Some rocks in our heads

From The New York Times (gift link): “Virginia Fifth Grader Is Celebrated for Spotting Textbook’s Error.” Liam Squires noticed that igneous rock and sedimentary rock were out of place in a diagram of the rock cycle. The publisher acknowledged the mistake. The Times quotes Serena Porter, Liam’s teacher:

“We’re all human, and whether it’s an adult or a child, we all make mistakes,” Ms. Porter said. “You don’t want to roll around pointing out everyone’s little mistakes, but you should be proud that you caught something like this.”

Liam received buttons, sticker, and a handwritten letter from the publisher.

Here, from the the University of California Museum of Paleontology, is an explanation of the rock cycle. This post is for my children, who knew, and, I trust, still know their igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Steve Mossberg, is not that difficult by Stumper standards, but it’s full of surprising stuff. I like it.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, nine letters, “Green sauce for osso buco.” Osso oscuro, at least for me.

2-D, four letters, “St. Paul and St. Denis, north of New York.” When I see “New York,” I think “City.” At first I thought they must be somewhere upstate.

5-D, seven letters and 40-A, five letters, “Request to keep playing.”

6-D, twelve letters, “When miniskirts were in again.” I think the answer is at least debatable.

16-A, five letters, “Show with projectors.” I thought not of MOVIE but of planetariums and Pink Floyd — though not from personal experience.

21-D, twelve letters, “Frequent player in the 6 Down.” Yes, this puzzle is full of surprising stuff.

29-D, ten letters, “Aviation adjective.” See the comment on the previous clue.

32-A, four letters, “Memorable count.” I don’t get it. Why memorable?

34-D, five letters, “Spring thing.” Not necessarily seasonal.

36-A, four letters, “Occasional sportscast coverage.” A nifty clue.

43-A, ten letters, “Tangible trifles.” Fun to say. Fun to try to spell.

48-A, three letters, “Send up.” A dictionary will okay the answer.

62-A, nine letters, “Potential power under the hood.” Under, indeed.

67-A, five letters, “Plumbers often work on them.” Tile contractors too.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

In beta

A typo in a post? I have always blamed carelessness and haste. But now I have an all-purpose excuse explanation, which hit me yesterday afternoon: the post is in beta.

Mack McCormick’s Robert Johnsons

Biography of a Phantom, an edited version of Mack McCormick’s never-finished biography of Robert Johnson, is now in print. Here’s an account of McCormick’s work by Michael Hall: “Hellhounds on His Trail: Mack McCormick’s Long, Tortured Quest to Find the Real Robert Johnson” (Texas Monthly ).

The strangest result of McCormick’s efforts: his contention that everyone has been looking at the wrong man, that the musician who recorded in 1936 and 1937 was a different Robert Johnson.

I will soon have the book in hand, and I’m sure I won’t know what to make of it then either.

Related reading
All OCA Robert Johnson posts (Pinboard)

A dictionary and a prison

The guy who made violent threats against Merriam-Webster last year over its definitions of female and girl has been sentenced to a year in prison.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard)

“All-In”

A look at the conditions of teaching and striking at a regional university in Illinois: “All-In.” It’s a point of view, of course, but it’s one that grounded in fact.

Our household is supporting the strike by picketing and by contributing to a fund to help strikers in need. And I’m now able to add the noise of my Metropolitan Police Whistle to the picket-line din. (It took me three days to find it.)

5:48 p.m.: The strike has been suspended.

[When I began keeping a blog in 2004, I made a decision never to mention my university by name. I wanted to keep this work separate. And now I’m retired, and I still do.]

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.