Monthly Archives: July 2019

Chautauqua

Posted on July 31, 2019 | 2 comments

Chautauqua. The ideal combination of chat and aqua (no, no, say it like “sha talk wa”). A landscape of ideas and memories, words and images, trees and water, kitchens and roads.

Hear me out. Continue reading →

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The Honourable Member for the 18th Century?

Posted on July 27, 2019 | 2 comments

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the new Leader of the House of Commons in England, has lately been the subject of remark for his questionable sense of style. And I don’t mean his unfortunate sartorial choices. I mean his directives on English usage. He has, we learn, given his staff a style guide that is just not what a style guide should be.

Many people chalk up his preferences to traditionalism and preferring the old ways. But Rees-Mogg, often called “the Honourable Member for the 18th Century,” is not actually expressing preferences supported by tradition. Like most modern grammar numpties, he’s fancying himself more traditional than tradition. The point is not to hold back the march to modernity; it is to enforce an entirely recent invention of the past for the sake of maintaining a certain sense of superiority. A sort of Disneyification, if Disney were run by ghastly snobby boys. Continue reading →

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This fragile earth, our island home

Posted on July 25, 2019 | 1 comment

190725_TO_720

I wrote this as a guest post for my dad’s column in the Cochrane Eagle.

I can see it out my window, but it’s another world. Continue reading →

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Pronunciation tip: Southern Tier

Posted on July 22, 2019 | 1 comment

I was in the Southern Tier of Western New York this past weekend – that’s where a lot of my ancestors over the past century and a half lived. You may wonder why you should care; the answer is that it’s really beautiful there. And it’s a big area, three times the size of Rhode Island. Most of the place names there aren’t too difficult to figure out (Portville, Jamestown, Dunkirk), but there are a few that might trip you up. So here’s a run-down of 16 of them that you might like to know before you go.

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Jimmy’s (107 Portland)

Posted on July 18, 2019 | Leave a comment

Look at me, workin’ with the green matcha latte in the perfect space

As you walk up Portland Street from King, you will have a choice of coffice spaces: on your left, Jimmy’s; on your right, Jimmy’s. You can sit in one and look across at the other.

The Jimmy’s on the left, at 100 Portland, is the original. It has multiple storeys and a pocket patio in the front. If you are like me, you will go in, look, see that it is too busy, and come out and cross the street. Every time so far.

The Jimmy’s on the right, at 107 Portland, is the newer of the two. Newer to Jimmy’s, that is. It’s not a new building. And it, too, offers you multiple choices. If you’re lucky and there’s room in the room you want. Continue reading →

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nyctinasty

Posted on July 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

Nyctinasties, according to John Ben Hill (in 1936), “are the most common nasties.” Like all nasties, they don’t care where what they’re reacting to comes from – that’s what sets them apart from tropics.

Ah, tropics! Who – or what – doesn’t love following the sun? I’ll tell you: these nasties don’t. They don’t care which direction the sun goes, as long as it goes away. That’s why they’re nyctinasty. During the day, everything’s lain flat, basking in the sun, but when night comes, the blades flip up. As Peter V. Minorsky said (just last year), “the vertical orientation of the blades … would be especially beneficial to flying nocturnal predators … whose modus operandi is death from above.” Continue reading →

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nesh

Posted on July 14, 2019 | 1 comment

What would you do if you looked down on your page and saw hnecxian looking back up at you?

Would you sneeze? Would you flinch? Would you soften and fade back? Or would you be fascinated by this ink-insect?

You needn’t fear. Although you have just seen it looking back at you, snuffing and snorting and crisp and vexing, whether or not you softened, it has. Hnecxian is the Old English version of the word – in its infinitive verb form. The modern English form, verb, adjective, noun, and adverb, is nesh.

Which is more reminiscent of a bug after it has been squished. Or any other soft and perhaps unwelcome thing. Continue reading →

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Just for reference

Posted on July 12, 2019 | 6 comments

This article was originally published on BoldFace, the blog of Editors Toronto.

If you edit academic books or articles, you probably spend a lot of time tidying up references. Sometimes as much time as editing the entire rest of the text. First, you have to pick your style: Chicago (note or name-date), MLA, APA, or, in the sciences, AMA or Vancouver. Then, you have to make everything consistent with it, to the extent possible. On top of that, you may have to look up the sources to double-check them.

I’ve edited medical continuing-education presentations that had no bibliographies and would cite some sources as just, for instance, “Heinz & Wong 2013.” I would have to find the rest of the citation—and I would, nearly every time, with a single search. Which means that anyone else who wanted to know would also be able to find it as quickly. Our citation standards were developed before the wonderful world of high-powered search engines. If we can find the source from an incomplete or inaccurate citation, how much of this tidying up is necessary? Continue reading →

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surappointment

Posted on July 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

We went to the fancy outdoor food court in front of Union Station to have fancy hot dogs and watch a movie. We got there 45 minutes before movie time and all the seats were already taken. We bought our fancy hot dogs anyway and Aina’s burst hot liquid on her and scalded her and mine ejected its sauerkraut and mustard mid-bite. It was, we may say, a disappointment.

So, suddenly at liberty, we checked the ferry schedule. We made it on time to the next ferry to Ward’s Island, and an hour after our downtown disappointment we were on the beach on the island for the first time this summer. The water was flood-level high but the weather was beautiful and it wasn’t crowded. Aina frolicked in the waves and I stood and observed the deepening cyans and magentas of the hour before a summer sunset on the lake. And then we went to the cute café by the lawn bowling club and had refreshment as an exactly perfect summer evening wrapped itself around us like a friendly cat.

It was, we may say, a surappointment. Continue reading →

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One fewer thing to fuss about

Posted on July 7, 2019 | 2 comments

Let us say, for the nonce, that the author of a book telling people how to improve their English has declared, “More is commonly used in speaking of numbers; I believe greater would do better. No greater than a hundred appears to me not only more elegant than No more than a hundred, but more strictly proper. More is best reserved for mass quantities.”

Well. We English speakers have a very problematic relationship with our language. If something seems natural, simple, clear, and obvious, and if it’s something we heard people do all the time, we are very eager to believe a rule telling us it’s wrong. We’re prone to rule-seeking behaviour because we’ve learned to be insecure about our grasp of English’s rules – they’re so capricious and inconsistent – and a new rule also gives us an additional sorting and tidying tool… and something to whack people on the head with to show our superiority, too.

So, if the book came out at the right time and found the right audience, we would soon have people insisting that cookbooks that say “More than 200 of the best high-fat recipes” should instead say “Greater than 200 of the best high-fat recipes,” and that when inviting friends over you should say “The greater, the merrier”; news articles would fussily put “Observers estimated there were greater than 5,000 people in attendance” and “He has lived in the city for greater than five years.”

Does this sound far-fetched? It’s so incredibly near-fetched, it’s fetched right off your page… more or less. Continue reading →

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