John McWhorter on prepositions

John McWhorter in The New York Times, stating what ought to be obvious: “The ‘Rule’ Against Ending Sentences With Prepositions Has Always Been Silly.” From Garner’s Modern English Usage :

The spurious rule about not ending sentences with prepositions is a remnant of Latin grammar, in which a preposition was the one word that a writer could not end a sentence with. But Latin grammar should never straitjacket English grammar. If the superstition is a “rule” at all, it is a rule of rhetoric and not of grammar, the idea being to end sentences with strong words that drive a point home.... That principle is sound, of course, but not to the extent of meriting lockstep adherence or flouting established idiom.

And:

Good writers don’t hesitate to end their sentences with prepositions if doing so results in phrasing that seems natural.

Bryan Garner cites a dozen writers on language, from 1936 to 2003, all of whom approve of ending a sentence with a preposition. And he adds nine examples from writers who so ended sentences. Notice too the first sentence in the passage I’ve quoted.

Even stranger is a bogus rule, which Garner doesn’t mention, against ending a sentence with the word it. A student once asked me about that one, which I’d never heard of. I tracked down its origin: Ending a sentence with it.

[That post gets visits daily.]

José Andrés on sardines

“Oh my God, they are so good that you wish you were inside the can with them”: chef José Andrés is speaking of sardines.

Thanks, Elaine.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

[But I do think this is another case in which out here is better than in there.]

Slam the Scam

“On National Slam the Scam Day and throughout the year, we give you the tools to recognize Social Security-related scams and stop scammers from stealing your money and personal information”: the Social Security Administration announces National Slam the Scam Day.

This has been your Orange Crate Art PSA for the day.

Vision Pro Television

“In here you can watch on any TV from our curated collection”: lo, it’s the Vision Pro app Television, a simulacrum within a simulacrum.

In here sounds just plain creepy. I’ll quote what I wrote in a post earlier this year: “Out here will always be better than in there.”

“Bad news about Biden”

From Salon, Lucian K. Truscott IV on The New York Times and its coverage of Joe Biden and Donald Trump:

The New York Times has apparently devoted half a floor in its Eighth Avenue headquarters to a search for bad news about Biden, and then they reserve a space nearly every day above the fold on the front page for whatever grain of grim shit the Biden hunters have managed to come up with. They’re probably working on a story on how Biden is losing the pro-choice vote as we speak, while pointing out the wild success of Trump’s “move to the middle” on abortion with “centrist” voters.

If you’re getting off the subway anywhere near Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street, hold your nose. There’s something fishy at the New York Times.

I found this (hyperbolic) discussion refreshing. Between the Times coverage of Biden (did you know that he’s eighty-one?) and its failure (after almost four weeks) to correct an obvious error of fact in its obituary for Joyce Randolph, I’m thinking about canceling my subscription. That’s not hyperbole.

Word of the day: lukewarm

The directions that come with a Waterpik say to use lukewarm water. Whence lukewarm ?

I made up a preposterous etymology:

There once was an innkeeper named Luke, generous with his board but stingy with his hearth. (Go figure.) When travelers stopped at Luke’s inn of a cold night and stood by the hearth to warm themselves, they found that the feebly glowing embers did little to take away their chill. These poor travelers were said to be lukewarm.

The truth is more prosaic. Merriam-Webster, which traces lukewarm to the fourteenth century, is more up-to-date than the OED for this word:

Middle English, from luke lukewarm + warm; probably akin to Old High German lāo lukewarm — more at LEE.

As a noun, lee means “protecting shelter“ or “the side (as of a ship) or area that is sheltered from the wind.” As an adjective, “of, relating to, or being the side sheltered from the wind,” “facing in the direction of motion of an overriding glacier → used especially of a hillside.” The word predates the twelfth century. Its origin:

Middle English, from Old English hlēo; perhaps akin to Old High German lāo lukewarm, Latin calēre to be warm.

As Gertrude Stein might have written, Lukewarm is luke and warm and luke is warm.

*

March 8: Ernie Kovacs made a faucet. Thanks, Kevin.

Postal consolidation

The United States Postal Service is planning to “consolidate” thirty processing and distribution centers. In Illinois, four processing and distribution centers outside of Chicago are slated for consolidation. That seems to mean that all outgoing mail will be processed in Chicago and environs. Snail mail indeed.

The website Save the Post Office has the complete list of locations and more information. If you click on the PDF for a location, you’ll find a link to a webpage for comments from the public.

To her credit, Mary Miller (IL-15) has joined Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) in a letter to Postmaster Louis DeJoy arguing against postal consolidation. I’m a bit addled to find that I agree with Mary Miller about something. I would imagine that Nikki Budzinski might say the same.

[If you’re wondering: “the president of the United States does not have the authority to remove the postmaster general.”]

Paying attention

From yesterday’s installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American :

On the one hand, caps to credit card late fees and an attempt to address price gouging; on the other hand, local police with immunity rounding up millions of people and putting them in camps, for deportation. And, in between the two, an election.

People had better start paying attention.

“The true noises of the night-time city”

Italo Calvino, “A journey with the cows.” In Marcovaldo, trans. William Weaver (New York: HarperCollins, 1983).

See also “the night noises of the metro-night” in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

Related reading
All OCA Italo Calvino posts (Pinboard)

A joke in a neo-traditional manner

From a very (very) young comic:

Why does “dinosaur” start with “d”?

No spoilers: the answer is in the comments.