New to me: decadal

I heard it tonight on the PBS NewsHour: decadal. Merriam-Webster gives this pronunciation: /ˈde-kə-dᵊl/. On the NewsHour it came out as /de-ˈkā-dᵊl/. I would just say decade-long.

A check of Google Books suggests that the word is widely used in the study of climate.

Free months from Backblaze

Now through January 31, 2023: follow this link to sign up for Backblaze, and we both get not one, not two, but an additional three months for free. Backblaze is an ultra-reliable backup service, charging $7 a month or $70 a year with no limit on data. I am a happy user (for almost four years) and recommend the service highly.

Coot collective

The coot is a water bird. I’ve seen dozens at a nearby lake. So I thought it appropriate to devise a collective name: codger. “A codger of coots” sounds right to me.

Wikipedia has a long list of collective names for animals.

Image correction

I found by chance that Blogger is messing up images in old posts, displaying images at full size even though they were scaled down to fit properly when posted. The problems seem to be random. So I’m scrolling through the months (I’m up to March 2009), putting images at the proper size again by clicking Small, Medium, or Large or by setting height and width by hand. Tedious, yes.

What I like about doing this work is the opportunity to realize how many minor moments are immediately familiar to me because I wrote them down. I remember — just one example — exactly where I was when I began to think about Frank Sinatra and popcorn — with Elaine in our Corolla, approaching I-57 on our way home from a concert or rehearsal. None of those circumstances are in the post, which dates from December 2007. But the popcorn brings them back.

I think that keeping a blog is a way of converting time into space. The space is always expanding, even as time runs out.

Mondegreen of the day

I always thought the lyric went like this: “Strumming my face with his fingers.”

And then I listened to an episode of Soul Music, and I realized that I’d always had it wrong. It’s fate : “Strumming my fate with his fingers.”

And then I listened further and realized that I had just replaced one mondegreen with another. The word is pain : “Strumming my pain with his fingers.” A quick search will confirm that many a listener has mistaken face and fate for pain.

The Soul Music episode about “Killing Me Softly with His Song” is excellent. Like every Soul Music episode, it hits matters of life and love and loss. Proceed with caution. The episode touches — just touches — on the ugly history of composer credit. You can read about more about that at Wikipedia. Notice that I haven’t named any names here.

[I have to admit it: I still prefer face.]

A 100-word blog post

Are you struggling to find the time to write a lengthy blog post? Don’t worry, sometimes shorter is better! A 100-word blog post can be just as effective as a longer one, and it’s a great way to quickly share your thoughts and ideas with your audience. Plus, writing a shorter post can be a fun challenge and a great way to hone your writing skills. So the next time you’re feeling stuck, try writing a 100-word blog post and see how it goes!

[Generated by ChatGPT in response to the prompt “write a 100-word blog post.” It’s fourteen words short.]

I’m sorry too, ChatGPT

Elaine and I have been toying with ChatGPT. And it appears that the rules of engagement are tightening. A couple of days ago Elaine was a celebrated pianist who had performed with orchestras around the world. Hot damn! And I was a writer who had won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. $100,000! But this morning,

I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information about [our names here]. As a large language model trained by OpenAI, my knowledge is limited to what I was trained on, and I don’t have the ability to browse the internet or access any additional information. I apologize if I cannot be of more help.

I don’t believe that ChatGPT means the end of high-school English. But it will certainly make life more difficult for uncrafty teachers. Something crafty students should understand is that teachers can enter the same prompts their students have entered. Plagiarism by way of ChatGPT will likely be hilariously detectable (I hope).

Flatiron

The Flatiron Building has always been ready for its close-up.

[The Flatiron Building, 175 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

From The WPA Guide to New York City (1939):

It was christened the Fuller Building, but because of its shape became known as the “Flatiron.” Pictured on postcards, stamped on souvenirs, its image was familiar to American minds, young and old. Standing on what was traditionally the windiest corner of the city, it was facetiously considered a good vantage point for the glimpse of a trim ankle, in the long-skirted, prewar era; policemen used to shoo loungers away from the Twenty-third Street corner, and the expression “twenty-three skidoo” is supposed to have originated from this association.

Related reading
Flatiron history : The Flatiron website : Many more explanations of “twenty-three skidoo” : More OCA posts with photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

[Among those who worked on the WPA Guide: Richard Wright.]

Red Pen

“Serving up object lessons on syntax and style with style, and in a way that won’t put you to sleep”: Red Pen is a new podcast about grammar from Columbia Journalism Review.

The first episode (forty-four minutes) is ostensibly about who and whom, but it’s really two friends talking, and their talking goes all over the place: Christopher Columbus, bad reviews of the Sistine Chapel, commercialism at Egypt’s pyramids, a Geocities fan page for Rage Against the Machine, Jay McInerney’s tweets, and looting at Duane Reade stores, with none of those topics touching upon who or whom.

For me, the noise to signal ratio makes this podcast a slog (even at 1.5 speed). You could learn much more in a fraction of the time by reading the entry about who and whom in Garner’s Modern English Usage. Then spend the time left over talking with a friend of your own.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a tough one. Consider the southeast corner: 54-D, four letters, “Only Oscar role for a French performance”; 60-A, four letters, “‘Pan-’ antonym”; 62-A, four letters, “School-____”; 64-A, four letters, “It means ‘focused gathering.’” Yeow, and yeow again.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, six letters, “Generous gifts from the Czars.” Did they really give them away? My guess turned out to be correct.

3-D, eleven letters, “How ghosts do their thing.” I kept thinking of trick-or-treating.

5-A, ten letters, “Provided bonus footage.” Good misdirection.

8-D, five letters, “Flyer’s announcement.” Also misdirectional.

18-A, ten letters, “They don’t care for customs.” Clever.

27-D, eleven letters, “Miss one’s conviction.” Inaptly phrased, I’d say. Neither miss nor conviction fits the answer well.

28-D, eleven letters, “Indie pubs.” Nicely phrased, but the answer feels a bit dated. See 63-A: are these pubs, too, old-timey?

47-A, five letters, “Part of the bottling process.” I was ready to quibble with the clue until I rethought part.

53-A, five letters, “‘Thrice happy he whose name has been well ____’: Byron.” From Don Juan.

55-A, ten letters, “Within reach for searchers.” The answer feels preposterous, but it’s in use.

63-A, ten letters, “Old-timey exhibitions with carousels.” I thought of STATEFAIRS. Old-timey, really?

My favorite in this puzzle, because it’s just so weird: 56-D, three letters, “Silence, perhaps.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.