Whom is not calling

The professor in me wants to get this said:

In yesterday’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, the clue “Receptionist’s pronoun” takes the answer WHOM. The answer appears to play on the well-known formula of telephone etiquette: “Whom should I say is calling?” The pronoun who, not whom is what’s appropriate there. I think the puzzle’s constructor, Matthew Sewell, must know that, but not every solver will.

Flipping the sentence arounds makes the right choice clear:

I should say he — not him — is calling.
I should say she — not her — is calling.
I should say they — not them — are calling.
I should say who — not whom — is calling.

“Whom should I say” is a hypercorrection, a mistake that comes about in an effort to avoid a mistake, as when someone says “between you and I” in the mistaken belief that me is always mistaken.

I am trying to remember the last time I spoke to a telephone receptionist. The best I can do is say back in the day.

A missing word

David Skinner tells the story of “the only major expletive left out of Webster’s Third”: “Philip Gove and ‘Our Word’” (The American Scholar ).

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard) : The Story of Ain’t (Skinner’s history of W3)

Tires and skins

[31 Frankfort Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I went looking for a tax photograph of 53–63 Park Row, the now-demolished World Building, whose name was the answer to a clue in yesterday’s Newsday Saturday Stumper: “Where Pulitzer’s Big Apple office was.” The World Building, aka the New York World Building, aka the Pulitzer Building, is amply documented online (for instance), but no tax photograph is available. And for whatever reason, tax photographs of several streets off Park Row are relatively few. But there is a photograph for this building with the tires, right across from the Frankfort Street side of the majestic World.

No. 31 had several lives. William Whitlock, a sea captain, lived there at the end of the eighteenth century. An 1845 directory shows Herman Wendt, a cutter (fabric? leather?), living at no. 31. An 1851 directory shows James Gibson, a tailor, and Louis Madis, a barber, living at this address.

At some point no. 31 must have been repurposed for commerical use. By 1901 the address housed the Fulton Rubber Type, Ink and Pad Manufacturing Company.

[The American Stationer (September 28, 1901). Click for a larger view.]

Frankfort Street was home to many tanners and leather-goods merchants. If you click for a larger tax photograph, you’ll see a name: John F. Kaiser Co. Inc. And there he is in the 1940 Manhattan telephone directory, a dealer in skins:

[Click for a larger view.]

Which doesn’t explain the tires.

What now occupies this space, and much more than this space: One Pace Plaza West, on the campus of Pace University. The World Building was torn down in 1955 to make way for a broadened entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sources
Doggett's New-York City Directory (1845). The directory distinguishes glass cutters and stonecutters from “cutters.”
The New York City Directory (1851).
Joseph Alfred Scoville, The Old Merchants of New York City (1864).

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Dustin pronouns

In today’s Dustin : Hayden learns a valuable lesson about pronouns.

That’s a snarky summary of what happens in the strip.

Related posts
A Perry Mason whom : All the King’s Whom : Aunt Fritzi’s whom : Linus’s whom : Lou Grant’s who : Lucy’s whom : Mooch’s hypercorrection

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is exceedingly difficult. But I got it, after at least an hour’s worth of staring. I started with 30-A, three letters, “Joey of fiction” and 31-D, four letters, “Publisher of Firestarter excerpts (1980)” and began to fill in the puzzle’s eastern edge. Toughest section: the southwest, where I was long in a 52-A, fifteen letters, “Precarious position.”

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

3-A, eight letters, “In high gear.” Groan.

5-D, ten letters, “Possible peppers partner.” But the answer need not begin with P.

8-D, four letters, “Resa alternative.” I thought this clue might be about wines I’ve never heard of. No.

14-D, five letters, “Slide stuff.” Very out of the way.

17-D, five letters, “Pit of the stomach.” Clever clueing.

19-A, seven letters, “Mideast word for ‘lighthouse.’” I guessed right and learned something.

21-D, seven letters, “With added zest.” An adverb won’t help.

23-A, thirteen letters, “Where Pulitzer’s Big Apple office was.” My first (wild) guess: MADISONSQUARE.

25-D, ten letters, “Pet kept for pest control.” I wanted BODEGACAT.

38-D, three letters, “Desserted?” Kinda awkward.

39-A, thirteen letters, “Tonic cocktails.” Eww.

47-D, four letters, “Big shock.” Talk about misdirection.

58-A, four letters, “Moviedom’s ‘Eighth Wonder.’” This answer helped a lot on the way to filling in the southwest.

My favorite clue in today’s puzzle: 1-A, four letters, “Receptionist’s pronoun.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Veterans Day

The Great War ended on November 11, 1918. Armistice Day was observed the next year. In the United Kingdom Armistice Day is now Remembrance Day. In the United States, Armistice Day is now Veterans Day.

In 1923 Armistice Day fell on a Sunday.

[“A Woman’s Plea.” Brooklyn Standard Union, November 10, 1923.]

Like Lysistrata, the speaker of these words reverses Hector’s declaration in Iliad 6: war shall be — already is — the concern of women. The key passage, if the text above is difficult to read:

Nations to-day still compete in preparing for war. Not only is war a bitter fruit of the tree of violence and hate but also a root which strikes deep down into the soil of a competitive and unfriendly world.

In this world-problem and world-task none are more deeply concerned than women. It is we who supremely suffer and mourn when wars rage and sudden death destroys our youth.

But we are not without hope.

Followed by a plea for letters urging that the United States join the Permanent Court of International Justice, also known as the World Court. The United States never did.

[Hector to his wife Andromache: “War is the work of men, / Of all the Trojan men, and mine especially” (trans. Stanley Lombardo, 1997.]

Desk reboot

I have long been a horizontal organizer. Any surface will do. (What’s a floor for?) Students coming to my office sometimes said “This looks just like my room!” They were delighted. Me too.

My desk at home has always accumulated objects — after all, it’s just another horizontal plane. These photographs from 2015 and 2020 will give you an idea. But hey, look at me now:

[Click for a larger view.]

I traded in my old desk (a kitchen table) for an inexpensive standing desk, which meant that I needed to think about a new horizontal plane. Almost three weeks later, it’s still devoid of clutter. Where did everything go? Into a six-drawer storage cart or a trashbag. Neatness, or at least invisiblity, counts.

A related post
FEZiBO standing desk : Five desks

Scotch, bourbon, and radio English

A contentious moment from A Letter to Three Wives (1949), written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Rita (Ann Sothern) and George (Kirk Douglas) are making ready for a party. She: a writer of radio serials. He: a schoolteacher. She has a question for him:

“Where’s the Scotch?”

“I didn’t buy any.”

“Why not?”

“Too expensive. Bourbon’s a better drink anyway.”

“But the Manleighs are a cinch to want Scotch. People in show business, you know what I mean, those kind always drink Scotch.”

“Well, I know what you mean, but I wish you wouldn’t say it in radio English. ‘That kind,’ not ‘those kind.’”

“There are men who say ‘those kind’ who earn $100,000 a year.”

“There are men who say, ‘Stick ’em up,’ who earn more. I don’t expect to do either.”

“Nor are you expected to pay for the Scotch.”

Oof.

NYRB sale

Attention, shoppers: New York Review Books has all books on sale: buy two and get 20% off; buy three and get 30% off; buy four or more and get 40% off. Free shipping for orders of $75 or more.

The Four Seasons Reading Club (Elaine and me) placed an order this afternoon for Anton Chekhov, Helen Keller, and Jean Stafford. Two copies of each book, of course. As I’ve written in another post: One could do worse than be a reader of New York Review Books books.

Cora, Nick, Ticonderoga

[Lana Turner and Cecil Kellaway as Cora and Nick Smith. From The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Tay Garnett, 1946). Click for a much larger view.]

Yes, I know — Lana Turner! But there’s also a pencil in the picture, and it’s pretty clearly a Dixon Ticonderoga. The distinctive ferrule is the giveaway.

*

Here’s Lana Turner with what appears to be a Mongol pencil. It’s a Getty photograph, so I don’t dare reproduce it here. Thanks, Brian.

Related reading
More OCA Ticonderoga posts (featuring Timmy Martin, Toni Morrison, Vladimir Nabokov, and other pencil-users)