Alan Mutter is an old-school newspaper guy who turned into a new-media guy. Thus he always has interesting observations on the evolution of the 21st-century news business.
If you haven’t discovered Mutter’s mutterings yet, you can find him on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur. Its subtitle: Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news-gathering companies [...]
Archive for the ‘Language’ Category
‘Journicide: A looming, lost generation of scribes’
Posted in Commerce, Jesharris, Language, Media, tagged Alan Mutter, Reflections of a Newsosaur, journicide on December 1, 2009 | 11 Comments »
Enjoy Newly Taste Best Gifts For You!*
Posted in Humor, Language, Scott Lahti, World, tagged Michelle Obama, Google, Hot Girls, Engrish, Chinglish on November 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
*Inscription on box, Chinese-restaurant wall-scroll calendar, c. late 1990s
From Offensive Michelle Obama image removed:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 25 (UPI) — A blog that ran a photograph of U.S. first lady Michelle Obama altered to make her appear ape-like removed the image Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The distorted image created an international furor after it [...]
Chekhov, Vidal, Swift
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Scott Lahti, tagged Jonathan Swift, Chekhov, Gore Vidal on November 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Literary peanuts from The Spectator:
British novelist Anita Brookner in “Christmas Books: I” in The Spectator:
My absolute favourite is a reprint: Janet Malcolm’s Reading Chekhov. A Critical Journey (Granta, £8.99) which comes prefaced with a memorable Chekhovian observation: ‘What torture it is to cut the nails on your right hand!’
Surprising literary ventures
Wednesday, 7th October 2009
Gary Dexter
Death [...]
Pinker, Blinkin’, and (Shaggy) Dog
Posted in Language, Media, Mind, Science, Scott Lahti, tagged Steven Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell, Maureen Tkacik on November 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Clash of the Bushy-Headed, Best-Selling Metaphorical Eponyms, as Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker
(The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought) assays tress-same-made* trendspotting journo Malcolm Gladwell’s
(The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers) new collection What the Dog Saw in the lead review of last Sunday’s NYTBR:
Readers have much [...]
Loss Of Memory and Self
Posted in Health Care, Language, Mind, Private, Steve S., Technology, tagged brain, Memory, surgery on November 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
As we age, I think we all understand and, at least begrudgingly, accept the loss of bodily functions that goes with that process. The part which is so hard to face is the loss of mental faculties. I see this all of the time in my demented patients. We see it in [...]
Words and tropes that piss me off, #1
Posted in Arts, Culture, Humor, Language, Moro on November 9, 2009 | 10 Comments »
SPOILER WARNING-
OPTIMUS PRIME DIES. AND THEN HE IS MAGICALLY RESURRECTED.
I didn’t have any new insights into the healthcare debate, so I thought I’d bitch about the word ‘cheesy’ instead.
“Cheesy.”
I don’t object to all uses of this term, certainly not the ones that are actually listed on dictionary.com:
“–adjective, chees⋅i⋅er, chees⋅i⋅est.
1. of or like cheese: a cheesy [...]
Deputy Dogs
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Law, Lifestyle, Scott Lahti, tagged Deputy Dawg on November 5, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Baker had allowed deputies and their search dogs into her home… - Fla. baby missing for 5 days found alive under bed
I’ll take Restoration Riffraff for £1666, Aleks
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Law, Media, Mind, Science, Scott Lahti, Self, Sex, Technology, tagged dildos, Isaac Newton, Mrs. Dash Penis Substitute, Wikipedia, William Chaloner on October 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Because there is only one thing worse than having your post on the role of the dildo in Newtonian post-physics turned into a footnote in an article at Wikipedia, and that is having Apple-Bodied Seemin’, or, Gravity’s Dildo sink like a lead phallus.
[tip: Aleksandreia Blog Stats - Referrers]
Cyrano de Blogerac
Posted in Arts, Culture, Education, Humor, Language, Media, Mind, Scott Lahti, tagged French literature, Madame de Sévigné on October 17, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696) was a French aristocrat, remembered for her letter-writing. Most of her letters, celebrated for their wit and vividness, were addressed to her daughter. Her letters provide much insight into the social mores and customs of 17th-century French life.
From the article on French [...]
Where Anglosphere Tout Read
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Lifestyle, Media, Mind, Nation, Politics, Scott Lahti, World on October 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Peter Brookes, The Times (UK)
A few mid-Atlantic links Hoovered up while you lot snored last night, on the arts of the confectioner, telly comedians tall/Short/American/English/Canadian, book reviewers, and What It Means To Be Conservative and/arrrr a pirate economist – or just a car buyer hoping to save big next time round thanks to game theory:
Nothing Makes Me Risah Like a Guest Spot für Eliza in the Late Night, or, The Fallon Gong Show
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Media, Scott Lahti, Sport, tagged Bruce Springsteen, C. Everett Koop, Capitol Steps, Eliza Dushku, Jimmy Fallon, Manfred Mann's Earth Band on October 10, 2009 | 2 Comments »
When Eliza Dushku was on Jimmy Fallon(’s show) Wednesday night, her walk-on theme courtesy of the band was the early Springsteen-penned number made famous by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, “Blinded by the Light“, whose famously-mondegreened line
Revved up like a Deuce [alt: Wrapped up like a douche], another runner in the night
saw the band singing in [...]
Bono Boo, Bono Bing
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Lifestyle, Politics, Scott Lahti, World, tagged Bono, U2 on October 10, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Forwarded conversation
Subject: Bono the Pious
From: Tim d.
Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Good column about a certain tax-dodging, runty Irishman.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1219364/QUENTIN-LETTS-Why-politicians–including-sadly-Tories-week–fawn-Bono-smug-hypocritical-whining-tax-dodging-Irish-mountebank.html
———-
From: Mark M.
Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 12:43 PM
“Then fookin’ stop clapping!”
———-
From: DSL.
Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Here’s Snopes on the Bono legend thus, with bonus Hillary/gun anecdote.
That joke-stem must be [...]
Obama is a Narcissist
Posted in Community, Culture, Ethics, Language, Politics, Public, tagged fact checking, Google, internet, politicians on October 7, 2009 | 14 Comments »
Obama is a bit self-obsessed. Obama is a bit of a narcissist. Obama is a politician. Oops, pardon my redundancy. At the national level, all politicians exhibit some of these traits. However, some writers like George Will seem intent upon proving that Obama stands out among politicians with these traits. From his [...]
Those were the days, when a good 5-cents car could really smoke ‘em on the track
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Scott Lahti, Sport, tagged All in the Family, LaSalle, mondegreens, track and field on October 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
You may ask yourself, “Am I the only one?” to have misconstrued a nonsense phrase from a song lyric (a widely-documented phenomenon known as a mondegreen, after one who had taken the Scottish ballad lyric “Laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen”), or subjected an everyday usage to funhouse distortion – my friend’s well-met [...]
Damning with Feint Phrase
Posted in Humor, Language, Nation, Politics, Scott Lahti on October 5, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Imagined bumper-sticker to compass my political differences with everyone – not excepting the guy peering back at me mornings in the bathroom mirror through a bloody cloud of Mexican shaving cream from the dollar store:
LIBERTY: It’s not about hating The Democrats/The President/The Republicans/The Government harder.
It’s about hating them smarter.
Most fecund maker of American slang
Posted in Culture, Franklin Evans, Humor, Language, Media, tagged cat's pajamas, slang, Tad Dorgan, Words on October 3, 2009 | 2 Comments »
My daughter the linguistics major, like myself and her mother, has a keen ear for usage and meaning, particularly the opportunities to take advantage towards perpetrating a pun or three.
She was chatting with me about how some of her generational peers seem to be ignorant of past lexicon even though it is still in common [...]
Do people think? New studies are inconclusive…
Posted in Culture, Education, Franklin Evans, Language, Mind, Nature, Science, Self, World on October 3, 2009 | 9 Comments »
I enjoyed our own Lynn’s post about doggie intelligence (second half of post; first half is a cautionary and timely tale about keeping your medical records current.) We always had a dog while I was growing up, and less so a cat (though cats’ tendency to think of their humans as convenient rest stops might [...]
Lex Luber, and Bedtime with Bozos
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Man, Media, Mind, Scott Lahti, Sex, Woman, tagged Craig Ferguson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Paul Shaffer on October 2, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Daily Mail
Dr Johnson (1709-84) at Cave’s the Publisher, 1854 by Wallis, Henry (1830-1916)
There are more Earthy things put in Heavenly bodies, Flatio, you punning linguist with the f***ed tongue, than are writ in your Dicktionary: Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary and author of The F-Word, describes in Slate the less-than-helpful way [...]
Fin de siècle – et d’esclavage
Posted in Arts, Language, Media, Mind, Scott Lahti, World, tagged abolitionism, Alfred Jarry, fin de siecle, Josiah Wedgwood, Roger Shattuck, Slave Medallion, slavery, Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, The Banquet Years, Ubu Roi on October 1, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The reputation of the 1890s for foppish aestheticism, “decadence”, moral inversion, and other forms of what we today would call just plain good fun played out on both sides of the Channel – Oscar wasn’t of the only national type known for a little Mauve-Decade Wildeing – and let us never forget the cartoon that [...]
Ambrose Bierce for Precedent!
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Mind, Scott Lahti, tagged Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary on September 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Before Justin’s rough-tongued dad Sam on Twitter, before even H.L. Mencken or W.C. Fields, there was Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?), whose Devil’s Dictionary from 1911 is a byword for that distilled realism called cynicism by those arrested souls still drugged by the innocent narcotic idealism of the cradle (and yes, he’s catching; Ambrose Bierce: A Family [...]
I’d Crawl a Mile for a Camelot, or, Other Than That, Mrs. Kennedy, How Did You Like the Texas-Book Deposition?
Posted in Arts, Humor, Language, Media, Mind, Scott Lahti, Self, tagged 2 Blowhards, Albert Jay Nock, Death of a President, Encounter, Jacqueline Kennedy, magazines, National Review, Vanity Fair, William Manchester on September 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
One of my earliest essays as a blogger in training pants, aged 4 circa 1966, so family legend attests, issued in my noticing in a newspaper held by a relative a story devoted to the legal battle between Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and the journalist-historian William Manchester, Stakhanovite brickworks for an Everest of historical doorstops ever [...]
When it comes to freedom – Nothing else matters
Posted in Arts, Culture, Language, Man, Patrick, War, World, tagged history, War, youtube on September 23, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Just watch:
Just a few things to explain. This is sand artist Kseniya Simonova. She is basically drawing in sand, the events leading up to and during “The Great Patriotic War” that took from place June 22, 1941, to May 9, 1945, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union and as this sand [...]
Life With Father Is Tweet
Posted in Family, Humor, Language, Lifestyle, Man, Scott Lahti, tagged Justin, shitmydadsays on September 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Justin’s priceless 73-year-old dad [rough language] is on his usual ab-shaking roll, in case you haven’t lately treated yourself. If, when you click, the Hall and Oates quip from September 1 has dropped off the bottom, click “More”, as newbies should, already, anyway. Guy’s got over 370,000 followers, all earned. I’d have liked to [...]
