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Dame Iris Murdoch had been a philosophy don at Oxford before she became a novelist, and as far as I was concerned, her philosophy of life was spot on, as someone in a British novel might say.
(Susan Scarf Merrell, “In Praise of Iris Murdoch,” NYTimes, 1-4-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
I bought this guitar new at a music store in Reus (Catalonia – Spain) for 260 euros. The brand is “Alhambra,” not one I was familiar with. Made in Spain. I must give it its due here and say that it’s an astoundingly fine instrument for the price. It’s well put-together and has a VERY light finish, almost raw — practically danced out of my clutch when I first played it — a surprisingly bright sound. I was told I could try out more expensive models of the line, but I said, naw, I’ll just take this one. I hadn’t wanted to lug a guitar with me to Spain — I’m just an amateur, anyway, but I try to abuse the best instrument I can afford as a general rule. My slogan is that mediocre players need good guitars more than good players do. I was shopping for a workaday guitar I could leave here pending my next visit so as to have my needs covered at both ends. This jewel does the trick. I almost wish I could take it home.
(c) 2018 JMN.
“I completely understand — it’s the two greatest players of all time,” Mouratoglou said of the attention. “But I’m really focused on the singles, because my goal is that she [Williams] wins the Australian Open.”
(Ben Rothenberg, “Serena Williams and Roger Federer Face Off for the First Time,” NYTimes, 1-1-19)
I would say “my goal is that she *win* the Australian Open.”
I’m content to publicize this further bit of evidence that the subjunctive mood is on the ropes in English. And why not? What problem does it solve? The speaker quoted, Patrick Mouratoglou, is Serena Williams’s coach. He’s French, and the French equivalent — “qu’elle gagne” — wouldn’t have distinctive present subjunctive marking either. Could that have influenced him to use the indicative in his English statement? To quote James Joyce, “Ask yourself the answer, I’m not giving you a short question.” I surmise that the past subjunctive form would rear its head if he said the French equivalent of “my goal *was* that she win (wins?) the Australian Open.” I forget, however, how to conjugate that particular form in French. Would it be “gagnasse”? I’ve dug myself down a French rabbit hole in pursuit of a fly speck of English trivia.
(c) 2018 JMN.
Time was that you had to be an experimental weirdo to ditch vowels. In “Finnegans Wake,” James Joyce used the word “disemvowelled” in a section that includes this exchange of crystal-clear dialogue:
— Nnn ttt wrd?
— Dmn ttt thg.
Before we are all Joyce — God bless him — I would suggest that we take a deep breath, a mndfl one even, and consider the culling of our five (maybe six) friends. After all, there are words that can hardly do without them: muumuu, audio and oboe, just to queue up a few. One cannot text someone “b” and expect them to know one is referring to an oboe.
(John Williams, “Where Have All the Vowels Gone?” NYTimes, 12-29-18)
[I’m dmnd if I can winkle out what the “Nnn ttt” part of Joyce’s “crystal-clear dialogue” signifies.]
(c) 2018 JMN.
The Airprox board said this, combined with a lack of visual warning, had resulted in “a significant and largely unmitigated safety risk” and recommended that RAF Air Command uses a system to receive notification of commercial drone operations.
(BBC News, “Suffolk farm drone in near-miss with Tornado jet,” 12-24-18)
In the above text I would write (and say) “use” instead of “uses,” substituting subjunctive mood for indicative mood. The verb in question is in a subordinate noun clause depending on a main verb “recommended.” It’s a case of an “influencing” statement. The subjunctive helps convey that the action in the subordinate clause is theoretical and not factual. I wonder if other English speakers feel as strongly as I do that subjunctive must be enforced in this sort of utterance.
(c) 2018 JMN
Perhaps it is that particular literary quality, her poet’s rigorous understanding of what another modernist, D. H. Lawrence, called “the jump of words along the line”—when set against the easy-to-read “Miss Jean Brodie,” with its mass-market appeal—that has confused her Scottish and British readers for so long. Was she serious, or in the blockbuster business? It’s a perfect example of Scottish antisyzygy, a mind-set that holds within it two completely opposite ways of being… Where does she belong? For readers who like their writers straightforward, that they may more easily describe their art, Spark is a challenge: a split self of a woman who spells, like all Dr. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes, nothing but trouble… She created novels that are laugh-out-loud funny, while turning the mind to the gravest, deepest concerns of human life: Why are we here? What is our purpose? What do we know?
(Kirsty Gunn, “How Muriel Spark Came Home to Scotland,” The New Yorker, 12-19-18)
(c) 2018 JMN.
Coming off a debilitating relapse of bronchitis I can say the following: These are the days of Catalonia — a month’s worth plus well-lapsed a fortnight — in which I’ve had cockles (berberechos), mussels (almejas, mejillones) and a crustacean called cigala, variously translated as “crayfish,” “Dublin Bay prawn,” “Norway lobster,” “langoustine” — who knows what the thing is? My daughter loves them. A plateful of cigalas yields, with much work, enough protein to fit on a cracker. I’ve had squid (calamar), cuttlefish (sepia), octopus (pulpo), monkfish (rape), cod (bacalao), hake (merluza), sardines and anchovies (sardinas, anchoas), and flounder (platija). It bears mention that none of this bounty came from a can or freezer.
(c) 2018 JMN.
Following Dr. [Donald] Knuth’s doctrine helps to ward off moronry. He is known for introducing the notion of “literate programming,” emphasizing the importance of writing code that is readable by humans as well as computers — a notion that nowadays seems almost [*]twee. Dr. Knuth has gone so far as to argue that some computer programs are, like Elizabeth Bishop’s poems and Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral,” works of literature worthy of a Pulitzer.
…
“I am worried that algorithms are getting too prominent in the world, It started out that computer scientists were worried nobody was listening to us. Now I’m worried that too many people are listening.”
(Siobhan Roberts, “The Yoda of Silicon Valley,” NYTimes, 12-17-18)
(c) 2018 JMN.
Persons from the UK had a bit of fun with the NYTimes in responding to a query concerning “crimes” to which they had been victim in their native land. The following tweet, among others, appeared in The Guardian in mid-December:
Once I accidentally queue-barged a man in a supermarket. I apologised profusely for not realising they were in a queue. They then apologised for making a big deal about nothing. I then apologised for their apology. Then someone behind us apologised for asking us to move up.
There it is: assault by apology, a tort of courtesy. The low-hanging fruit here, linguistically, is “ ‘queue-barged’ a man.” The phrase “queue-barge,” new to me, is vastly superior to its USA equivalent “break in line” (“I broke in line in front of a man”). The felonious welter of apologies pursuant to the primary infraction is secondarily ravishing. It reminds me of the “thank you”s I had to endure in passing through the Heathrow security check: “thank you” for stepping a bit this way; “thank you” for holding my wallet during the body scan; “thank you” for raising my arms slightly during the scan; “thank you” for retrieving my personal effects; etc. etc. etc. At the end of the 10-minute ordeal I was exhausted from saying “you’re welcome.”
(c) 2018 JMN.
The Anal Linguist Rides Again
(Nicole Karlis, “The same flu virus that caused the 1918 pandemic is back this year,” Salon, 1-3-19)
That “from” adds a layer of fat to the origination. Never mind. These “thoughts on language” aren’t meant to be a dreary litany of gotchas.
But, hello, what’s this?
(Same article)
There’s an affectionate tut-tut here by the sardonic range rider, but pity the poor scribbler after all. Even Homer nodded. The stories snap, crackle and pop; the need to keyboard them in passable journalese and press “Send” is fiery; deadlines hound; the gig is transient; pay is laughable; and the market for correctitude is slack anyhow. Hats off and hearts out.
(c) 2018 JMN.