Archive for July, 2007
Two of the great artists of the 20th century–filmmaker [tag]Ingmar Bergman[/tag] and football innovator [tag]Bill Walsh[/tag]–both passed away on the same day, Monday, July 30, 2007.
Football is still being played the Bill Walsh way, and films these days never have the emotional depth or meaning that Berman was able to instill in his repertoire. Moreover, both were gentlemen of class and style. It’s hard to find–and lose–giants like these.
Another celebrity passed away the same day, TV newscaster and interviewer [tag]Tom Snyder[/tag]. Snyder exhibited a certain joie de vivre (more likely joie de bonne chance), but I hardly put him in the category of the other two.
However, it is unusual that three such individuals would leave our world on the same day, with only one–Bergman–living to what I would consider a ripe old age.
It’s our collective loss.
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This falls into the category of "out of the mouths of old farts (me)."
Whenever I take my dog for a car ride, he goes absolutely bonkers, eliciting this shrill howl at the sight of every animal, be it bird, cat, dog, squirrel or hunched-over human. The shrill sound is actually ear-piercing, and while he shreiks it, he claws maniacally at the window.
Today, I had enough and I yelled at him, "Quit manaicizing!" This is pronounced, of course, "muh-nai-ih-cizing" (I’m no good at these pronunciation devices, and actually I’m not sure how even to spell the word correctly–it might need two i’s before the c).
Anyway, I recommend we start a movement for this word. E-mail five of your friends with this new word before sunset, or you will find yourself going mysteriously maniacal.
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In English, of course. Now, I didn’t compile this list; I’m just linking to a site called “100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English,” which I discovered when I was preparing to write a Building Blocks of English entry on phrases.
I’ll get to the phrases explanation over the weekend, but enjoy the list. I’ve already seen several words and phrases that I routinely mispronounce.
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We’ve all seen those cheesy Las Vegas ads that tout the benefits of having sex in Sin City (as if you can’t have it anywhere else and as if your spouse/significant other doesn’t care that you go to L.V. by youself or with a circle of horny friends).
The ad saying is: "What happens here, stays here."
Now, the truth of this saying aside (and there is none), let’s look at the grammar. I’ve read numerous grammar explanations that mandate a comma after the first verbal phrase. But why?
Doesn’t "What happens here stays here" make the same sense without the interrupting comma? To me, this is another example of a misued and overused comma, the grammar books (and Oxford English Dictionary if they’ve weighed in on this) be damned.
Now, if you start with a dependent clause, finishing it with a comma is appropriate: "When you sin here, it stays here."
But that doesn’t sell. I guess clean grammar doesn’t sell overall. LOL
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