Reservations by notecard

Or, really, a lottery by notecard, or, really, by index card, 3 × 5: “A tiny, in-demand restaurant in Maine asked for reservations by notecard — and got 20,000 of them” (The Washington Post).

The restaurant, the Lost Kitchen, does look fairly magical.

Related reading
All OCA index card posts (Pinboard)

Word of the day: involve

Bruce Ross-Larson’s Edit Yourself: A Manual for Everyone Who Works with Words (1996) has sixty-odd pages of words and phrases to change, cut, or compare. Those pages have made me ever more conscious of what I write. I was surprised to see involve in those pages, with the terse recommendation “Try to cut”:

The word should seldom replace or be combined with a preposition. The government agencies involved in carrying out should be The government agencies carrying out. The policies involving several departments should be The policies of several departments. If a verb or participle must stand, try to find a more precise word, such as mean, affect, or include.

Ross-Larson offers no further explanation. I began to wonder what’s wrong with involve and whether a recommendation to avoid it could be found elsewhere.

As best I can determine, Sir Ernest Gowers led the charge against involve. The second edition of H.W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1965), which Gowers revised, warns against it: “This word is overworked as a general-purpose verb that saves the trouble of precise thought.” Gowers’s The Complete Plain Words (1954) gives the clearest reasoning about involve that I can find, tracing the evolution of the word’s meaning (almost certainly with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary):

The meaning of this popular word has been diluted to a point of extreme insipidity. Originally it meant wrap up in something, enfold. Then it acquired the figurative meaning entangle a person in difficulties or embarrassment, and especially implicate in crime. Then it began to lose colour, and to be used as though it meant nothing more than include, contain or imply. It has thus developed a vagueness that makes it the delight of those who dislike the effort of searching for the right word. It is consequently much used, generally where some more specific word would be better and sometimes where it is merely superfluous.

Among Gowers’s examples, all drawn from life:

The additional rent involved will be £l. (Omit involved.)

There are certain amounts of the material available without permit, but the quantities involved are getting less. (Omit involved.)

It has been agreed that the capital cost involved in the installation of the works shall be included (. . . that the capital cost of installing . . .)

lt has been inaccurately reported that anything from eight sheep to eight oxen were roasted at the affair. The facts are that six sheep only were involved. (Involved here seems to be an “elegant variation” for roasted.)

Much labour has been involved in advertising. (Much labour has been expended on advertising.)

Gowers’s closing advice is to save involve “for use where there is a suggestion of entanglement or complication, as we use involved when we say ‘this is a most involved subject.’” For Gowers, the problem with involve is not that its meaning has changed over time; the problem is that the word can too often be cut with no loss of meaning or replaced by a more precise word. As I’ve begun to see, looking at old files and posts. Here are three examples from Orange Crate Art posts, recently revised:

I have no idea what airing an old PBS show might involve in the way of permissions.

I have no idea what permissions might be required to air an old PBS show.

My most vivid Dance Festival memories (P.S. 131, Boro Park, Brooklyn) involve crepe-paper sashes and armbands and a song called "Wind the Bobbin."

My most vivid Dance Festival memories (P.S. 131, Boro Park, Brooklyn): crepe-paper sashes and armbands and a song called "Wind the Bobbin."

Rachel was involved in a group project on Millay and has now read enough of her work to last a lifetime, thank you.

Rachel worked on a group project about Millay and has now read enough of her work to last a lifetime, thank you.

Is it worth taking the time to make these minor adjustments to old posts? Is anyone likely to notice the difference? Yes: me.

More Gowers
Buzz-phrase generator : If and whether : “Rocket surgery” : Thinking and writing

More Ross-Larson
Long and short : That and which

[To insist that a word’s present meaning must be tied to the word’s roots is to fall for the etymological fallacy. Gowers again: “there is a point where it becomes idle pedantry to try to put back into their etymological cages words and phrases that escaped from them many years ago and have settled down firmly elsewhere.” Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans’s A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (1956), Roy H. Copperud’s American Usage and Style: A Consensus (1970), and B.A. Phythian’s A Concise Dictionary of Correct English (1979) follow Gowers’s lead. The warning against involve, lightly revised, persists in the most recent edition of The Complete Plain Words , revised by Sidney Greenbaum and Janet Whitcut (1988). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (1989) says — no surprise — that involve serves well as “a less specific but no less meaningful” choice of words. Want something that saves the trouble of precise thought? Try involve! Garner’s Modern English Usage (2016) has no entry for involve, nor does the earlier Garner’s Modern American Usage.]

My two cents: a modest proposal

I’m not Catholic, not even a believer. But if were Catholic, here’s what I do: I’d put two cents in the collection plate. Doing so might be a way to send a message that things must change. Change: I didn’t even think of the pun until I typed it.

If enough people put their two cents in, the church would also have to figure out what to do with all those pennies. Bringing them to a bank would be unseemly. Coinstar?

Please pass this suggestion on to anyone who might want to consider it.

[Context: Pennsylvania, and much else.]

Pocket notebook sighting

A pocket notebook is handy when it’s not safe to speak.


[“I have a message from Gabriel — Trust me.” Click any image for a larger view.]


[“Someone is listening — where can we talk.”]

This notebook plays a small, vital role in Eyes in the Night (dir. Fred Zinnemann, 1942). Duncan “Mac” Maclain (Edward Arnold), a detective, writes these messages while someone listens on the other side of the door. How does Mac know someone’s there? His faithful dog Friday has given him a telling nudge. Mac is blind. And yes, he does jigsaw puzzles.

A pocket notebook is also handy when writing a message for Friday to deliver. And gosh, does Friday deliver. He out-Lassies Lassie. Sorry, girl.


[“Help Urgent Lawry House.”]

Eyes in the Night is a thoroughly satisfying movie, available at the Internet Archive.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : Cat People : City Girl : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : 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 : Time Table : T-Men : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window

MSNBC, sheesh

Concerning advice to Donald McGahn from his lawyers: “to tell everything that he knows fulsomely and honestly.”

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

As Orwellian as it gets

Rudolph William Louis Giuliani talking to Meet the Press: “Truth isn’t truth.”

Related reading
All OCA Orwell posts (Pinboard)

Domestic comedy

“I have to re-remember where the notes are.”

Related reading
All domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

The Avital Ronell story Now with a lawsuit, a press release, more reportage, and a comment on the term educator.

From the Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Greg Johnson, is difficult. For me, forty-eight minutes of difficulty. Getting the answer, finally, to the ultra-vague 1-Down, “Development facilitator,” let everything else begin to fall into place.

Two clues that I especially liked: 49-Across, ten letters: “Flat-bottomed vessels.” And 58-Down, three letters: “The tennis US Open is played on it.” Talk about your misdirection! No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

“What are they doing to us?”

“What is happening to us? What are they doing to us? We’re being kicked around by crazy people”: Martha Dobie (Miriam Hopkins) in These Three (dir. William Wyler, 1936).

[When I heard this line last night, I thought: current events.]