I went to Australia thirteen times in two and a half years, during which I acquired to pretentious but reflexive affectations: sayong "mobile" (which is efficient and adorable) and passing people on the left on a busy sidewalk (which perhas isn't)
Not that I don’t relentlessly glom up Brit speak, but I bet that one reason I avoid “mobile” is because I can’t recall if, in references to the phone, it’s pronounced “mo-bill” or “mo-bile.” (At least we know it’s not pronounced like Mobile, Alabama.)
I can't speak for the British, but here in Australia, the perfectly ordinary 'mobile' is what I read and hear the most, with 'mobile phone' and just 'phone' also common. In my observation, 'cellphone' and variants only occur in quotations from overseas sources. Pronunciation of 'mobile' matches your 'mo-bile' and this is confirmed in the Australian Macquarie Dictionary where the pronunciation is listed as: /ˈmoʊbaɪl/ (say 'mohbuyl). (As an aside, having read 'Mobile, Alabama' a few times before I heard it pronounced, I was surprised to find that it is pronounced 'mo-beel'.)
Your reference to "today’s cover illustration" confused me because I don't see anything that might be termed a cover illustration. The only graphics are the cellphone/cell phone chart and the photo of baby Sallie.
Ah, it's the illustration you'll see if you see this piece posted online. Also, if you go to the main index page, or whatever you call it, of my Substack profile, you should see it there as well.
Thank you. I was going to add that to my previous comment, but the phone rang. I tried it in Chrome as well as Firefox, and since I always reach your entry via the email notification, I too have rarely seen a cover illustration.
By the way: One good reason to read any of my pieces by clicking on the headline and opening up the text in a fresh browser window, or whatever you call it (rather than just reading the emailed version), is (besides ease of access to the footnotes) that if I’ve done anything to the article since I first posted it (and often I do tinker here and there, largely and not largely), you’ll be reading the most up-to-date version.
I always click through to read posts on the web rather than in email form, partly for the reason you pointed out and partly because viewing on the web makes it easier to scroll, zoom in or out as needed, etc.
Here you go: https://wapo.st/4iOgua6 -- though I've canceled my subscription, it doesn't run out till May, I think.
Also, I would approve the commas around the date of Ms Fontanne's death; it sounded to me like a parenthetical note of an unimportant (to the article) fact undeserving of actual attention-grabbing parentheses (much less a pair of em-dashes). Just my feeling.
Big fan (but you knew that) and I just want to comment that the through-line for me, reading The World According To Me, is that I am simply wrong about a lot of things, usually things about which I have been quite smug. And I’ve decided that being willing to a) be wrong, and b) surrender smugness is valuable in These Times.
Just this morning you might have heard, hereabouts, Robert comment to Sallie: "Did you hear Daddy B. just admit to being wrong? When was the last time *that* happened?" (Except I can't remember what I was wrong about. But I was wrong.)
In my family home when I was a youngster, it was pretty common to hear my father defend himself "I do NOT think I'm always right! I was wrong once in 1954!!"
Though, to be honest, though I often have cause to use re-create (and never have cause to use recreate), faced with a need for re-sign or re-form I'll probably rewrite what I'm writing so I don't need either.
I'd assumed that these periodic changes to accepted grammar were the product of a coven of high school English teachers avenging still-open wounds inflicted by papers from those of us who couldn't or wouldn't learn. The changes accumulate; the further I get from my senior year, fewer of those things I thought I'd learned are correct. While it might be my aging memory, it's rewarding to have someone undeserving to blame.
I would say that grammar remains, to a great extent, unchanged (give or take the wavering use of “whom” and of the subjunctive). Points of spelling and punctuation will always alter and evolve, and they should, otherwise we’d still be talking about what we did to-day and fearing to contract the ‘flu.
Admirable as the New Yorker's stand on diaresis, commas, hyphens and other niceties may be, at this point the house style seriously diverges from ordinary usage. It has stopped being distinctive and is verging on annoying.
The number of people who do not know how to properly use quotation marks, both single and double, regularly astounds me. I edit technical documents for a living, ones written almost exclusively by engineers*, and quotation mark usage is one (of many!) things I once thought "everyone knew" but that I frequently have to correct.
By the way, creating a house style in a technical environment turns out to be harder than it sounds, and (relevantly) knowing when to use numerals vs. spelling out numbers is one of the things I've often struggled with. But—I digress.
*I mention that they are engineers not to slam engineers but merely to point out that typically the authors I edit are college graduates. I've often wondered why not "everyone knows" the things I thought everyone knew; my go-to culprit is a suspected decline in the teaching of grammar, though I will confess I lack hard data to back that up.
Being rather lazy, if I were to quote Benjamin's text as Mr. Hackensacker III did in the comment above, I would probably use the style I see in lots of (old?) British books: I would surround the quotation with single quotes and leave the doubles in place.
I feel your pain, having edited “specialist publications” for many years. Mechanical engineers are not generally known for their grammatical prowess (except my husband, but that is another story), and mechanical engineers attempting to write in English when it is not their first language… that was when I added “ghostwriting” to my list of services.
I went to Australia thirteen times in two and a half years, during which I acquired to pretentious but reflexive affectations: sayong "mobile" (which is efficient and adorable) and passing people on the left on a busy sidewalk (which perhas isn't)
Not that I don’t relentlessly glom up Brit speak, but I bet that one reason I avoid “mobile” is because I can’t recall if, in references to the phone, it’s pronounced “mo-bill” or “mo-bile.” (At least we know it’s not pronounced like Mobile, Alabama.)
I can't speak for the British, but here in Australia, the perfectly ordinary 'mobile' is what I read and hear the most, with 'mobile phone' and just 'phone' also common. In my observation, 'cellphone' and variants only occur in quotations from overseas sources. Pronunciation of 'mobile' matches your 'mo-bile' and this is confirmed in the Australian Macquarie Dictionary where the pronunciation is listed as: /ˈmoʊbaɪl/ (say 'mohbuyl). (As an aside, having read 'Mobile, Alabama' a few times before I heard it pronounced, I was surprised to find that it is pronounced 'mo-beel'.)
Thank you, Michael. Helpful and illuminating!
Mo-bull ✌️
Strictly speaking, MO-bull
It's pronounced like the opposite of immobile. If that helps...
Exactly!
The New Yorker … carefully perused with the famed Dreyer monocle.
I, too, fear the serial comma not, not now, not ever, it preys not (nor prays ever) on innocent types like me.
Uh-oh, Sallie just read one of my comments—unconsciousness ensued.
Your reference to "today’s cover illustration" confused me because I don't see anything that might be termed a cover illustration. The only graphics are the cellphone/cell phone chart and the photo of baby Sallie.
Ah, it's the illustration you'll see if you see this piece posted online. Also, if you go to the main index page, or whatever you call it, of my Substack profile, you should see it there as well.
But you inspire me to add it to the body of the piece as well, which I'm doing in 5, 4, 3, 2...
Thank you. I was going to add that to my previous comment, but the phone rang. I tried it in Chrome as well as Firefox, and since I always reach your entry via the email notification, I too have rarely seen a cover illustration.
I’ll remember this going forward! (I hope.)
By the way: One good reason to read any of my pieces by clicking on the headline and opening up the text in a fresh browser window, or whatever you call it (rather than just reading the emailed version), is (besides ease of access to the footnotes) that if I’ve done anything to the article since I first posted it (and often I do tinker here and there, largely and not largely), you’ll be reading the most up-to-date version.
(Does that make sense?)
I always click through to read posts on the web rather than in email form, partly for the reason you pointed out and partly because viewing on the web makes it easier to scroll, zoom in or out as needed, etc.
Thank you!
Here you go: https://wapo.st/4iOgua6 -- though I've canceled my subscription, it doesn't run out till May, I think.
Also, I would approve the commas around the date of Ms Fontanne's death; it sounded to me like a parenthetical note of an unimportant (to the article) fact undeserving of actual attention-grabbing parentheses (much less a pair of em-dashes). Just my feeling.
It’s all about the nuance. It’s good that you (and, I like to think, I) think nuantially (speaking of made-up words).
Big fan (but you knew that) and I just want to comment that the through-line for me, reading The World According To Me, is that I am simply wrong about a lot of things, usually things about which I have been quite smug. And I’ve decided that being willing to a) be wrong, and b) surrender smugness is valuable in These Times.
Just this morning you might have heard, hereabouts, Robert comment to Sallie: "Did you hear Daddy B. just admit to being wrong? When was the last time *that* happened?" (Except I can't remember what I was wrong about. But I was wrong.)
In my family home when I was a youngster, it was pretty common to hear my father defend himself "I do NOT think I'm always right! I was wrong once in 1954!!"
I, too, came to comment on The World According to Me (and I will) but this phrase says everything: These Times.
We need to distinguish when a footballer was resigned (I.e. disappointed) or re-signed (likely with an increase) to a contract
To say nothing of reform vs. re-form.
Though, to be honest, though I often have cause to use re-create (and never have cause to use recreate), faced with a need for re-sign or re-form I'll probably rewrite what I'm writing so I don't need either.
I spent at least 5 seconds goggling at the notion of "to be resigned" as an transitive verb "to be kicked off the team" before that penny dropped.
I just had a text exchange yesterday with much confusion because the other party wrote ‘resign’ when he meant ‘re-sign’.
Clever. Your "As the French say: Everyone has gout" brought me to a full-stop. Vraiment: Chacun l'a, sans doute!
And yet I cannot see "cooperation" without thinking of barrelmaking.
... or the housing of chickens.
I'd assumed that these periodic changes to accepted grammar were the product of a coven of high school English teachers avenging still-open wounds inflicted by papers from those of us who couldn't or wouldn't learn. The changes accumulate; the further I get from my senior year, fewer of those things I thought I'd learned are correct. While it might be my aging memory, it's rewarding to have someone undeserving to blame.
I would say that grammar remains, to a great extent, unchanged (give or take the wavering use of “whom” and of the subjunctive). Points of spelling and punctuation will always alter and evolve, and they should, otherwise we’d still be talking about what we did to-day and fearing to contract the ‘flu.
If you do it often enuf it will be accepted. Enuf said….
Now that just looks like you're insisting on a long s!
Admirable as the New Yorker's stand on diaresis, commas, hyphens and other niceties may be, at this point the house style seriously diverges from ordinary usage. It has stopped being distinctive and is verging on annoying.
"You can’t have 'naïveté' without 'naïve.' (And 'naivety' is simply too tragic-looking to be borne.)"
The attention to detail, right down to the playful "e" in "borne." Like a hand-stitched dress from the House of Dior. My head spins.
Don’t think that I didn’t notice that you went out of your way to quote me in double quote marks and replace my doubles with singles.
I swoon.
I guess I'm an old codger. I did not see playfulness in "borne". It was just correct.
The number of people who do not know how to properly use quotation marks, both single and double, regularly astounds me. I edit technical documents for a living, ones written almost exclusively by engineers*, and quotation mark usage is one (of many!) things I once thought "everyone knew" but that I frequently have to correct.
By the way, creating a house style in a technical environment turns out to be harder than it sounds, and (relevantly) knowing when to use numerals vs. spelling out numbers is one of the things I've often struggled with. But—I digress.
*I mention that they are engineers not to slam engineers but merely to point out that typically the authors I edit are college graduates. I've often wondered why not "everyone knows" the things I thought everyone knew; my go-to culprit is a suspected decline in the teaching of grammar, though I will confess I lack hard data to back that up.
Being rather lazy, if I were to quote Benjamin's text as Mr. Hackensacker III did in the comment above, I would probably use the style I see in lots of (old?) British books: I would surround the quotation with single quotes and leave the doubles in place.
I feel your pain, having edited “specialist publications” for many years. Mechanical engineers are not generally known for their grammatical prowess (except my husband, but that is another story), and mechanical engineers attempting to write in English when it is not their first language… that was when I added “ghostwriting” to my list of services.
Another fascinating missive, sir. I so enjoy your posts (Letters? Stacks?)
“Missives” is nice!
And thank you, Maureen!
laugh out loud . ❤️🙏
👍🏻❗️