Or, if the Family Circus comic strip has any say in it, “Wach four itt neckst yeer.” I appreciate familial circus support, but couldn’t Bil Keane’s promotional art have been a little less cute, with non-precocious Billy pointing out that the date of the drive was “Satidy May 9″?
Well, at least he spelled “May” right. What explains young Billy’s spelling? Perhaps Josh over at Comics Curmudgeon has the answer.
Meantime, back at the land of superbig spiral notebooks, let’s appreciate the unfortunate message: Letter Carriers will forgive misspellings—even on envelopes, perhaps? If they’re so forgiving of spelling, why do all my letters addressed to “Bill” Keane come back as “undeliverable as addressed”?
The Ridger weighs in with a great comment on my post yesterday about the potential eponym value of Madoff-pronounced-MadeOff:
It’s considerably more Dickensian than Blagojevich, that’s for sure. Kathleen Parker said in the Washington Post last Wednesday:
Among his other activities, Blagojevich — whose Dickensian name rings nearly eponymous — allegedly has been busy trying to get certain members of the Tribune’s editorial board fired by threatening to withhold state assistance for the financing or sale of Wrigley Field (Tribune also owns the Chicago Cubs).
I’m REALLY not sure what she means by “rings nearly eponymous”.
Agreed, Ridger. One characteristic of eponyms we use today—boycott, bowdlerize, maverick, as examples—are (like, oh, at least a handful of words in the language) pronounceable. Machiavellian and Celsius give us a challenge, yes, but we can still get them out of our mouths without counting the syllables and mentally watching where our tongues go as we slog through the syllables in slow motion, as we would do with Dag-nab-o-glitch, or however it’s pronounced. I believe we should all pronounce the eventual near-eponym with a Jerry Lewis jabber, the way Jon Stewart does.
And what would a Dag-nab-o-glitch be, anyway? Someone who tries to sell political appointments? Someone who attempts outrageous indiscretions and denies them equally outrageously? A hairstyle that protects your face like an awning?
I would suggest that we brohaugh the notion (mock with silly suggestions), except for that little pronounceability factor . . . and the fact that the meaning wouldn’t be significantly different from “stewarting the notion.”
Let me use this as a jumping-off point for some verbal silliness on The Daily Show last week. Stewart shows a clip of an unnamed reporter referring to the DagwoodSand-o-Wich affair as:
This political drama played out on the national stage is much more than that. It’s human soap opera, as a matter of fact.
Stewart responds, “I see. So this would be like a soap opera except—and this would be the twist—with human roles.” As a matter of fact.
As a capper, the unnamed reporter is jabbering over a display of the words “GOVERNOR’S FAMILY FUED.”
Check out the episode of the Daily Show, enjoy this and some other wordplay there (the czar schtick is fun), and then join me in wondering: What the hell does “nearly eponymous” mean?
As you can imagine, I’ve encountered numerous misspellings and mispronunciations of my name over the years, though I can’t for the world figure out what’s so tough about “Bill.” But seriously, folks . . .
A couple of name-related items in the news, both related to dishonor:
First, what took them so long? Twenty years to correct a painful typographical error. Finally, Clermont County, Ohio (where I lived for a time) has corrected a misspelling in a war memorial in the municipality of Bethel; Sgt. Earnest Wilson, killed by a landmine in Vietnam at age 20 in 1968, is now honored by his given name. A typo in a plaque mounted on a memorial wall had spelled the first name “Earest.”
“He made the ultimate sacrifice,” [brother] Jim Wilson noted. “The least they could do was spell his name right.”
Twenty years after the misspelled plaque was dedicated, that wrong will be made right. A new plaque, with the names of the fallen soldiers – Pfc. Robert D. Waddell, Sgt. Jerry A. Eaton, Sgt. Paul J. Chandler and Sgt. Earnest Wilson – will be unveiled at 2 p.m. Tuesday during a Veterans Day ceremony at the Bethel monument.
Second, what made him make it so long? Contrasting a story where a dedicated, caring family has fought to honor the proper name of a loved one is the story of an English brat that dishonors his own given name by officially changing it to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.” Sure, it’s a stunt, but I understand his grandmother’s feelings about it:
The Glastonbury, England, teenager — originally named George Garratt — said his new name, which is thought to be the world’s longest, has so outraged his grandmother that she is no longer speaking to him, The Telegraph reported Monday.
She won’t be the last. Other people who won’t speak to him will be, say, any HR professional receiving his resume.
How poetically satisfying to razz the misspelling of raspberry.
I spotted this concession item list on my recent BBQ travels (note the tea flavor at the top):
I’m not going to simply make fun of the misspelling. I’m going to razz it. Because razz is ultimately a shortening of raspberry, as in “giving misspellers the raspberry,” which is in turn a shortening of “raspberry tart,” rhyming slang for fart. A raspberry tart is a description of the mocking fart sound you create by sticking your tongue out between otherwise closed lips and blowing.
So, raspberries to rasberry tea . . . though as we consider the bodily sources of words, I wonder. Is a side benefit of drinking lots of rasberry tea avoiding the need to P?
One of my favorite movies is Steve Martin’s LA Story, a smartly written, mildly surreal love story and a paeon to a wacky city that Shakespeare so loved (you have to see the movie). And let’s not overlook its healthy dose of pre-Sex in the City Sarah Jessica Parker.
At one point, Martin as TV weatherman Harris K. Telemacher speaks of “the interesting word usements I structure.” In that context, I was delighted to findsome interesting word usements in the real story of LA, in an LA Times section displaying reader-submitted photos. Here are some samples:
I spotted and camera-phoned the sign below in a . . . umm, OK, it was a friend of mine in the liquor store, and he was sober at the time (honest!)—though the writer and proofreader of the sign apparently were not.
This inventive product from Coors is apparently for the extreme couch potato. Beer, and then no reason to have to move once it’s processed:
, 
and 
. Feel free to 
