Franco-American

With an emphasis on American :

Some years ago the word protégé had a brief vogue in fistic circles, and was often used by announcers at prize-fights. They always pronounced it proteege . I once heard a burlesque show manager, in announcing a French dancing act, pronounce M . and Mlle . as Em and Milly . And who doesn’t remember

As I walked along the Boys Boo-long
With an independent air

and

Say aw re-vore ,
But not good-by!

H. L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 4th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936).

I am sympathetic: I have my own troubles pronouncing French. And long long ago I thought that Goethe was pronounced gōth.

I’ve been at The American Language since June. Somewhere between pages 460 and 500 my energy began to wane, as I realized that this book may never end. But the logic of sunk costs requires that I continue.

Also from The American Language
The American a : The American v. the Englishman : “Are you a speed-cop?” : B.V.D. : English American English : “[N]o faculty so weak as the English faculty” : On professor : Playing policy : “There are words enough already” : The -thon , dancing and walking Through -thing and -thin’ : The verb to contact

[The Boys Boo-long: the Bois de Boulogne.]

Domestic comedy

[Idling at an intersection with a diagonal crossing .]

“It’s a pedestrian-friendly gesture, that’s for sure!”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[The diagonal crossing is also known by the names Barnes dance, pedestrian scramble, and scramble intersection. WALK.]

Rain (artist’s conception)

[From Paul E. Lehr, R. Will Burnett, and Herbert S. Zim, Weather: A Guide to Phenomena and Forecasts , a Golden Science Book (1965). Illustration by Harry McNaught.]

From the same book
Featured merchandise
Snow, snow, snow

Ada : Sunday breakfast

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969).

Our narrator, Van, is rather contemptuous of Dan. (First sentence, last word.)

The parenthetical remark at the end of this passage is a characteristic Nabokov touch, a touch of wit in passing.

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

Word of the day: hustings

[“In th’ rug & on th’ hustings!” Zippy, October 27, 2015.]

The Oxford English Dictionary first records husting in use around 1030. The now-obsolete meaning: “an assembly for deliberative purposes, esp. one summoned by a king or other leader; a council.” The Dingburg hustings comes much later:

the temporary platform from which, previous to the Ballot Act of 1872, the nomination of candidates for Parliament was made, and on which these stood while addressing the electors. Hence, contextually, the proceedings at a parliamentary election.

The Dictionary’s first citation is from Thomas D’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719): “What Tricks on the Hustings Fanaticks would play.”

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

*

1:05 p.m.: Chris of Dreamers Rise writes in a comment, “You’ve left out the fun part, which is the etymology of “husting” from húsþing — “house thing” — with “thing” meaning assembly, as in the present Icelandic Alþingi.”

Intent on getting the meaning, I never thought to look at the etymology: from the Old Norse hús-þing , “house-assembly, a council held by a king, earl, or other leader, and attended by his immediate followers, retainers, etc., in distinction from the ordinary þing or general assembly of the people” (OED). The þ is the thorn, th. Thus hús-thing.

Had I thought to switch to the OED’s full-entry view, I probably would have noticed the etymology. But I would not have known about the Alþingi.

Thanks, Chris.

[I did my best in this post to avoid any pun about a Battle of Hustings.]

Peter Drucker on integrity in leadership

Peter Drucker:

The proof of the sincerity and seriousness of a management is uncompromising emphasis on integrity of character. This, above all, has to be symbolized in management’s “people” decisions. For it is character through which leadership is exercised; it is character that sets the example and is imitated. Character is not something one can fool people about. The people with whom a person works, and especially subordinates, know in a few weeks whether he or she has integrity or not. They may forgive a person for a great deal: incompetence, ignorance, insecurity, or bad manners. But they will not forgive a lack of integrity in that person. Nor will they forgive higher management for choosing him.

This is particularly true of the people at the head of an enterprise. For the spirit of an organization is created from the top. If an organization is great in spirit, it is because the spirit of its top people is great. If it decays, it does so because the top rots; as the proverb has it, “Trees die from the top.” No one should ever be appointed to a senior position unless top management is willing to have his or her character serve as the model for subordinates.

From The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

I thought of this passage as my university seeks to fill administrative positions on very short notice: who will lead?

With necessary changes in terminology, one might apply Drucker’s thinking to elections, with integrity of character as a primary consideration for a voter. I for one would find it impossible to vote for a candidate who did not evince some core element of integrity, however consonant with my views that candidate’s views might be.

I don’t make a habit of reading books on management. I caught on to Peter Drucker after noticing the beautifully designed little book Managing Onself (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2008) on the front table in Brookline Booksmith. It’s a wonderful book for younger and older readers. Its core message: we must figure out our strengths and values and ways of working, and be who we are.

Other Drucker-related posts
Drucker and income disparity in higher education
On figuring out where one belongs

[I’ve borrowed my summary of Managing Oneself from another post. And if it doesn’t go without saying: Drucker assumes of course an enlightened managment. The “model for subordinates” would work with integrity rather than, say, blind obedience or sycophancy.]

Art and supplies

Oscar’s Portrait explores the relationship between art and supplies.

Art Brut in New York

“It’s a heady experience to move through this exhibition knowing that many of the works on hand were among the first by these artists that Dubuffet saw or exhibited. Talk about the shock of the new”: from a New York Times review of Art Brut in America: The Incursion of Jean Dubuffet , an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum.

Proust revisions

Toast. Biscotto. Madeleine.

Related reading
Madeleine
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

[Sad that the Slate rehashing of the Guardian story imagines the toast popping out of a toaster. No, not then, not yet.]

A stabbing in Boston

My son heard some teenagers talking, casually, matter of factly, about this stabbing. I’m reminded of lines from W. H. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles” (1952):

    That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
    Were axioms to him, who’d never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.