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AWADmail Issue 596

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From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: The gift of words

This holiday season, why not make a gift of words? Here are a few suggestions.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net

American Regional English Dictionary Going Online
Seattle PI
WebCite

In Defense of a Loaded Word
The New York Times
WebCite
Also see this.

From: Dave Zobel (dzobel alumni.caltech.edu)
Subject: Entropy and the curate's egg

Just as it's impossible to "eat around the nasty bits" of a rotten egg, some see "curate's egg" as not simply a metaphor for mediocrity, but for something that becomes totally worthless the moment even the smallest part of it goes bad.

For this let us thank the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states (according to a chemistry professor of my acquaintance) that if you add a teaspoon of wine to a barrel of manure you get a barrel of manure, but if you add a teaspoon of manure to a barrel of wine you get ... a barrel of manure.

From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--curate's egg

As a retired professional cartoonist, having worked for most of the major Hollywood animation studios over a span of almost thirty years, including Disney TV Animation for a long stretch, you could say for a goodly portion of my mostly fun tenure in the animation biz, I literally DID HAVE a 'Mickey Mouse career'. (Ha!)

I actually was one (of a handful) of the key background scenario/title-card design/layout team on Disney TV's popular series, Mouse Works back in the late '90s; and part of the creative crew for the direct-to-video feature film, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas (early 2000s release).

From: Abha Jain (abhaj cadence.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--curate's egg

I have been fond of this term, ever since I came across it for the first time, in fact, through an AWADmail 285 in Dec 2007. In the corresponding weekly compendium, there was a reference from Dorothy L. Sayers's book Busman's Honeymoon. Peter Wimsey tells the vicar about his wedding night where he and his bride ended up with a dead body: "Parts of it were excellent." That comment made me pick up my first Sayers, and eventually made me a big fan. Busman's honeymoon is also a twist on the phrase busman's holiday.

Thank you for introducing me to the term curate's egg. In only two words I have finally found an apt description of our beloved Detroit Lions now in their 56th year of rebuilding.

From: Janel Christensen (janelchristensen57 gmail.com)
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--gerrymander

When I saw this word, I immediately thought of this wonderful video that explains gerrymandering by CGP Grey. He has a whole series of Politics in the Animal Kingdom, and it is wonderful.

From: Derek Noonan (wordaday ntech.ie)
Subject: Gerrymander

In Ireland the word tullymander is used to describe a failed attempt at gerrymandering. The word is a portmanteau of the surname of the responsible minister James Tully with your word of the day gerrymander.

This redrawing of constituencies was intended to secure the re-election of Tully's party, but instead backfired disastrously resulting in a landslide victory for their main opponents.

From: John Tittmann (jtittmann alriti.com)
Subject: gerrymander

It is interesting to note that here in Massachusetts people believe that Elbrige Gerry pronounced his last name with a hard G, not the soft J-sounding G that we now customarily pronounce Gerrymander with. I've learned from you, Anu, that custom trumps origin -- so soft G it is!

From: Ken Kirste (kkkirste sbcglobal.net)
Subject: gerrymander

I noticed that the caption under the illustration titled "The Original Gerrymander" lists the cartoonist as unknown. I thought it was created by Elkanah Tisdale. Both the Encyclopedia Britannia and the Teaching American History site attribute the piece to Tisdale.

From: Alex Novak (agn2 psu.edu)
Subject: 199 years of infamy

Coincidentally, last Saturday (Nov 23) was the 199th anniversary of Elbridge Gerry's death. As it turned out, the stinging portmanteau of "gerrymander" did little to ruin his political career. The year after his namesake was coined, Gerry was chosen to be the fifth vice president of the United States, under James Madison. He served for a year and a half before dying of heart failure in 1814. Find out more at tawdryknickers.com!

From: Robert Voitier (mrv1948 gmail.com)
Subject: Bias on your part (Re: McCarthyism)

In 2009 the Texas State Board of Education revised their high school history class curricula to suggest that the results of the Venona Project show Senator Joseph McCarthy to have been justified in his zeal in exposing those whom he believed to be Soviet spies or communist sympathizers.

From: Sofia Garcia (sgmartos hotmail.com)
Subject: Rube Goldberg

The equivalent term in Spain is El Profesor Franz de Copenhague a cartoon character of TBO, in a section called the great inventions of TBO.

From: Derek Noonan (wordaday ntech.ie)
Subject: Rube Goldberg

To my mind the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine would have to be the one put together for the 2003 Honda Accord ad campaign.

Worried that it's all CGI? Snopes says it's legit and that it took in excess of 600 takes.

From: Richard Stallman (rms gnu.org)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Rube Goldberg

A Swiss movie, Der Lauf Der Dinge, presents a real-life series of Rube Goldberg machines. It is a tour de force, a fascinating movie with no characters real or imaginary.

From: Dan Miller (dandrsm gmail.com)
Subject: barrage balloons and Low cartoons (Re: blimp)

I've always thought the word Blimp preceded the cartoon character, that indeed the character's name was a back-derivation from the name of that other, literal, gasbag. Military barrage balloons, with no internal structure and hence "limps" came in two shapes: the round ones, A-limps, and the cigar-shaped ones we see more often, B-limps, quickly shortened to Blimps. Is this then just a story and totally apocryphal?

From: Debby Rockwood (prockwood columbus.rr.com)
Subject: Cartoons

Coincidentally, the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum just had its grand opening on Nov 15, 2013. Billy Ireland was the nationally-known cartoonist for the Columbus Dispatch from 1898 until 1935. For anyone interested in cartoons and their history, this museum is worth a trip to Columbus.