What is a “bottle episode”?

I asked those who would know if there’s a name for a television episode with two characters stuck in, say, an elevator or a basement, talking about whatever until they get free. There is, and Merriam-Webster has it: “bottle episode” : “an inexpensively produced episode of a television series that is typically confined to one setting.”

What prompted my question: the “One Day” episode of Hacks, which aired last night. It’s mostly Ava and Deborah alone, in one setting, but it’s a big one, a forest full of trails, and it must have been expensive to shoot. A recap of the episode describes it as “a Pine Barrens moment,” referencing the Sopranos episode in which Christopher and Paulie are lost in the New Jersey woods.

I made a guess as to the origin of “bottle episode”: “Two’s a Crowd,” the 1978 All in the Family episode in which Archie and Mike, locked in the bar’s storeroom, talk and drink. What a great origin story! But no. Though Star Trek is often cited as the source, Merriam-Webster credits Leslie Stevens, who produced the series The Outer Limits. M-W cites a history of the series that recounts how Stevens once put together an episode in four and a half days: “Stevens dubbed this last-minute lifesaving technique the ’bottle show’ — as in pulling an episode right out of a bottle like a genie.”

TV Tropes and Wikipedia list many bottle episodes.

Desert Island Discs : Keith Richards

From BBC Radio 4: the 2015 Keith Richards episode of Desert Island Discs, available for a limited time. I’m surprised that Keith didn’t choose something by Robert Johnson.

Related reading
Album covers from Keith Richards’ record collection

John McWhorter’s apostrophes

John McWhorter has a new piece at The New York Times (gift link): “Lets Chill Out About Apostrophes.” Do you see what he did there?

McWhorter argues that most apostrophes do nothing to make meaning clearer. And that using them is tricky. And that Chaucer did fine without them. And: “I’m not suggesting we eliminate the apostrophe, but I would rather retain it for cases where there is a genuine possibility of ambiguity.” I can’t imagine having that question hang over every apostrophe. Writings difficult enough already.

Do you see what I did there?

I left a comment, beginning with McWhorter’s words:

“Their deployment is governed by some rather fine rules — is it ‘my uncle’s book’ or ‘my uncles’ book’? ‘It’s’ or ‘it’s’? — that take a bit of effort to master”: Are these rules really so fine? Are they really that difficult to master? Yes, language evolves, and we (unlike Chaucer) use apostrophes. When they’re needed and missing, their absence can be conspicuous. Getting them right can be one way of getting a reader to pay attention to what you’re saying, sans distraction.

I do agree with McWhorter on one point: no one should look down on someone who misuses or doesn’t use the apostrophe. But if McWhorter really wants to eliminate most apostrophes, he had better seek alternative publishers, no?

Related reading
All OCA apostrophe posts (Pinboard) : McWhorter on subject and object pronouns (Him and me disagree) : A page-ninety test

Weevil- and hyphen-free

[3 1/2″ × 1 1/2″. Click for a larger view.]

I found one of these slips in 2019, nestled amid (where else?) the sweet potatoes in Aldi. I found another earlier this week, sporting a new seal, the signature of a section manager instead of a director, and “Plant Industries Division,” plural. But the slip remains hyphen-free.

More about hyphens
Bad hyphens, unhelpful abbreviations : “Every generation hyphenates the way it wants to” : “Fellow-billionaires” : Got hyphens? : The Hammacher Schlemmer crazy making hyphen shortage problem : Living on hyphens : Mr. Hyphen and e-mail : Mr. Hyphen and Mr. Faulkner : One more from Mr. Hyphen : The opposite of user-friendly : Phrasal-adjective punctuation

[Lest you think I’m Mr. Hyphen: he’s the title character in Edward N. Teall’s Meet Mr. Hyphen (And Put Him in His Place) (1937).]

Perhaps the best words I’ll read today

“MOUSE CAUGHT”: on the side of a Tomcat Kill & Contain Mouse Trap. I had to weigh our two traps on a postal scale to make sure that one held a mouse.

A post with a mouse in it
“HOME SWEET HOME”

[In the thirty-three years we’ve lived in our house we’ve had four mice, one at a time, two killed, two found and released.]

Shrinking Trump

Cognitive decline + personality disorder = Shrinking Trump, a new podcast, available from the usual purveyors. Drs. John Gartner and Harry Segal plan to chart, week by week, the declining wellness of the presumptive Republican nominee. Highly recommended.

I have one criticism: too much laughter. It’s possible, sometimes, to see moments in a loved one’s decline with a stoic sense of humor. But with a country and a world in the balance, there’s nothing funny about Donald Trump’s decline. Turning his gaffes and rants into comedy (as on late-night television) helps to make it all seem acceptable.

What John said

“ ‘I Dig a Pygmy,’ by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids”: after all these years, I discovered by chance who Charles Hawtrey was. John says his name in the bit that precedes the Beatles song “Two of Us.”

Related reading
All OCA Beatles posts (Pinboard)

[“Deaf aid”: British for “hearing aid,” and supposedly the Beatle name for an amp.]

Handwriting vs. typing

Old news by now, I’d say, but still news: “Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning” (NPR):

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

“Mister”

NBC Nightly News: it’s galling to hear Laura Jarrett call Michael Cohen “Cohen” and call Donald Trump “Mister Trump,” every damn time. Too much deference.

Alice Munro (1931-2024)

The writer Alice Munro has died at the age of ninety-two. From the New York Times obituary, about Munro’s response to an interviewer about being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature:

Still groggy when interviewed by the CBC, Ms. Munro admitted that she’d forgotten that the prize was to be awarded that day, calling it “a splendid thing to happen,” adding, “more than I can say.”

Struggling to control her emotions, she reflected on her success and what it might mean for literature. “My stories have gotten around quite remarkably for short stories,” she told the interviewer. “I would really hope that this would make people see the short story as an important art, not something you play around with until you got a novel written.”

Related reading
All OCA Alice Munro posts (Pinboard)