The NSA’s Grammar Geek

Now available at governmentattic.org: advice columns on grammar and usage from the National Security Agency’s Grammar Geek(s). “Gabby” took over as the Geek after “Gigi” retired. Both names are pseudonyms.

A choice bit from Gigi:

Oh! If I had a dollar for every time I have heard a news anchor solemnly state that such and such “went down” today, I would have enough money for several new grammar books — all of which I would throw at the TV.

How marvelous that the NSA can spy on millions of Americans and still keep its sense of humor.

How to improve writing (no. 73)

Today we have rearranging of parts. From a New York Times opinion piece, a sentence that needs improvement:

Harding, the former Moscow bureau chief of The Guardian, has been reporting on shady characters like Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was indicted last month, long before Trump announced his candidacy.

I see two problems:

“Last month, long before Trump announced his candidacy” makes for a momentary muddle. Place “long before Trump announced his candidacy” at the beginning of the sentence, and you can see the second problem more clearly:

Long before Trump announced his candidacy, Harding, the former Moscow bureau chief of The Guardian, has been reporting on shady characters like Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was indicted last month.

See the problem? It’s a matter of tense: Long before x did y, Harding has been reporting. I suspect that the original arrangement of the sentence’s parts allowed the writer to miss this now-obvious error. Once more:

Long before Trump announced his candidacy, Harding, the former Moscow bureau chief of The Guardian, was reporting on shady characters like Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was indicted last month.

I’d say bring back the copy desk, but I don’t think copy editors edit opinion pieces. (Anyone know?)

Related reading
All OCA “How to improve writing” posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 73 in a series, dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose. I’ve added italics to the name of The Guardian in the Times sentence.]

Dog science

The narrator (a dog) has explained that there are two kinds of food: food from the ground and food from above. Science has determined that there are two ways of procuring food: “the scratching and watering of the ground” and “the auxiliary perfecting processes of incantation, dance, and song.” But if the perfecting processes work to give the ground sufficient potency to attract food from the air, why do dogs look upward and not at the ground when they sing, dance, and chant?


Franz Kafka, “Investigations of a Dog,” in The Complete Stories, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Schocken, 1971).

Related reading
All OCA Kafka posts (Pinboard)

[Watering the ground? It seems to mean just what you think it means.]

Chock full o’Coffee

“Most of the people in New York — we’ve been there forever and they get it, but if you’re in Omaha and suddenly we’re on the shelf and you see the brand for the first time, there’s confusion”: The hard work of assuring shoppers that Chock full o’Nuts coffee is just coffee — no nuts.

Chock full o’Nuts is our household’s everyday coffee. Pistachios are our everyday nuts.

Related posts
A 1964 guidebook description : Chock full o’Nuts reverie : Chock fill o’Nuts in a movie : Chock full o’Nuts lunch hour, 1955 : Chock full o’Nuts skyline with the WTC

An interview with Annie Atkins

From the podcast 99% Invisible: “Hero Props: Graphic Design in Film and Television,” an interview with the graphic designer Annie Atkins, maker of graphic props for film. Atkins was the lead graphic designer for The Grand Budapest Hotel. Yes, the Mendl’s box.

The Voyager Golden Records

The sounds of the Voyager Golden Records (there were two): coming soon, on LPs and CDs.

Pocket notebook sighting

[20th Century Women (dir. Mike Mills, 2016). Click either image for a much larger view.]

Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening) wanted to be an Air Force pilot and went to flight school, but the war ended before she was done. It makes sense that her pocket notebook would be one with a military background. It’s this notebook, its pages sewn in signatures, with evergreen covers and the word Memorandum in lime cursive. The notebook opens from the top:



I bought a stash of the side-opening Memorandum some time ago. They’re extremely well-made notebooks.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : Cat People : City Girl : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : T-Men : Union Station : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window

Enter Sluggo

[Zippy, November 26, 2017.]

First panel: “Zippy read so many ‘Little Max’ comic books by Ham Fisher that he became Little Max!” And went on to live by himself in a little brick house. But then things get all Pandora-like.

All I know about Little Max is what I read in Zippy — and that he was Joe Palooka’s sidekick.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Notice the tiny Sluggo in the first of these panels.]

Yielding in Massachusetts

In The New York Times Magazine, John Hodgman answers a question about driving in Massachusetts: what should a driver do when someone is standing on the sidewalk at a Yield to Pedestrians crosswalk, not yet crossing? Hodgman says the driver should yield: “Don’t be a masshole.”

What Hodgman doesn’t make explicit is that yielding for someone still on the sidewalk isn’t required by Massachusetts law. But says a Cambridge lawyer experienced in crosswalk cases: "If they have the intent of crossing within a reasonable distance of it, then yeah, you gotta stop."

[Drivers in Brookline (the town referenced in Hodgman’s piece) really do stop at Yield to Pedestrian signs, at least the ones in Coolidge Corner, at least most of the time, at least in my experience. I’ve added commas to the lawyer’s sentence.]

A representative walk

Air, mint, air : air : air : air : air, leaves : leaves, air : air : air : air : air : burning leaves : burning leaves : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air, turkey, air : air : air : air, fireplace, air : air : air : air, leaves, air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air, leaves, air : air, leaves, air : air.

[Inspired by something my friend Sara McWhorter wrote and sent. The colons separate the fifty minutes of walking. Mint? Lip balm.]