Pedantry, or, Skitting the Trump Fantastic

#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor

“Donald Trump is poised to become the first American in history to headline a presidential inauguration and payoff the victims of an allegedly fraudulent scam in the same week.”

―Steve Benen

It seems pedantic enough to wonder if “payoff” really should be one word in this particular usage. As a compound word, we are more accustomed to a noun, that something is a payoff, while the verb remains two words, to pay off.

Never mind. Compared to the obvious point, ossification creates a risk of spilling beer on skittles far too great to warrant boning the point like that.

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Image note: Donald Trump awaits his introduction at the 2005 launch of Trump University. (Detail of photo by Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

Benen, Steve. “Details emerge on ‘Trump University’ settlement”. msnbc. 21 December 2016.

Pedantry in High Dudgeon

“In a press release Thursday, the committee accused the Pentagon of not being upfront about what it knew:”

―Amanda Terkel

This is a pet peeve.

Look: “Upfront” is not a word.

The Ben Carson Show (Still Going)

“There is something fundamentally odd about Carson’s assertion that Obama was raised white, because it contains within it the insinuation that there is only one way to be black or experience blackness. There is only one way to be raised black.”

―Janell Ross

Something about themes goes here, but that has to do with something else. Meanwhile, yes, Dr. Ben Carson is still going through at least some of the motions of running for president. That is to say, he has not yet actually suspended his campaign.

Maybe something about a whine cellar goes here. Oh, come on; you know there’s a … not a pun, but, you know, one of those Wheel of Fortune puzzle solutions; three words, two compound words, that sort of thing? Anybody?

Hello?

Oh, right. Steve Benen reflects on dullness:

I can appreciate why Carson’s odd beliefs don’t warrant much scrutiny anymore. He’s technically still a candidate, but after last-place finishes in South Carolina and Nevada, there is no credible scenario in which the retired neurosurgeon wins the GOP nomination. It’s not a question of whether his campaign will end in failure, but rather, when.

That said, Carson’s “raised white” nonsense deserves a rebuke independent of the status of his candidacy ....

.... For what it’s worth, Carson appeared on CNN late in the day, saying in reference to the president, “I wasn’t criticizing him. Excuse me, but that’s you guys in the news media who are trying to make it into a fight. I’m just stating the obvious facts.”

“Obvious facts” such as the notion that Obama was “raised white”? Please.

Baked Lettuce, and the Decline of Western Civilization

This is a human weakness.

In the first place, I loathe badly-written headlines, and Huffington Post specializes in that.

There is also the pedantic fact that “the Internet” doesn’t get angry at anyone. Naturally, we get what they mean, but still, it’s a really, really dumb headline, and HuffPo ought to be embarrassed; its editors would probably do the site―and the rest of humanity―some good by filing their resignations.

Additionally, we might offer the following consideration:

People really feel strongly about putting lettuce in the oven.

The Internet wept as they watched Nigella Lawson bake some lettuce leaves and subsequently add insult to injury by placing a fried egg on top.

The chef made her version of a Caesar salad on her BBC show “Simply Nigella” and it did not go over easy with fans. Her recipe consisted of lettuce baked in the oven with anchovies and garlic, all topped with the aforementioned egg. This strays from the traditional formula, which involves fresh lettuce, croutons and a white dressing.

Outraged viewers took to Twitter, decrying Nigella for her offensive, senseless actions.

Speaking of being embarrassed, we can only wonder if writing about people wringing their hands and losing their minds because Nigella put lettuce in the oven is what Samantha Guff had in mind when she undertook her editorial fellowship at Huffington Post. Much like being relegated to penning articles about plot holes in Star Wars, we might wonder if Ms. Guff finds herself enduring those excruciating moments in which she wonders if her parents were right, and she should have skipped journalism for something more useful.

To the other, I was dumb enough to click the lettuce link, and it doesn’t help to suggest I did so fully expecting to write a blog post about it. (No, really, one need not be a scholar to recognize wasted journalism from afar; promoted content is a particular sensitivity of mine, and the Hufffington Post sidebar is particularly odious. Something about dead fish in a barrel goes here.)

Look, bad journalism is one thing. And, yes, HuffPo’s need to suggest godawful content is the sort of thing Arianna owes her readers fiercely for. The age of the internet has brought us tremendous informational resources; unfortunately, our market priorities demand we squander them. Seriously, as much as I might pick on Sophie Bartholomew, Anisa Subedar, Marion Edney, and Danny Beckwith for being hilariously useless human beings, I also acknowledge it’s a thin pretense for wasting my own time. So, you know, let’s blame Samantha. And she, in turn, can point to her editors. And they, in turn, can tell Arianna what a wonderful person she is, and how her shit doesn’t stink. Honestly, who looks at a potentially infinite idea and sets up a business model to waste as much of it as humanly possible?

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Guff, Samantha. “Internet Is Mad At Nigella Lawson For Putting Lettuce In The Oven”. The Huffington Post. 17 November 2015.

An Exorcism: I Read It, So You Must, Too

To the one, trivia can be fun.

To the other, it is occasionally a bit unsettling that, well, right. I mean, somebody had to write it down.

Consider it this way: Todd Van Luling’s HuffPo article about “5 Plot Holes You Never Noticed In ‘Star Wars'” is, in its own way, kind of fascinating. Sure, it’s pedantically snobby, and presumes Star Wars viewers are complete morons, but it is not an endeavor without merit. The amount of work it takes to fill the column inches trying to make this sort of stuff sound intellectual complicated should not be understated.

Or perhaps that isn’t fair; those of us who have had the whole thirty-seven years to watch and dream about these films until we’re sick of them are accustomed to this sort of trivial addiction. You know, like that one kid we all knew who collected everything Star Wars, and then used his collection to pay for college. Oh, wait, actually that was kind of smart. Never mind.

But for the youngest generation, who arrived after the prequel trilogy, this stuff might be news. After all, they weren’t there to hear everyone grumbling about the lack of continuity between the two episode blocs as they walked back to their cars after the show.

Then again, in this economy, with a jobless recovery, who can blame a guy for taking what work he can get?

Again, that is probably unfair. But articles like these always recall a curious episode from over a decade ago, before CNN Headline News became the HLN monstrosity you find playing on the flatscreens in a bourgeois McDonald’s. Late autumn, 2003 or so. There’s a war on. The phrase, “I died a little inside”, had not yet risen to fashionable heights. Or maybe it had. A new young reporter gets his first big shot on the air, and he’s stuck doing a report on which sweaters will look best on your small dog during the Christmas season. Which, in turn, is enough to inspire a recollection of the old Wayne Cotter joke about masturbating a fish.^α

We should probably take it easy on Van Luling. To the one, it’s a job. To the other, yeah, it’s also just a bit creepy. Flip a coin.

Our apologies, though, Mr. Van Luling. And, honestly? If you can explain to me why anyone in the Universe would wear their hair like Leia’s, that would be a piece of trivia worth more than a Claven on a barstool.^β

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^α What, you want trivia? Find that joke. It’s sublime.

^β It’s called mixing metaphors, an exercise that, as this example shows, should be undertaken with great caution, and only under extremely necessary circumstances. Otherwise it ends up looking like that.

Van Luling, Todd. “5 Plot Holes You Never Noticed In ‘Star Wars'”. The Huffington Post. 21 October 2014.