MSNBC, sheesh

Chris Jansing, earlier this afternoon: “The Washington Post reports that Jack Smith is honing in on Trump’s post-election fundraising,” &c.

Garner’s Modern English Usage (2022) notes that home in is “the traditional and still preferred phrase”:

In modern print sources — both AmE and BrE — the collocation homing in on the ~ predominates over *honing in on the ~ by a 2-to-1 margin.

Garner puts hone in at stage 4 of GMEU’s language-change index:

The form becomes virtually universal but is opposed on cogent grounds by a few linguistic stalwarts (the traditionalists that David Foster Wallace dubbed “snoots”: syntax nudniks of our time).

So how can I not say “Sheesh”? But I’m still willing to acknowledge that usage seems to be honeward bound.

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Cloud-stuff

One more passage, from a visit to Atlantis.

Steven Millhauser, From the Realm of Morpheus (1986).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Vekkia book light Now with a link to an apropos poem.

E.g. , i.e. , etc.

The Chicago Manual of Style explains their use.

Thimbles

Carl Hausman recounts a visit with Morpheus to a land of giants.

Steven Millhauser, From the Realm of Morpheus (1986).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

Vekkia book light

Curtains open in the morning? The sun is glaring. Curtains closed? Too dark. Enter the Vekkia book light. Small, sturdy, just right.

*

April 13: I should have added a link to this post: “Some Enchanted Evening.” More light!

A triple double

In today’s Mutts, Mooch announces that he is tired of being a cat. So, Earl asks, what does he want to be?

[Mutts, April 11, 2023.]

I think Mooch must have gone to my elementary school, where I once overheard an extraordinary triple double-negative: “I ain’t got none. I don’t want none. I don’t need none.” Which, obviously, I have never forgotten.

See also Stan Carey, who cautions, “Don’t never tell nobody not to use no double negatives.”

Make Something Wonderful

From Apple, Make Something Wonderful : Steve Jobs in his own words, in speeches, interviews, and correspondence. To read online or download (free).

The passionate surfer

Watching A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys this past weekend (of which the less said the better), I put one and one together.

From Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”:

And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow Rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

From Brian Wilson’s “Surfer Girl”:

We could ride the surf together
While our love would grow.
In my woodie I would take you
Everywhere I go.

Granted, one present a life of immobile spectation, the other a life of constant movement. But in each case, it’s a pastoral dream of a life of leisure by water.

Related reading
All OCA Beach Boys posts (Pinboard)

[Woodie: a kind of car.]

A bitters thought

In Succession, Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) has ordered bitters and soda on at least two occasions. He’s supposed to be (once again) in recovery. But bitters contain alcohol. Angostura, for instance, is 44.7% alcohol (89.4 proof). Granted, the amount of alcohol in a few dashes of bitters is miminal. But still.

Does this detail signify? In other words, do the show’s writers understand bitters? Do they expect the viewer to understand bitters? Is the viewer meant to recognize that Kendall Roy is still partaking, even if it’s in a minimal way? Or is this detail a non-detail, not even meant to be noticed?

*

Elaine posed these questions on reddit, where someone pointed out that there are non-alcoholic bitters. True. But asking for bitters and soda will return a glass with bitters that contain alcohol. My question is not whether it’s okay for someone in recovery to drink bitters and soda; it’s what, if anything, the viewer is supposed to make of Kendall’s choice, and that depends on what the show’s writers know about bitters.

[A glance around the Internets will confirm that not everyone knows that bitters contain alcohol.]