Like Stoner, I am an instructor at the same university where I did my doctorate. Like him, I teach freshman composition. Like him, I’ve come to love teaching and to consider it my vocation. But this is where our similarities end.Maggie Doherty, an adjunct instructor, writes about John Williams’s novel Stoner .
Did you know that “no worries” began as an Australianism? From Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day:
The actor and writer Paul Hogan popularized the phrase outside Australia in his Crocodile Dundee movies (the memorable one of 1986, the less memorable sequel of 1988, and the wholly forgettable second sequel of 2001). Hogan's catchphrase was “No worries, mate.” The wide appeal of those movies made the phrase something of a vogue expression, sometimes with and sometimes without “mate” tacked on the end. . . .I will confess to a sparing use of “no worries” in conversation. (I’ve used the expression twice in these pages, each time in a comment.) But I always thought that “no worries” was a Britishism. And I was unaware of mate . And as must be apparent by now, I’ve never watched a Crocodile Dundee movie.
But beginning about 2000, the expression had spread into mainstream American English without any hint of its foreignness.
“Should I just chuck these catalogues?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll get more.”
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Van Veen is speaking with a “fellow student whom we shall call Dick,” Dick Cheshire:
Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969).
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[Underground observatories were proposed as early as 1903. The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events has an oddly Nabokovian name.]
Among many efforts to reform English spelling: Anglic, the creation of Dr. R. E. Zachrisson (1880–1937), professor of English at Uppsala University. A sample:
Forskor and sevn yeerz agoe our faadherz braut forth on this kontinent a nue naeshon, konsee vd in liberty, and dedikaeted to the propozishon that aul men are kreae ted equal.And a rejoinder to all such schemes, from a recent installment of Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day:
Quoted in 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).
A person who has invested countless hours and endless labor learning to spell irrationally has an unconscious vested interest in the irrational system once he has mastered it, and no amount of argument on behalf of ease to his descendants will shake him.Also from The American Language
Mario Pei, “English Spelling,” in Language Today: A Survey of Current Linguistic Thought (1967).
Another Mencken footnote, on Benjamin Franklin’s spelling reforms:
The Scheme is reprinted in Franklin’s Words , edited by John Bigelow; New York, 1887-8; Vol IV, p. 198 ff . The six new characters were a modified a for the long a in ball , an h upside down for the u in unto , a combination of long s and i for the sh in wish , a y with a curled tail for ng , an h with a curled tail for the h in wish , and a somewhat similar h , but with a wavy appendage at the top, for the th of thy . Franklin expunged c , w , y and j from the alphabet as unnecessary. He proposed that the vowels be differentiated by using one letter for the short ones and two for the long ones. He made a trial of his new alphabet in a letter to Miss Stephenson of London, apparently a bluestocking of the time. She replied on September 26, 1768, saying that she could si meni inkanviiniensis in it. He defended it in a letter from Kreven striit , London, Sept. 28.For more on Franklin’s reforms: “Benjamin Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet” (Smithsonian).
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).
“Oatmeal season is upon us.”
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[Illustration from the article “What about Present Cracker Advertising? An Interview with the Advertising Manager of the N. B. C.” The Cracker Baker (March 1918).]
I somehow thought of Nabisco Oysterettes and went looking for the Oysterette man. He is hard to find, these days. He was never a spokesman, and certainly never a mascot. He sat, silent, on a box on the side of the box, head down, all wrinkled and patched, shucking oysters. No one at the wharf has seen him. (What wharf?)
The Oysterette man makes a fleeting full-color appearance on eBay now and then. But I found him living a more settled life in grey. “When the N. B. C. let me go,” he told me, “I didn’t know what to think. I thought I had a job for life. But what are you gonna do?” The answer: shuck oysters. It’s what he knows. He is down to his last box of crackers.
[The National Biscuit Company began using the name “Oysterettes” in 1900 or 1901. The trademark lapsed in 2003. The Oysterette man on eBay: here, for instance.]
In three-and-a-half hours of trick-or-treating last night, we had six children come to our door: three, two, one, and none. It was dark, it was cold, it was raining. We gave generous handfuls of candy and one pencil per child.
Child: “A pencil ??”
Jaded brat!
Me: “Yes, a pencil. It’s a good pencil; it’ll last a lot longer than the candy.”
And now we’re left with 100+ pieces of Heath and Hershey and eighteen more Ticonderogas in our house. They’ll last a very long time.
When we last did Halloween, several years ago, we had just four children show up. I would imagine that many younger families now forage only at friends’ houses. Or they might choose to avoid the sugared debauch entirely. (Who can fault them?) The days of going from random house to random house for treats seem to be on the wane, at least in this neighborhood.
[The dreaded Halloween Pumpkin Eater. Art by James Leddy. No date.]
It is All Hallows’ Eve’s Eve, at least by my reckoning. Our town’s three used-book stores will be giving out children’s books tomorrow. A greathearted gesture, that. Our household has assembled reserves of Hershey Miniatures, Heath Miniatures, and Dixon Ticonderogas — which, like books, should outlast all candy.
The illustration above is from a card by my dad, one of many through the years. It loses something in the scanning: the Eater is made of electrical tape. He is both scary and shiny.
More art by James Leddy
❤ : Abe’s shades : Billie Holiday, 29¢ : Boo! : Happy holidays : Hardy mums : Questionnaire : Thanks!
