In the New Yorker...

[serious crayons]

I'm reading the Louis Menand one about neoliberalism. Like all his articles, it's good if a little more dense than I would need it to be. But I came upon what I'd forgotten is the weirdest New Yorker verbal eccentricity of all: writing percent as "per cent." For Pete's sake, New Yorker, the AP finally lets us start using a % sign like normal people and you're still not just writing it out but writing two words so we can all contemplate that percent means "per one 100th" which we already know?!

When I was a copywriter, I followed AP style in general but broke it for % because the symbol is just much easier to read and easier to fit in headlines.

[Jeff Wrangler]

That one was a little dense.

[southendmd]

Thought you might enjoy this:  The Curse of the Diaeresis. 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis

[Front-Ranger]

Haha, that was entertaining, especially the end.

I used to work for a co?perative and this issue loomed time and time again. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Emily Nussbaum's article about Nashville (July 24) is interesting.

At one point, she visits a nightclub called the Lipstick Lounge. I like this little self-deprecating self-reference:

"Call me basic, but I had a good time: in Manhattan, a slovenly middle-aged woman in jeans can't walk into a nightclub, order a Diet Coke, and go dancing for free."

I never imagined a writer for TNY would be slovenly.

[Jeff Wrangler]

This amused me. In Tessa Hadley's story (July 24) the main character's son had a telly in his room "with a twisted coat hanger for an aerial."

Maybe aerial is a Britishism, but when I was a little boy, we used that word interchangeably with antenna to mean the same thing.

I will also admit to learning high jinks from Jill Lepore's article on bears (July 24) and a theater entry in "Goings On About Town" (July 31). Seriously, I thought it was one word, highjinks,  with high jinks perhaps an antiquated TNY-ism, perhaps because I've seen it instead as hijinx, but online Webster confirms that high jinks is correct. (Webster shows  hijinx as a less-common variant.)

[serious crayons]

(Webster shows  hijinx as a less-common variant.)

I think of it as the more common variant. Makes me wonder what jinx even are, and how high ones compare to lojinx (not a word, AFAIK).

Well, OK, I guess I could consult a dictionary on jink. Still doesn't really explain the word hijinx but maybe gives it a little context.

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages ? Learn more
jink
verb
change direction suddenly and nimbly, as when dodging a pursuer.
"she was too quick for him and jinked away every time"
noun
a sudden quick change of direction.
"people remember him for his runs on the wing, his jinks"

I've been going through the articles I ripped out and stapled together last time I sorted through my old TNYs. Just read one from 2019 about a woman working in the tech industry, Anna Wiener, that I liked. She published a whole memoir about that and it's supposed to be pretty good, but now I don't have to read it! 

[Front-Ranger]

Reminds me of Ennis's "high time entertainment". 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Giovanni's Room is just across the street from my barber shop, so after I got my hair cut today, I had to go over and check out the used book tables on the sidewalk outside the shop. I was surprised and delighted to find a book titled Through The Children's Gate: A Home in New York--by Adam Gopnik! 

[Front-Ranger]

I skipped more of that issue than I read. Most of those musicians I'd never heard of. I pushed through the Ed Sheeran article, although it got into stuff about music that was totally beyond my comprehension.

It seems Ed Sheeran played to a sold-out Empower (Mile-High) Stadium last night here. I can't understand the appeal. What rock star has the name Ed anyway? Now if it were Hauser...