Deer!

[Deer in photograph is closer than it appears. Click for a larger deer.]

As a city kid, I will never tire of seeing deer as they make their rounds about our neighborhood. Elaine and I recently devised another daily walk, which goes from a street to a trail to a road to a path cut through a meadow of wildflowers. All public property. The meadow is billed as a park, accessible only on foot (no parking). Day after day, we’ve seen one or more deer on the trail, road, or path. And they’ve seen us.

Can deer recognize individual people as individuals? We’d like to that this deer can. It doesn’t bolt when it sees us, and it’s seen us (we think) many times. (The little bits of color on its right side match up from photograph to photograph.) Sometimes we’re the first to move on; sometimes the deer is. It’ll mosey into the woods. And then we start walking again.

Reaping the worldwind?

From tonight’s PBS News:

“The events in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are part of their worldwind tour of several key battleground states over the next few days.”

Or maybe it was whirled-wind.

You can hear the sentence at the 2:07 mark in this story. Our household listened four times to make sure we were hearing what we thought we were hearing. If indeed we were, I say “Sheesh.”

A quick search shows that worldwind tour is not unknown. I would guess that the influence of worldwide is to blame.

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

That’s not Ida Lupino. So, then, who?

Leave your guesses in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if appropriate.

*

10:26 a.m.: No need for a hint. The answer is now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all)
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[Garner’s Modern English Usage notes that “support for actress seems to be eroding.” So I use actor.]

Hard-boiled Zippy

[“Pulp Faction.” Zippy, August 7, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s Zippy channels Raymond Chandler. The source in this panel is a sentence from Farewell, My Lovely (1940): “Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.” With pipe and glasses, the writer bears an unmistakable resemblance to Chandler.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard) : More Zippy Chandler : And still more

Evisceration in Philadelphia

“Make no mistake: violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That’s not even counting the crimes he committed”: in Philadelphia, Governor Tim Walz is eviscerating Donald Trump.

And: “So we’ve got ninety-one days. My God, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

Understated or overstated

On MSNBC earlier today, a reporter pointed out that Tim Walz is the first Democratic vice presidential candidate in sixty years without a law degree. “It cannot be understated,” she said.

No, it cannot be overstated, said I. But the more I thought about the phrasing, the more I came to think that it’s inherently, unhelpfully ambiguous. Here’s a post that explains.

Ways out: “it’s important to recognize that,” “it’s not to be overlooked that,” &c.

Still, it helps to bear in mind that in Google’s Ngram Viewer, “it cannot be overstated” far outnumbers “it cannot be understated” in American English, British English, and “English.” And thus it cannot be overstated that “it cannot be understated” will most likely be understood as infelicitous phrasing.

It’s Tim Walz

From The Guardian: “Kamala Harris names Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as running mate.”

An excellent choice, making a ticket very much like Obama–Biden in affect.

Our household has been having fun reading the BigDadEnergy stuff at Threads.

30-D, three letters

A clue in this past Saturday’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, 30-D, three letters, “____ king,” made me think of a food from childhood. The answer: ALA, as in Chicken à la King. I’ve always thought of Chicken à la King as a mid-century convenience food, a TV Dinner in a can, but Wikipedia tells me that the dish has a longer and more interesting history.

I found this two-page spread, which jibes with my memory of Chicken à la King — something served with crackers.

[Life, March 18, 1957.]

You can click either image for a larger view. Do click: you won’t be disappointed, though you may become nauseated. It’s always difficult to photograph (and colorize?) food.

The bakery with a thousand windows? Here’s an artist’s rendering. And a tax photograph:

[2902 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Dad, i.m.

My dad, James Leddy, died nine years ago today.

He showed up in a dream — not for the first time — on July 13. He tapped me on my wrist and said “Michael?” It was unmistakably his voice.

My dad appears in many OCA posts. Here’s a post with what I wrote after his death.

Curb your Curb references

On Saturday, iOS Dictation turned stop and chat into Stop & Shop, capitals and ampersand included.

More fun Dictation failures
“The nut free version” : “I mode the front lawn” : “Wrath scholar” : Spelling Glenmorangie : “F--k music” : “A concluding truck for belated pubs” : Edifice and Courson Blatz : Eight ways to spell Derrida : Nine ways to spell boogie-woogie

[To its credit, iOS Dictation and Mac Dictation now get most of these right. But Glemorangie is now Glenn Margie. And Oedipus (edifice ) is now Aus. In iOS, rathskellar is now rats killer, and folk music is still a curse. Neither Dictation service can spell Derrida. My phone didn’t even try. My Mac: da da.]