In the New Yorker...

[Front-Ranger]

We were talking about Eddie Van Halen recently. I was delighted to learn that his son Wolfgang plays on "I'm Just Ken": https://ew.com/movies/wolfgang-van-halen-josh-freese-barbie-soundtrack-ken-ryan-gosling/

[serious crayons]

I visited an old friend from high school on my trip to Switzerland and we had the chance to talk about the books we had studied together in AP English. After all these years, we have not changed our position that it was stupid to spend so much time on The Scarlet Letter. Back then, administrators felt obligated to teach us American literature but I wish they'd chosen Whitman instead of Hawthorne. I suppose Whitman was considered too ecstatic and nature-loving...quite the opposite of Hawthorne. Or perhaps did the authorities want to tamp down our teen-aged desires and warn that we might be figuratively branded with a scarlet A if we indulged in them? If so, it didn't work.

I was going to come to the defense of The Scarlett Letter, but as I began to think about it I couldn't remember when I'd read it, and then I realized I haven't! I don't think. I just read the Wikipedia description of the plot and beyond the most famous aspects the plot is not particularly familiar. I liked Young Goodman Brown possibly better because it's more ambiguous.

I also love Whitman, of course! Not that I've got a vast knowledge of his entire oeuvre. But the friend who officiated at my wedding, who'd just been ordained as a Unitarian minister, quoted Whitman in the ceremony. I joke that Unitarians mention Whitman as often as they do Jesus.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I was going to come to the defense of The Scarlett Letter, but as I began to think about it I couldn't remember when I'd read it, and then I realized I haven't! I don't think. I just read the Wikipedia description of the plot and beyond the most famous aspects the plot is not particularly familiar. I liked Young Goodman Brown possibly better because it's more ambiguous.

I liked Young Goodman Brown, too. I've never read TSL either, but when I was a teenager I read The House of the Seven Gables. I pushed through the whole book, but about the only thing I remember about it was that Hawthorne's style seem down right sing-songy, and that nearly drove me crazy.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Over lunch today I finished Jill Lepore's article on Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk (Sept. 18).

I am still laughing over what Mr. Shawn would say about this sentence (from Lepore, not Isaacson or Musk):

"The book upholds a core conviction of many executives: sometimes to get shit done you have to be a dick."

 

[serious crayons]

Over lunch today I finished Jill Lepore's article on Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk (Sept. 18).

I am still laughing over what Mr. Shawn would say about this sentence (from Lepore, not Isaacson or Musk):

"The book upholds a core conviction of many executives: sometimes to get shit done you have to be a dick."

 

Even I'm a little shocked by that. Not disapproving exactly, because I don't really care if people swear. Maybe in context the wording sort of characterizes the gruff, let's-get-er-done attitude of people who think along those lines. But as a writer I usually try to stay away from profanity except in a direct quote (and even then, in the newspaper, we'd have to substitute [expletive]).

Did I already mention (yes, I think I already did) that a few years ago I wrote a story in which I used the phrase "flipping cold" (about people's facial hair getting covered with frost in Minnesota in January)? The editor emails me, "I don't think we can get away with 'flipping.'" And I responded "So shall we just go with fucking, then?" Later I heard from another coworker that this editor doesn't let his teenage kids say "flipping."  I feel like even Mr. Shawn might have been OK with "flipping."

 

[Front-Ranger]

I say effing. Would that fly?

[serious crayons]

I say effing. Would that fly?

In a newspaper, I don't think so. That's an even more direct reference to the taboo word than "flipping." When I wrote that story, I also ruled out "fricking." But "flipping" is an actual word that could have developed to mean "extremely, in a bad way," independent of its quasi-homonym.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Sometimes in articles that quote dialog from Irish plays, for example, speakers say "fecking." I've wondered if that's dialect, or if it's a word Irish people actually use instead of the word it obviously replaces.

[serious crayons]

Sometimes in articles that quote dialog from Irish plays, for example, speakers say "fecking." I've wondered if that's dialect, or if it's a word Irish people actually use instead of the word it obviously replaces.

Good question. I've always assumed it was dialect, because it's even more explicit than fricking.

I had a British editor for a couple of years who'd indicate large quantities by saying "a shed load." I wondered if that's what he meant to say, perhaps an actual expression in England, or if he'd just misheard the American term.

[Jeff Wrangler]

So, Bettermost moms, did you read the article about Mom rage (Sept. 25)? What did you think of it?