language: it's a toss-up
...could they by any chance be related?
Or: is this what they mean by sub-editing??
I know languages evolve, but really. There's evolution, as in emerging out of the primordial porridge, and then there is turning back into porridge. I like porridge, but I know which kind of evolution I'd favour. I noticed two tiny things lately and wanted to remark them, but never got a chance.
1. The standfirst on an article in the Guardian:
"From Jonathan Swift to Joe Klein, writers have gone to great lengths to hide their identities and cannily exploited the ensuing public speculation. John Mullan on how anonymity is often a sure route to notoriety."
How, you ask, can something "often" be a "sure" route? It's either a sure route or it isn't. Otherwise the poor sap who does it will be left agitating: "is this going to be one of those times when it's a sure route? Or isn't it? Ohhhhh, I just can't be sure!"
2. From the body of an article in the Times - anonymously written, from what I can make out, and thus almost certainly sure to achieve notoriety, at least here in the Halls of Baroque:
[The new Risk & Regulation Advisory Council] "is intended to protect us from the cotton-wool approach to risk. It should control the wilder excesses of health and safety legislation, such as the legend that children must wear goggles to play conkers... This council's first targets are superbug scares and the terror of Reubenesque plumpness [my italics]."
Now, I had assumed that the particular kind of plumpness that comes from eating hot salt beef, saurkraut and melted swiss on rye, with mustard and a kosher dill pickle, was no more or less terrifying than the normal kind. Am I that out of kilter with the popular imagination? See, this is the kind of worry sloppy language can cause. And now I want a Reuben and you can't get one here. But it would only make me terrifyingly fat.
(nb. In trying to find this piece again I googled "reubenesque," (go on, click it: best fun you'll have all day) and made the horrifying discovery that everyone - simply everyone, dahling - says it. There are hundreds of pages of links. It is a whole new word! It's almost as if Rubens had never existed, poor mite.)
4 comments:
Quite with you on point two. Horrible.
Point one, though could be okay if you assume there are different kinds of anonymity (eg the anonymity of disguise; the anonymity of pseudonym; the anonymity of standing in a crowd). Therefore, it could be argued that one type of anonymity is a sure route to notoriety, and another isn't. Thus if most, but not all types of anonymity are sure routes to notoriety, then it's fine to say "anonymity is often a sure route to notoriety".
But I haven't read it and, of course, no sort of anonymity is a sure route to notoriety - so it's slack writing after all.
Can you tell by my rather rigid frame of mind that I've just been filling in my tax return? ;)
And the oddest thing is that Rubens (as in Barrichello - the formula one racing driver, who I assume you're talking about) isn't at all plump. He couldn't fit into his racing car if he were. Though I believe he's partial to a corned beef sarnie while he knocks out the odd Counter-Reformation altarpiece in his spare time...
well, that article has even started me considering writing 'Strife in the North' under a made up name now Miss B, but Currer Bell's taken I see, sigh...
Rilly dear, I know, I know. I do see you as a tragisc heroine, you know; it's very beautiful.
alan, I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here, but it doesn't seem helpful. However, the fat person getting into the racing car image did make me laugh. Speaking as a fat person. Hurrah.
Quink, three cheers for you! I'm with you as long as you agree that it's slack writing. And come back in a few hours when you've had a beer; I hope you'll then be both horrified AND amused...
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