getting the truth (WWII, and a different way to interrogate prisoners)