30 Comments

I would have chosen Pam Shermeyer's Ogizm thingamajig for the win!!!

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Texcremen

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I can never get the poll to load, but in this case I didn't care since I thought many of the HMs were better than any of the winners.

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Suzanne, do you have a favorite HM this week?

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Ah, finally. I tried several times yesterday to reply and was unable to. I liked 'NOPE' RATIO and TARROGAN. And Sarah Walsh's Welsh was brilliant as well.

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SPLATYPU got an HM last time for Bev Sharp. The vetting is the hardest part.

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And TAP ART MEN got an HM for Erik Wennstrom. So many great minds thinking alike.

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Your nomination for the replacement RU is Pam Shermeyer's OGIZM?

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I would nominate Pam's OGIZM for the win!!!

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As ever, I go with Florida Woman. Anyone who can ink with labia and arse taint to be denied.

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I debated it and have to stand neutral on OGIZM. I’m too biased because I submitted the same word. (But Pam’s definition is way better than the one I gave, no question.). So voting “present” on that one; I also like TWINGLE.

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Lots of plausible replacements, but my vote is for:

USN AF: When a major command screwup causes service members to sigh and say, “That’s so Navy.” (Duncan Stevens)

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svenu

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The orignal move a letter contest was week 913, with results appearing in week 917. Hopefully that was clear in the contest instructions initially.

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Actually the original instructions didn't indicate the week, just the year. The week number of a contest is the week it is posted, not the week the results are posted, right? Just confirming.

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It’s funny, from where I sit, (Melbourne, Australia) I feel like I’m reading this in ‘real time’ but every week the evidence is against me.

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Why isn't there an automatic vettinginator? Gary Crockett could probably created one in Python.

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I’m pretty sure Whiskey was also mentioned by both parties in my little anecdote.

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Peter Sagal so cool! Seen you at Twood several times. Such production values to get a tape right. When your guests are cut ups, even funnier but takes longer. You’re the best comic yourself!!

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We have a cabin at Tanglewood, and after adopting our mostly silent 2-yo then 4yo daughter, our 8yo son took her to the bushes at the edge to play. He came back. I said, “Where is Elena?” “ We played hide-and-seek and I couldn’t find her.” I said “let me get this straight” to my pretty-bright son. “You played hide-and-seek in a crowd of 10,000 here at Twood?” I stayed calm, went and she right in the middle of where they were playing. She is pretty bright too. Nice crowd and we are also lucky!

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Question: Is excessive flatulence by a defendant grounds for an interlocutory appeal from the prosecution for relief ?

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Imperial Court "hypothetical" repeated today one way or another by majority members in immunity oral arguments: "What if we did away with our present system of justice ?"

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Why always with "Read in App" when I am on my computer and do not have an app. Not that I know about. Why not "read in browser?"

Gary again.

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All you have to do is click on the headline of the email, Gary, and it will bring you to the browser.

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Thanks. After a while I did remember that. But I wonder, is there an app for computers or is that something that is not needed?

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I await your and Pat's considered opinions on "Says Who?

A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words" reviewed today in the paper whose name we dare not speak.

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I haven't read the book, but I think I'd have much the same reaction as The Post's reviewer, the superb Michael Dirda: It's one thing to tailor your language to your audience so that you don't sound stodgy or silly; it's another to deny that the language has any rules at all.

I love Dirda's paragraph in this review, about the writing process:

"Effective prose, in truth, doesn’t resemble conversation. It’s more like sculpting with clay. You start with an inchoate mass, shape it a bit, hate the result, start over, try this, try that, give up, slink away in disgust, come back, work some more and eventually end up with something that looks vaguely like a pot or an essay. Above all, though, as my favorite ghost story author, Vernon Lee, observed in “The Handling of Words,” the craft of the writer consists “in manipulating the contents of the Reader’s mind.” She added that “construction” — and that includes word choice — “means thinking out the results of every movement you set up in the Reader’s mind, how that movement will work into, help, or mar the other movements which you have set up there already, or which you will require to set up there in the future.”

Presumably this author isn't saying that you can use "their" to mean "they're," but who knows?

https://wapo.st/3QjD7rl

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Michael is the one person that knows so very much more about the side lines of science fiction and fantasy that it amazes me. He KNOWS!

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Endlessly fascinating and endlessly controversial (unless the royal palace hands down the appropriate fiat) this business of evolving language and, usage in particular. I would hazard a guess the royal couple (Blessed Are They) have been bedeviled (if that term can be used with royal personages) by many a change in their many years of wrangling the words of others.

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