Man, please don’t. You make our lives so much better.
I mean: please don’t have the stroke. Not please don’t temper being furious (and how else to respond to these horrors) with being silly (otherwise you might actually have a stroke [please don’t]).
And re note 7: I think it does feel like that. Reading your pieces feels like listening to them because it feels normal (as in the normality that tempers fury with silliness, the normality that rails against Nazism, the normality that tries to cast a light on the abnormal and the abhorrent) in the way that listening to someone talking sense normally, someone being themselves, feels like.
The more I read this bit from the article, it's "but still" that is rubbing me the wrong way. Very much the same energy as "but apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln . . ."
I know you get this, but since we're venting: once an organization has quoted Hitler in its newsletter (clearly fully aware they are doing so), the story is no longer about how much a candidate needs them but about the dangers of actual Hitler-admiring voters gravitating to one party's candidate etc. I can't even finish these thoughts.
"Facism, but lighthearted!" makes me think there should be tap-dancing and tipping of top hats as they shuffle-step. What the hell HAPPENED to the New York Times?! I cannot fathom how we got here.
I *do NOT understand* the use of 'but still' in the article. Could it be "Those who may have accidentally quoted Hitler nonetheless remain Good People"?
PS: I love Comden and Greene (aka The Martons in "The Bandwagon"!). I seem to remember PBS showing a version of "A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green" many years ago - I could be wrong.
Thank you! That IS easier to manage with my Cincinnati accent. Well, everything is NOT about me, but learning a new word makes up slightly for the Times making my head explode again.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a punctuation question. I have begun following your example of putting a period after what looks like a question, based on word order, but isn't spoken like one. This seems like the sort of place where I could get an informed opinion on whether I should stop that right now or keep doing it.
I heartily recommend it, and I note that it's one of the few punctuation evolutions I've adopted for my own use and recommended to others because of seeing people do it online. I think it works like crazy.
I also have it on good authority that the last line of The Sun Also Rises was originally written "Isn't it pretty to think so." I do not know whether EH changed his mind or the question mark was imposed on him by an editorial type, but: He knew what he was doing the first time.
Thank you for today's mood boost, which I surely needed. I keep thinking that punctuation exists in large part for the purpose of enhancing readability and this seems to do that well, with less ink/toner even. And it is a fine excuse to ask my sister-in-law's opinion as well (she is a former copy editor at several newspapers and was apparently outstanding in that role) and, as an afterthought, to encourage her to start visiting this fine establishment. I remain grateful to Wonkette for telling me about it, among the many other reasons to be grateful for and to Wonkette.
Punctuation (usually commas) can carry key information (the difference between “his sister Cora” and “his sister, Cora,” for instance), and I think it’s best wielded (at least by most writers most of the time) in unobtrusive, conventional ways. I find that writers who seem to be consciously leaning into impressionistic punctuation often end up writing prose that is irritatingly confounding—but maybe that’s just my view. Mostly I don’t think you should be noticing punctuation all the time.
Thank you.
I guess I didn't just see red. I guess I saw kind of crimson.
Crimson? We talkin' Harvard or University of Alabama here?
adoring footnote 1
I do try to temper being furious with being silly. Otherwise I’d have a stroke.
And: Thank you.
This reply of your shall join my collection of quotations that help to explain who I am.
Man, please don’t. You make our lives so much better.
I mean: please don’t have the stroke. Not please don’t temper being furious (and how else to respond to these horrors) with being silly (otherwise you might actually have a stroke [please don’t]).
And re note 7: I think it does feel like that. Reading your pieces feels like listening to them because it feels normal (as in the normality that tempers fury with silliness, the normality that rails against Nazism, the normality that tries to cast a light on the abnormal and the abhorrent) in the way that listening to someone talking sense normally, someone being themselves, feels like.
The more I read this bit from the article, it's "but still" that is rubbing me the wrong way. Very much the same energy as "but apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln . . ."
The whole article is "fascism, but lighthearted!"
I know you get this, but since we're venting: once an organization has quoted Hitler in its newsletter (clearly fully aware they are doing so), the story is no longer about how much a candidate needs them but about the dangers of actual Hitler-admiring voters gravitating to one party's candidate etc. I can't even finish these thoughts.
"Facism, but lighthearted!" makes me think there should be tap-dancing and tipping of top hats as they shuffle-step. What the hell HAPPENED to the New York Times?! I cannot fathom how we got here.
I *do NOT understand* the use of 'but still' in the article. Could it be "Those who may have accidentally quoted Hitler nonetheless remain Good People"?
PS: I love Comden and Greene (aka The Martons in "The Bandwagon"!). I seem to remember PBS showing a version of "A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green" many years ago - I could be wrong.
I'm happy to report that if you google "party with comden and green video" it'll pop right up for you! I may (re)watch it later this afternoon!
Accidentally on purpose. Always love the footnotes.
I just.
I just can't even.
I think we're agreed on that.
Who's (mis)steering that (U-)boat? But still, I can't help but disavow . . .
There are no words.
Oh, I can think of a few.
Which is why you do the heavy lifting writing and we just comment.
You are doing great . Some things deserve our anger .
And didn't they also ADD EMPHASIS?
Your work here is necessary. Thank you.
I’m getting dangerously close to having thoughts and ideas and writing about them, which is something I tend to try hard not to do.
Go to town. There's always the delete key.
Soon we will have an NYT article titled, ‘MAGA and the heartland embrace the Fuhrer, while some still find plenty to criticise’.
I had to look up "fatootsed" and will from now on use it daily. Not only useful, but fun to say! Thanks!
For your pronunciation ease, the vowel sound in the middle is far more “pushed” than “boost.”
Thank you! That IS easier to manage with my Cincinnati accent. Well, everything is NOT about me, but learning a new word makes up slightly for the Times making my head explode again.
or tootsie
Yes, good! (Why didn't I think of that.)
Footnotes!
That's how you know it's me!
The New York Times can get a bit carried away, but, well, there is no other hand, is there.
Perhaps one of those AI hands with seven fingers?
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a punctuation question. I have begun following your example of putting a period after what looks like a question, based on word order, but isn't spoken like one. This seems like the sort of place where I could get an informed opinion on whether I should stop that right now or keep doing it.
I heartily recommend it, and I note that it's one of the few punctuation evolutions I've adopted for my own use and recommended to others because of seeing people do it online. I think it works like crazy.
I also have it on good authority that the last line of The Sun Also Rises was originally written "Isn't it pretty to think so." I do not know whether EH changed his mind or the question mark was imposed on him by an editorial type, but: He knew what he was doing the first time.
Thank you for today's mood boost, which I surely needed. I keep thinking that punctuation exists in large part for the purpose of enhancing readability and this seems to do that well, with less ink/toner even. And it is a fine excuse to ask my sister-in-law's opinion as well (she is a former copy editor at several newspapers and was apparently outstanding in that role) and, as an afterthought, to encourage her to start visiting this fine establishment. I remain grateful to Wonkette for telling me about it, among the many other reasons to be grateful for and to Wonkette.
Punctuation (usually commas) can carry key information (the difference between “his sister Cora” and “his sister, Cora,” for instance), and I think it’s best wielded (at least by most writers most of the time) in unobtrusive, conventional ways. I find that writers who seem to be consciously leaning into impressionistic punctuation often end up writing prose that is irritatingly confounding—but maybe that’s just my view. Mostly I don’t think you should be noticing punctuation all the time.
That has the fingerprints of an editor all over it.
I am reminded of an NY Times article from August 20, 1939 with a headline that began: “HERR HITLER AT HOME IN THE CLOUDS”
*nods sagely*
Yuh-huh.