“Tape Here”

Today’s Nancy is a wonderful comment on kid stuff (tape, scissors, dotted lines) and the ways of the Internet user. Don’t miss it.

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Teaching Thomas Wolfe

I was teaching a work by Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel. Or maybe it was Of Time and the River. It was the second class of the semester. I wasn’t especially familiar with the novel under discussion and tried to get the students to talk their way through the class, one responding to another. When the class ended, a student came up to tell me that he could not find the books for the class. I suggested — helpfully, not snarkily — that he try the library. And then I wondered why I had assigned a novel I hadn’t read.

This is the sixteenth teaching-related dream I’ve had since retiring. It’s far less complicated than some of the others. The others: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

How to improve writing (no. 84)

From a post I wrote yesterday morning:

MacUpdater checks on updates for non-App Store apps. The app is free to use for checking (after which you can update on your own). Buy the app and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater as a free app — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.

When I looked more carefully at those sentences, I saw two problems: the awkward “non-App Store apps,” and too many instances of app and apps. What was I supposed to do about “non-App Store apps” anyway? I looked at Garner’s Modern English Usage:

When a name is used attributively as a phrasal adjective, it ordinarily remains unhyphenated. E.g.: “The Terry Maher strategy put immediate pressure on rival bookshop chains.” Raymond Snoddy, “Book Price War Looms in Britain,” Fin. Times, 28-29 Sept.1991, at 1. This becomes quite awkward, though, when the two words in a proper noun are part of a longer phrasal adjective <the King County-owned stadium> <a New York-doctor-owned building>. The only reasonable thing to do is rewrite <the stadium owned by King County> <a building owned by a New York doctor>.

So I rewrote. Here again is the original paragraph, which by now may have scrolled out of sight:

MacUpdater checks on updates for non-App Store apps. The app is free to use for checking (after which you can update on your own). Buy the app and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater as a free app — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.

And the revised version:

MacUpdater checks on updates for apps not from the App Store. MacUpdater is free to use for checking (after which you can update apps on your own). Buy MacUpdater and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater just for checking — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.

Before, four instances of app and two apps. After, one app and three apps. I’m not keen on the repetition of the name MacUpdater, but it beats the repetition of app. And please note: “needs updated” is a Illinoism for comic effect, not a typo.

*

Fresca wondered in a comment if it’s obvious that MacUpdater is itself an app. It’s not. (And if it were a web service examining what’s on your computer, that might seem sketchy.) I don’t want to clarify by writing “The MacUpdater app checks on updates for apps not from the App Store.” Instead:

A useful download: MacUpdater checks on updates for apps not from the App Store. MacUpdater is free to use for checking (after which you can update apps on your own). Buy MacUpdater and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater just for checking — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see what needs updated.

I took out “all at once” too.

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[This post is no. 84 in a series, dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, October 21, 2019. Click for a larger view.]

Anything can happen in a Hi and Lois interstice. Take today’s strip: the window has moved behind Ditto after losing its glass and strangely placed muntin. (I think that’s a muntin.) Or Ditto has moved to the empty chair, which would seem to require that the table has added a fifth side to accommodate Chip. A pepper shaker has appeared on the table. The burgers have gone from “Tasty” to “Ug.” Properly spelled ugh. But Hi still isn’t home from work.

Other things I notice: Ditto’s chair curves at the top, which means that the chairs are not a matching set. Unless Lois “clears” by first removing cutlery, the meal has been eaten without forks and knives, and perhaps without napkins. Which makes me wonder what might have been served from that bowl.

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“Esperanto”

Mark Esperanto, Secretary of Defense, “The ceasefire is holding up very nicely. There are some minor skirmishes that have ended quickly. New areas being resettled with the Kurds.” USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019

His name, of course, is Esper.

*

The tweet has been deleted. But its ghost walks, at least for now. And if the ghost disappears, I have a screenshot saved.

[Resettlement is a word with a dark history. “We have secured the Oil”: meaning?]

MacUpdater

A useful download: MacUpdater checks on updates for apps not from the App Store. MacUpdater is free to use for checking (after which you can update apps on your own). Buy MacUpdater and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater just for checking — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.

It’s another [need + past participle] day.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

“Paul, do you have anything yet on today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper?”

“Just one lead so far, Perry: OUZO.”

“Ooze-o?”

“No, O-U-Z-O. It’s some kind of liquor, and for some reason it shows up in crosswords, all caps. But here’s the thing: it’s shown up in the Stumper three times now this year. First in mid-July, in a puzzle by a Greg Johnson. And then — the very next week — in a puzzle by one Brad Wilber. I suspect there’s a connection. And now again, in today’s puzzle. Right here: 34-Down, four letters, ‘Sambuca cousin.’ OUZO. My guess: find Johnson or Wilber and you find the guy who made today’s puzzle.”

“Paul, you just gave away an answer. But there’s another more important answer that’s already been given away. Look, right here on the page, next to the puzzle: ‘By Greg Johnson.’”

“Hey, whaddaya know? Next time I’ll remember my reading glasses.”

Yes, today’s puzzle is by Greg Johnson. And I have no other answers to give away. But some wonderful clue-and-answer pairs: 3-D, fifteen letters, “Assembly manual phrase.” 16-A, eight letters, “One related to others.” 26-D, seven letters, “Ingredient in an authentic burrito.” 42-D, seven letters, “Large revolvers.” And the weird and wacky 12-D, fifteen letters, “They’re at Royal Caribbean’s Bionic Bars.” OUZOSOUZOSOUZOS? Nah.

I started today’s puzzle with a giveaway: 17-A, six letters, “Inaugural singer for Jimmy, Bill and Barack.” Some better days there. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Johnson.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

[“Hey, whaddaya know?”: borrorwed from the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Dodging Domino.”]

Domestic comedy

[At the kitchen table, reading a wine label.]

“Does it say anything about lamb?”

“No, it just says to express your soul.”

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[The wine in question: 2017 Caracter Malbec, from Argentina. It’s inexpensive and delicious. We have several bottles. And yes, it goes well with lamb.]

New Yorker commas

Turning the pages of a January New Yorker, I noticed this tag at the end of a story: “Translated, from the Japanese, by Philip Gabriel.” Only The New Yorker, said I, would use commas there.

Garner’s Modern English Usage explains two ways of using commas:

The “close” style of punctuation results in fairly heavy uses of commas; the “open” style results in fairly light uses of commas. In the 20th century, the movement was very much toward the open style. The byword was, “When in doubt, leave it out.” Indeed, some writers and editors went too far in omitting commas that would aid clarity.

And indeed, some writers and editors go too far in including commas that do not aid clarity.

Here’s Mary Norris’s in-house defense of New Yorker commas: “In Defense of ‘Nutty’ Commas.” It predates the New Yorker possessive “Donald Trump, Jr.,’s.”

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Ben Leddy hosts The Rewind

Here’s the latest installment of WGBH’s The Rewind, “The Time WGBH Burnt Down,” hosted by our son Ben. You can find all episodes of The Rewind at YouTube.