“Lane Greene on Editing”

Here’s an especially good episode of the BBC podcast Word of Mouth: “Lane Greene on Editing.” The episode could have been called “Lane Greene Editing,” as it features Greene revising a passage written by the show’s co-host Laura Wright.

I like what Bryan Garner says about editing: “Few things are better for writers than competent line-editing, which (as we know) is an act of friendship.” For a lively exchange of ideas between Garner and Greene, see the New York Times feature “Which Grammar Rules to Flout?”

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Lester Ruff, is eminently do-able. 31-Across, nine letters, “Toon first called Stinky,” gave me a first chance to begin putting the puzzle together. Four clues that I especially liked: 1-Across, four letters, “Drop off.” (WANE? No.) 10-Down and 11-Down, each six letters, “Slotted for service.” And 24-A, three letters, “Cell trio.” One clue that taught me something: 35-Across, thirteen letters, “They make money from misspelled URLs.” I knew about the practice but didn’t know the name.

Never no spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

There and here

In The Washington Post, Mary Tedrow, an American teacher, writes about what she saw in Finland. For example:

On one of our nights in Helsinki, the streets were filled with students celebrating the end of one of their matriculation tests. We asked them: “What do you think is different between your schools and ours?”

They were able to tell us in English — one of up to four languages most students have — that American students know they are all competing against each other for limited seats at university and that they will have to find the money to go there. “We are not worried about that, so we can just focus on learning,” they said.

Bush to Clinton

Elegance? I suppose one could say that. But I’d say dignity and humility and magnanimity. The note that George H.W. Bush left for Bill Clinton seems like an artifact from a lost America.

Hope vs. fear

Michelle Obama, on The Late Show tonight: “I think it is so easy, and lazy, to lead by fear. It is much harder to lead by hope.”

[Corrected this morning. The interview is now at YouTube.]

Little Everywhere and Stitcher, sheesh

In episode seven of the podcast The Dream: “There’s a man named Bruce Craig, who was a assistant attorney general for the state of Wisconsin.” I listened three times to make sure what I was hearing: a, pronounced ā. And it’s not an interviewee who’s speaking: it’s one of the podcast’s makers. You can listen for yourself, beginning at 6:58.

See also: him as subject.

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Words of the year Now with nomophobia.

Brix JarKey

[Nancy, July 2, 1958.]

Fret not, Nancy. The Brix JarKey makes it easy to break a vacuum seal and open a jar. In our household, the JarKey has more or less replaced the Oxo Jar Opener as tool of choice.

I found the Brix JarKey at the local hardware store, where I get to see housewares items I never see elsewhere.

Arrowlock Tag #108

When we got our mower back from the local farm-and-home store, I was impressed by the tag with our name and telephone number, an Arrowlock Tag #108, made by the Macray Company of Flanders, New Jersey. Or is it Arrow Lock? The company website spells it as both one word and two. Either way, it’s a clever design: “Hook to item — fold arrow head.”

[Cost of repair: $25 to replace the inferior hardware holding the handles to the mower, which required the removal of a plastic casing on the mower’s underside, and $8 to sharpen the blade. Pretty midwestern prices.]

EXchange name sighting: MUrray Hill

[50¢ a yard!]

You never know what you might find in a supply closet. When my daughter Rachel saw this envelope full of fabric, she took a photograph and told me to check out the phone number. MUrray Hill!

New Yorkers of a certain age may remember the MUrray Hill exchange from commercials for Gimbel’s Custom Reupholstery. MUrray Hill 7-7500. MUrray Hill 7-7500. The commercials ran on WPIX-TV during morning cartoons and Little Rascals shorts. Yes, my school day, at least my elementary-school day, began with television. Better Living Through TV.

The Textile Building, at 295 Fifth Avenue, houses the showrooms of many textile manufacturers. The address is in Murray Hill, a section of Manhattan that gave its name to a telephone exchange. Liberty Fabrics at some point said goodbye to Murray Hill and MUrray Hill: the company’s New York showroom is now at 584 Broadway, in Lower Manhattan.

Thank you, Rachel.