How to improve writing (no. 91)

Sometimes when I look at an old post, say, this one, a review of Benjamin Dreyer’s Dreyer’s English, I wonder how I could have missed what now seems so obvious.

My original sentence:

It’s ready for the next stage in the publication process.

“The publication process,” like “the writing process,” is a ponderous, empty phrase. Newly revised:

It’s ready for the next step toward publication.

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

[This post is no. 91 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose, including my own. The writing process has no necessary end.]

“Commensurate”?

“If they lose a Democrat, they need a commensurate Republican”: Brian Williams, speaking of the Senate, on The 11th Hour just now.

Meaning: they need a Republican, any Republican. But if there’s a more pompous way to say it, Brian Williams will find it.

Other things Brian Williams has said
False drama : A secret whiteboard : A seven-inch business card : A Great Migration

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#Sedition3PTruck Now there’s a resolution of condemnation in the Illinois House.

“Effeminate”?

“He was a skinny high school student who had asthma, a high-pitched voice and effeminate mannerisms”: it’s a good story, in The New York Times.

But isn’t characterizing someone’s way of being as “effeminate” part of the problem to begin with?

“A blue-grey bracelet of jetsam”

West London, the early 1960s. A boy who will grow up to write a book about sardines has a first encounter with the small oily fish:

For a six–year-old, tinned sardines in oil squashed onto two slices of toasted white bread were a complete meal. In contrast to any other canned food we ate, they were savoury, not sweet. By the time they arrived on the plate they had been crushed almost beyond recognition. Nevertheless, I was still curious enough to conduct a post-mortem, teasing out the grey flesh and seeking to discover with the patches of varying colour and texture might be in the living fish. The piece I usually extracted was the backbone. The other bones would melt away to the bite, but the backbone would stubbornly maintain its gritty texture. I'd heft it to the side of the plate — a blue-grey bracelet of jetsam on the plate’s shoreline.

Trevor Day, Sardine (London: Reaktion, 2018).

“A blue-grey bracelet of jetsam on the plate’s shoreline”: in its elegance and strangeness, that metaphor is downright Proustian.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard) : “Sardines are opportunistic” (Also from this book)

Life and arts

Charles Swann is dying. He speaks to the narrator in a private moment at (yet another) soirée.

Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah, trans. John Sturrock (New York: Penguin, 2005).

A hundred-odd pages into this volume, filled with social jabs and slights, I find Swann’s plainspoken emotion deeply moving. O unnamed narrator, likely named Marcel, you are learning a lot.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

Where have all the Chessmen gone?

On a lighter note this grey morning: I’ve written to Pepperidge Farm about the disappearance of chess imagery from its Chessmen cookies. No, it’s not so-called cancel culture; the name still ends in -men. But there’s not a chess piece in the package. Here’s what I’ve written:

I’m a big fan of Pepperidge Farm products and have been for years. I remember PF cookies back when the packaging featured old-timey engravings on the side. My question: why do Chessmen cookies now have no chess pieces depicted? I see a sun, a house, a plant, and a watering can. The cookies taste just fine, but where did the chess pieces go? And how can the cookies still be Chessmen?

These questions are idle, but they’re also genuine. Thanks for your reply.

I hope to share a reply. But if they just send coupons, I’ll keep them for myself.

Later today: I noticed the words “Seasonal Prints” in the bottom right corner of the package. “Would you call that fine print?” I asked Elaine. “No.”

Related reading
A handful of Pepperidge Farm posts

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H. Neil Matkin again, again

At Collin College, H. Neil Matkin, president, brooks no opposition. He has fired one of his strongest critics, Lora D. Burnett, a professor of history whom he had publicly criticized for her negative tweets about Mike Pence. He has fired two other professors, Audra Heaslip, a professor of humanities, and Suzanne Jones, a professor of education, both of whom have criticized the school’s COVID-19 policies. Matkin’s stated attitude toward COVID: “I have chosen to never live my life in fear.”

Heaslip and Jones just happen to be two of the three leaders of the school’s chapter of the Texas Faculty Association, a union-like organization. Talk about heads on pikes.

Related posts
Meet H. Neil Matkin : H. Neil Matkin again

Today’s Newsday Saturday

Today’s Newsday  Saturday crossword is by the redoubtable Lars G. Doubleday, aka Doug Peterson and Brad Wilber. It’s a good one. What’s the old saying? A Saturday Stumper by any other name, &c.? This puzzle felt quite Stumpish. A good old good one, as Louis Armstrong might have said. Which makes me think of a possible Armstrong-themed crossword clue: ten letters, “Explosive preparation.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

1-A, five letters, “Half of a sitcom psychiatrist pair.” I hope that when the one returns, the other will too.

3-D, seven letters, “Research outfit.” Makes me think of a certain musician.

6-D, seven letters, “Sonny of jazz sax fame.” There are at least two possible answers. For most solvers, just one.

7-D, eight letters, “Make sour.” I like the way the clue blurs the line between different kinds of sourness.

11-D, seven letters, “Three-sided wall adornment.” Common in comics, movies, and television shows. Has anyone ever seen one in real life?

17-A, nine letters, “Ancient ‘white,’ ‘venerable’ city near Rome.” Yep, that’s the one.

21-A, three letters, “Easter precursor.” LEN? Simple but deceptive.

39-A, six letters, “Magnet collector.” I like the idea of something attracting magnets.

56-D, three letters, “Thing in some packs.” Not PEZ.

My favorite pairs in this puzzle:

30-A, eight letters, “Duke’s fall, e.g.” Very clever. I had a fleeting thought that the answer must be a French word. That’s what can happen from reading Proust.

50-A, seven letters. “Throw back quickly.” Yes, now that the puzzle’s done, shall we?

One quarrel: 37-D, seven letters, “Victorian syntax.” The clue is a pun, really, and the answer is delightful, but it’s a matter of semantics not syntax.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.