To make sport of bad English translations by non-English speakers is to flirt with, nay dive headfirst into, unbecoming condescension. But sometimes, it's irresistible. "Please use it referring to as equipped," has been an all-purpose mantra in my house ever since those words arrived on the wrapper of a Honda Civic air filter sometime in the 1980s. Last weekend, my son Silas received a set of Chinese-made Edifier speakers he had ordered on line. Among the packaging, he found this poetic brand testimonial: I believe this can only be fully appreciated as blank verse: Big surprise, astonishment, and enjoyment. Ever from the sparkles of ideas...

22 January, 2014

Writing in the New Republic, Ben Crair has ripped off a screed against the current fashion for standing desks — that is, desks you work at while standing or, for extremists, walking on a treadmill. To prepare Screw Your Standing Desk! A sitter's manifesto, Crair asked writers about their sitting/standing/treadmilling work habits. Most replied they had more important things to consider, but Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Absurdistan, and Super Sad True Love Story, offered this response, dear to Contrarian's heart: I do not sit. I lie. I am in bed now, writing to you. All my writing is done...

10 July, 2013

Miranda July has a publishing project underway that exists only in your email inbox. She asked 10 famous and somewhat famous friends and acquaintances (writers, actors, scientists, artists, athletes)  to look through their email archives and send her real emails in which they discuss particular topics like money or giving advice. She groups these by topic, and she'll be sending out a set every Monday from July 1 through November 11, 2013. You can sign up to receive them. "How they comport themselves in email is so intimate, almost obscene — a glimpse of them from their own point of view," July writes. Here is...

09 July, 2013

It's always risky to opine on issues of spelling and grammar, and sure enough, several readers have objected to the graphic I posted [original source unknown] mocking a purported spelling error in the Harper Party's TV ad attacking newly anointed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. These readers variously argue that many dictionaries rate judgement (two e's) a perfectly acceptable spelling, or even consider judgment (one e) to be an exclusively American orthography. Arguing from the authority of recent dictionaries is a mug's game, since postmodernist lexicographers have rejected prescriptivism in favor of descriptivism. The job of a dictionary, these rubber-kneed democrats believe,...

02 May, 2013

Snap quiz:  What do the following verses have in common? And that's how it went all afternoon, one lizard after another It made me wonder if snow leopards have a taste for joggers as well As is typical, the Pope stayed above the fray and did not comment. Whether such tactics will have a chilling effect remains to be seen. Answer: All four are inadvertent haikus, composed by humans but discovered by machines. The first two come from a Tumblr blog created by New York Times editor Jacob Harris, who adapted some open-source compter code to scan the homepage of the New York Times, looking for snippets of text that conform to the Haiku...

14 April, 2013

When I was a teenager, my parents were friends with Malcolm Hobbs, publisher of what was then a weekly newspaper in Orleans, Massachusetts. The Cape Codder was a respectable example of what might be called the golden age of community weeklies. From time to time, it ran detailed articles — "profiles" — of local worthies, a habit that one day generated a warning letter from a lawyer for The New Yorker magazine. The term, "Profile," he asserted, was a trademark of the great journal, who legendary founding editor, Harold Ross, first applied it to detailed articles about individuals sometime in the...

26 July, 2012

An anonymous cartoonist strikes a blow for virtuous punctuation: When will newspaper style guides wake up to its obvious superiority? H/T Lee Amme Gillan via David Rodenhiser. This has been cropping up on the net since mid-September. If anyone can devine the artist's identity, I'll update....

06 October, 2011

Civil Rights activist Warren Reed took the time to read the complex documents setting forth the Dexter Government's furtive plan to slash medical benefits for residents of special care homes. The documents were posted here last night. The Dexter Government shelved the plan, which would have required residents making less than $2,000 per year to pay for needed medical supplies, dental treatments, vision care, and certain drugs including, in some cases, insulin and anti-seizure medication. The unannounced cuts, developed without consultation, were to have been implemented Canada Day, but were put on hold late Thursday after the Canadian Press wire...

01 July, 2011
When Hugo Lindgren took over as editor of New York in 1997, he found the magazine’s staff grieving over the firing of his predecessor, Kurt Andersen, now a best-selling novelist. Now top dog at the New York Times Magazine, Lindgren reports that Andersen unwittingly left behind a gift.
Tacked to the bulletin board in the office I took over was a single page titled “Words We Don’t Say.” It contained, as you might surmise, words and phrases that Kurt found annoying and didn’t want used in his magazine.
The list [pdf] stands up pretty well, but I’ll bet Contrarian readers could nominate a few submissions. I would allow indie, and nominate the following additions:
Journey (except meaning “long trip”) The rest, as they say, is history Speak to [a topic]
After the jump, the original list:
26 June, 2011

The Chicago Manual of Style, grand dame of copydesk styleguides, has published its 16th edition, but Ed Park, writing at Bookforum.com, recalls the 14th fondly: Though I never read the book cover to cover, the Chicago Manual of Style took up a lot of brain space during my copyediting years. Section headings suggested good titles for poems or chapters: "Mistaken Junction" (5.63), the vertiginous "Words Used as Words" (6.76). Ostensibly a reference work, it was really a form of secret potent literature, offering some of the challenges and unconventional pleasures of the sort of doorstop-shaped fiction I was consuming back then...

20 November, 2010
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