PARVUM
OPUS
Number
297
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The dexterous yet not
sinister Rich Lederer, the Verbivore,
wrote:
Here's my little disquisition on "typewriter
words" ...
When we seek to find the longest word that can be
typed on a single horizontal row of a standard typewriter keyboard, we
naturally place our fingers on the top row of letters ~ qwertyuiop ~ because
five of the seven vowels reside there.
From that single row we can type but a handful of ten-letter words:
repertoire, proprietor, perpetuity, pepperroot, peppertree, pepperwort, and ~
ta da! ~ typewriter.
The longest middle-row words are flagfalls (nine letters)
and alfalfas (eight letters).
Stewardesses, aftereffects, desegregated, and reverberated, all twelve
letters, are the longest words than can be typed with just the left hand, while
johnny-jump-up (twelve letters, a variety of pansy) is the longest right hand
word. The thirteen-letter dismantlement
and the ten-letter skepticism sinisterly and dexterously alternate hands.
Someone else’s typo is our
gain: paintstakingly: how you should paint.
Mike Sykes wrote about
Thomas Edison, “I'd
respect him even more if his goal was to invent a product that people wanted to
buy. But then he did, didn't he?” Yes, he did. Too bad Nicola Tesla
didn’t have his sales acumen. Then maybe we’d be getting free electricity right
out of the ground. Or something. I never did understand it but it just goes to
show that it’s not enough to have a great idea.
Our neighbor John Neal sent
a poem that Fred and I like very much, being former wizards ourselves:
Who is You? Who is Me?
I am not the Wizard
That I used to be
I have to relearn everything
From a flower to a tree
It's really getting tough
Being what I used to be
When I can't remember
Who is You? Who is Me?
Can words make it so? Can
you be a Christian and a Muslim simultaneously, as Seattle Episcopalian priest
Ann Holmes Redding says she is, though they have some decidedly contradictory
theology?
Can
you have a baby and be a real man, like Thomas Beatie, a female who wasn’t
really cut out (pun intended) to be convincingly Y-chromosome?
Can
you be a practicing conservative, as Christopher Buckley says he is, and vote
for Obama?
If
all these things are possible, I’ve been way too restrained in my speech all
these years. (“I am rich!” I’ll let you know if it works.)
Dave DaBee tipped me off to the article
about Chris Buckley, William Buckley’s son, who says he is voting for Obama.
CB’s writing reveals some of his father’s style (e.g. Latin tags), yet not
quite-quite ("whatever"); and he certainly doesn’t have the same
substance (secular prayers).
I only lost one reader after
the 10 Top Reasons to Vote for Anyone But Obama. (Hey, I could have made a
longer list, and maybe I will.) Although he didn’t tell me his reason for
unsubscribing, I have a solid hunch, and now I can talk behind his back. I knew
this person years ago in graduate school, and he used to occasionally send
rather lengthy, interesting, and witty contributions to PO. But a few years ago
he wrote to me that he was extremely angry that his alma mater had invited
George W. Bush to speak at commencement, and I think I wrote back that after
all, the man was elected. I never heard from my old classmate after that except
when he told me our favorite professor had died. I wish my old friend had
stayed to fight it out.
By the way, one of my students, who’s from Mali but was
educated in France, brought up the subject that he’s noticed that people here
who are voting Republican are afraid to say so.
And my Chinese student became noticeably nervous when we
were talking about a qigong master I know of (Dr. Yan Xin) who seems to have
disappeared from view since the followers of falun gong began to be persecuted,
imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Falun gong was taught by a very different
sort of qigong master, Li Hongzi, but I think the government distrust of him
rubbed off on other taoist masters. I haven’t found any updates on web pages
relating to Dr. Yan Xin (not to be confused with a man of the same name who
teaches martial arts, though Dr. Yan Xin is also a martial arts master) since
around 2001. My student was so clearly uncomfortable with conversation about
his government that I changed the subject.
Why graphic designers must
have editorial restraints: The current issue of Men’s Journal has a photo of a man
on the cover that bleeds over the title so what you read is “Men’s urnal” which
looks way too much like “Men’s urinal”. If you look at some of the past covers,
you’ll see that this seems to be a habit with them, although one cover with a
photo of Harrison Ford laid the title over his forehead. The ways of the
designer are inscrutable.
-|- Rob Kyff has a column called The
Word Guy that’s worth catching. His column “Cool
Off with a Babbling Book” has some good suggestions for books about
language.
-|- Fred turned me on to allwords.com,
an English dictionary with a multi-lingual search.
-|- My friend Sonny Robertson has a great new CD out. Buy
it at: http://sonnyrobertson.com/buy.html,
and listen to the two interviews with Sonny at www.sonnyrobertson.com/. The songs
are variously funky, funny, or moody, and there are a couple of witty songs
about high-tech communication, “Text Me Before You Sex Me” and “Blues 2000”.
-|- I picked up The Herblock Book at a yard sale,
inscribed “LG & Fern H Nichols at Christmas 1952, A gift from us to us.”
I paid a quarter but you can pick up a used copy for anything from 94 cents to
$50+ on Amazon. Herb Block was a political cartoonist and writer, and while I
don’t know much about most of the issues assembled in this book, it all sounds
familiar more than half a century later. Block quoted Winston Churchill’s
remark that elections are always bad and the only thing worse would be not
having them.
Guy: Yeah, that date movie was dumb.
Girl: Oh, you saw it?
Guy: No, but I could tell by the font
it would be dumb. It was the same font as Scary Movie and Not Another
Teen Movie. I really hated those movies.
Girl: Ahhh, impact.
Guy: What?
Girl: The font. It's called
"impact."
There is a type font called Impact. I selected it here but will it survive e-mail and
blogging?
New
interview
with bluesman Sonny Robertson.
______________________________________________
Trivium pursuit ~ rhetoric, grammar, and logic, or reading, writing,
and reckoning: Parvum
Opus
discusses language, education,
journalism, culture, and more. Parvum
Opus
by Rhonda Keith is a publication of KeithOps
/ Opus Publishing Services. Editorial input provided by Fred Stephens.
Rhonda Keith is a long-time writer, editor, and English teacher. Back issues
from December 2002 may be found at http://www.geocities.com/keithops/.
Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries. The PO mailing list is
private, never given or sold to anyone else. If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please e-mail, and
I'll take you off the mailing list. Copyright Rhonda Keith 2008. Parvum Opus or part of it may be
reproduced only with permission, but you may forward the entire newsletter as
long as the copyright remains.
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T-SHIRTS, DENIM
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Flash in the Pants
If you're so smart why aren't
you me?
If you build it they won't come
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Akron U. Alma Mater: The Lost
Verse
PWE (Protestant Work Ethic) tote
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I am here
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Opus now appears at http://cafelit.blogspot.com/. It is also
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newspaper from Calhoun County, West Virginia. See Editor Bob Weaver's interview
with me (February 10, 2007 entry), and the PO every week in Columns.
WHEN SONNY GETS BLUE! Check out the
video and music clips of great blues man Sonny Robertson and the Howard Street
Blues Band at http://www.sonnyrobertson.com/
and http://www.youtube.com/rondaria,
with his new original song, "A Different Shade of Blue". And listen
to Judy Joy Jones’s interview
with Sonny.
PEACE MISSION INDIA blogs
the progress of Pastor Roy Jacob’s mission to build churches in India. Now 79,
Pastor Roy (who is an Indian) has built 10 churches, and has a girls’ school to
rescue girls from the mountains and jungles who otherwise might be married off
as children or perhaps sold.
SEARCH
IT OUT ON AMAZON : "It is the glory of
God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a
matter." Proverbs 25:2; "Get wisdom! Even if it costs you everything, get
understanding!" Proverbs 4:7:
The poet Muriel Rukeyser said
the universe is not composed of atoms, but stories. The physicist Werner
Heisenberg said the universe is not made of matter, but music.
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