You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2008.
I really dislike the word “youngsters.”
I’ve been seeing it more recently, but it might just be catching my attention more now that it’s bothering me. I understand the difficulty in finding a good word to encompass all people from toddlers to teens, but “children” is a pretty good option without coming off as pseudo-folksy or condescending. Does anyone ever like being referred to as a youngster? It’s the word equivalent of the stereotypical rosy old aunt pinching child’s cheek. Sometimes ”youngsters” is used perfectly in earnest with sterling intentions, and that’s why it’s more equivalent to ”old folks” than “geezers.” But the distinction of genuineness doesn’t come across in print, so it just doesn’t work.
Some people (like everyone who ever had me as their editor) already know of other words I can’t stand. Myriad, plethora, kudos and utilized come to mind, though I’m sure there are others.
The common thread here is pretension. There’s too much trying to be folksy or trying to be sophisticated or offbeat or whatever. Sure, there’s a certain amount of obstinacy in hating them and I’m aware they can be quite useful. I’m also sure Ugg boots are very warm and useful in the snow. Gross.
This NYT article is an unlikely combination of topics relevant to my interests: the Supreme Court and Bob Dylan.
Chief Justice John Roberts cited a Dylan line from “Like a Rolling Stone” in a recent decision. It turns out this is not without precedent; Dylan has been quoted in 26 opinions from lower courts in the past. But the whole thing is still controversial, because – gasp! – the Supreme Court misquoted Bob Dylan.
Maybe. This is the citation, according to the NYT: ” ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).” Which is not true to the 1965 Columbia Records recording: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” But the version used by the Supreme Court is an oft-cited version of the lyrics, and the way they’re listed on Dylan’s official website. So the citation is wrong, yes, but is the quotation wrong? Which is more correct: the official lyrics or the way he sang them in the most famous recording of the song?
I wonder what Dylan thinks of his lyrics being used in a Supreme Court decision. It makes ol’ SCOTUS look almost hip, but I bet he’d think it’s stupid. It doesn’t really add anything. I’m not sure why quoting lyrics seems profound (though I still fall for it).
Also, not that it will ever come up, but Supreme Court justices are not immune to the Dylan rule on my list of exhausted cliches. And while it really ought to be an expectation for a NYT writer, the reporter of this piece still deserves a grateful mention for making no attempt at working in a “times they are a-changin’ ” reference.
Finally, I wonder if the professor quoted in the article spent many years of deliberate work and research to be labeled the “nation’s leading authority on the citation of popular music in judicial opinions,” or whether it just happened by accident.
Last week I started keeping a tally of the types of calls I took at the front desk of the newsroom. Here’s the result, though it was really more about curiosity and playing around with Illustrator than any meaningful data. I didn’t start keeping track of calls until late Monday, and then I was gone some afternoons learning the courts records routine, so it’s not a typical week by any means. The total puts me at a little more than 10 calls a day, which seems really low, so I probably forgot to write a lot of them down. I’ll do it again this week and compare.
Celebrity sighting, awesome! Cougar basketball player Aron Baynes was looking trim and teammate Caleb Forrest was back to yeti hair when they were spotted among the crowds at Hoopfest. They had a little entourage of giddy middle-schoolers following them around and left a wake of people doing double-takes and saying things like, “Is that the Baynes kid?”
Nick talked to them and looked really short. Most of the team is just staying in Pullman all summer and they came up to see the Hoopfest madness and sign stuff for fans. Nick and I agreed there were more citizen ballplayers sporting Cougar gear than Zags gear out on the courts, so it’s nice to see people haven’t forgotten. Here is a gratuitous paparazzi shot for Christina:
And if you want to reminisce with the original Christina Meets Baynes post, it’s here.
I didn’t take that many pictures because I forgot to recharge my camera battery. This is from one of the courts farthest away from the center of downtown. Other games had the Davenport Hotel or Riverfront Park as backdrops. The whole idea is crazy: What kind of city completely closes off its downtown so out-of-shape dads, shirtless high schoolers and little kids in pigtails can play 3-on-3 basketball in the streets?
I guess that’s part of what makes Spokane unique. It’s pretty cool, same as Bloomsday, because a bigger city couldn’t bother coordinating such an invasive citywide competition and smaller cities couldn’t support the influx of competitors.
It was really hot. People were eating snow cones by 9:30 a.m. (though they probably would have done that anyway” and the medic tents were passing out corny heart-shaped fans with the slogan “I’m your biggest fan!” I went to Hoopfest in the first place because Nick was reporting, so we arrived around 8:30 a.m. and were plenty happy to leave around noon.
This is the last of the self-indulgent posts about my early work, at least for now. Just in case any of you have remarkable amounts of time on your hands or want every advantage in some future blackmail scheme directed against me, here is a collection of essays ranging from eighth grade to freshman year of college.
Sometimes I feel like I came into journalism late, that I’m behind people like Brian and Jacob who did it in high school. However, I had in fact been a reporter, editor, publisher, pressman and delivery boy long before I ever got a byline in the Evergreen.
I founded and ran the New News Newspaper for my second-grade class. It think it published about monthly, and I’d completely forgotten about it until I found this old copy. It was one of the first issues, maybe the actual first one. There weren’t that many total. As usual, I apparently got into journalism due to boredom and needing a challenge.
This is nothing but a self-archives vanity post where I laugh about what a precocious child I was. Two Christmases ago (prior to better computer and better camera), I went through my old files of stuff and captured examples of my early work. I found that collection the other day and thought I’d share, in chronological order to the best of my knowledge.
It’s a well-known fact among linguists that the natural life of English words is evolving from nouns into verbs. I specifically say “evolving” and not “devolving” because I’m not a language purist. Some people will sit around moaning about how language is breaking down and whatnot, but these are probably the same people who complained about automobiles and women wearing pants and The Beatles. It’s been going on since before Shakespeare first used “torture,” “gossip,” “forward” and “lapse” as verbs (he also moved some, like “scuffle,” from a verb to a noun), so it’s about time to get over it.
The series of tubes neé internets neé cyberspace neé World Wide Web (in standard parlance) has certainly accelerated the process, partly because it spreads everything faster and partly because it provides so many new opportunities for new verbs. This is really just a continuation of my old wikiwandering post.
The argument about whether “Googling” is allowed originated during my time as a journalist, but it still seems like a really long time ago. Same with “Photoshopped” as an adjective, or lawl- neé lol- neé LOLspeak as a system of syntax. I was already an editor before papers stopped using www.MySpace.com on every reference. (Look for a manifesto regarding “website” in coming days.)
The most recent noun/verb evolution in use in my household is “internetting” for the general activity of using a computer (aka internets machine) to access the internet for general purposes like blogging, reading blogs, checking news stories, checking email or browsing YouTube (the standard round of websites). This led to the variant “internetzing,” derived from “internets,” obviously, and cuter with a Z because it looks like waltzing or something. This leads to sentences like, “I internetzed for a while after breakfast” or “I’ll just being internetzing until you’re ready to go.”
There’s a certain amount of futile nobility in trying to freeze it exactly as-is, but it’s just obstinate when it starts interfering with the purpose of language, which is communicating ideas in the most efficient way possible.
Perusing the NYT online, I came across this font article. It didn’t hold my attention the way it should, considering it includes fonts and replicating history, but that’s because it’s just an ennui sort of day.
But I did find this bit when I skimmed to the end:
Fonts can shape reality in intangible ways, as Phil Renaud, a graphic designer from Phoenix, discovered when he studied the relationship between his grades and the fonts he used for his college papers. Papers set in Georgia, a less common font with serifs, generally received A’s while those rendered in Times Roman averaged B’s.
Not a scientific study, but interesting considering how many of us printed out college papers in Georgia (the Evergreen’s body copy font) during our time at WSU. I always used Georgia, Utopia or Minion Pro.
I think the quintessential experience of being a student editor at the Evergreen was printing out a paper about free speech typed in Georgia (or Utopia) two minutes before class started on that gray paper we had for no reason in spring 2007 or the backs of dummies.
Recent Comments