Pat - Am I being too persnickety about these usage preferences? 1) The position of "only." It should be "I want only a few peanuts." not "I only want a few peanuts." Only modifies "a few." Otherwise you are implying that you don't need peanuts, you only want them. 2) The proper pronoun for a person is who, not that. "He's the kind of guy who loves peanuts," not "He's the kind of guy that loves peanuts." (And I understand that neither of these affects clarity.)
Hi, Nip 'Em: I used to be persnickety about that, too, but I decided that in ordinary conversation, it's a perfectly standard -- and as you say, understandable -- usage to move the "only" away from the technically literal position. If I were writing, say, a contract, or even a formal news story, I would insist on placing "only" before the word it was referring to.
I might make a distinction between "he's a guy who loves peanuts" and "he's the kind of guy that loves peanuts." I think introducing "kind" makes a difference. As for "only," when editing I never correct this in dialog but often will in third-person narration. First-person narration could go either way depending on the style.
That sentence would make no sense, yeah. Usually it's used to clarify or correct something in a previous statement. I think we pedants could use "Well, actually ..." as our epitaphs.
after all the back and forth yesterday, I actually ended up going to the store after all. Can you believe I actually went to the store yesterday with everything else I had to do?
Instances where "that" is a lifesaver. In a recent New York Times review: "He had three young daughters who May suddenly needed to raise, in addition to her own daughter from a previous marriage." Obviously, that "who" should be "whom." But I would be inclined to opt for "that" instead, given that "whom" seems to make so many people profoundly uncomfortable. :)
I think "whom" is perfectly fine there. Except for the "who," It's written in standard written English, not in a way that sounds like how someone would actually talk while chatting (i.e., if someone were to say that sentence in a movie, you'd roll your eyes).
I have to admit at this point that I personally use "whom" easily in conversation, but I'm not going to argue that everyone should.
The uses of only does bother me and I see a lot that are wrong. But people ought to know what they want to say. It is much like "I could care less ...". when they mean " not care."
I'm glad to know that this old staple of Gene's chat has fallen out of circulation. It refers to Visible Panty Line through one's clothes; it's in a line in the party scene "Annie Hall." It turns out that some men prefer this look. Sigh.
Thank you! I never would have guessed, despite having seen "Annie Hall" dozens of times. Some men prefer this look? Well, all I can say is: human sexuality is a many-splendored thing.
I've seen "Annie Hall" only once and wouldn't have caught the reference from there, but one of the authors I follow has a character who is described as being devoted to the VPL. I find it very repulsive and decidedly non-classy. I just always assumed women sporting it didn't have full-length mirrors.
There is also the Virtual Planetary Laboratory. The Principal Investigator of the VPL is aware of the alternative definition, and it does not amuse her.
Do you mean the tailgaters featuring the most familiar songs? That's not surprising you like them best -- your mind already knows that line, understands it to mean a particular thing, and so it's funnier to see that turned upside down.
This also tends to apply to our contests to reinterpret a headline: If the headline is mystifying to begin with, a total change of context isn't as funny as if you'd understood that the original headline was about a basketball game or a weather report.
I’ve always wondered if you shied away from political humor because it will offend one side. Local sports teams, modern music like rap. DC cannabis laws. Brand names in case they offend a WaPo sponsor. Do you feel there are things that categorically aren’t funny.
1. Do you think we shy away from political humor? Since we began The Style Invitational in 1993, we have featured political humor, much of it pretty strong, approximately every single week of every single year.
2. We do not worry about offending one side. We try not to take total cheap shots, humor based on inaccuracies. Racist or otherwise hateful humor isn't funny to us and we don't run it.
3. Since December 2022, we are no longer affiliated with The Washington Post, which is why we are here begging for your paying subscription. Nor are we a local Washington publication; we're on Substack, which goes everywhere. A majority of our regular contestants, the Losers, are still based in the Washington area because they got to know us from The Post.
4. Not that we EVER hesitated to criticize the local sports team, politicians, or Post advertisers. In fact, I worry a bit that we still focus on D.C. fodder like its terrible sports teams and its often inconvenient Metrorail system..
(1) The "Oxford Comma" (aka "serial commas" ) question. Use it or lose it ?
(2) Possessive apostrophes for words ending in an "s."
(3) When to use dash marks and which ones: the en, em or figure.
(4) Sentence ending prepositions
(5) The use of split infinitives. Eww or yay ?
(6) Flat adverbs. Should we "ly" or not ?
Just when you thought it was safe to read the comments. Did I mention "verbing ?" (um... does the question mark go inside or outside the quotation marks ?)
You asked six questions. I'll answer the first one and see if I have time for the others. I've decided to use the "Oxford comma" here in our Substack Invitational before "and" or "or" for items in a series ("X, Y, and Z"); it's a change from the style at The Post, where I worked for 40 years, so I probably slip here and there. I chose to use it because there are so many times when you HAVE to use that comma anyway - -when the series are complex, when you have a series of full independent clauses, etc. -- that you might as well use it in the unambiguous cases as well. We don't have the worries about space that we did in a print paper.
You're welcome to choose or answer something not even asked under the no rules, just right sensibility here Or is that Outback Steakhouse ? So many references, so little time.
For much the same reason -- consistency -- I also go with "s's" for the possessive in names ending in S. The Post also adopted this style maybe 20 years ago. It had a few exceptions for sound, like names ending in the pronunciation of "eez," but that might have changed as well.
I'm honored. In future, I'll try to limit my posts to single words for you. But then again, you obviously have a working scroll function on your device so that may not be necessary.
I don't entirely agree with the complaints over the verbization (nouning a verbing of a noun) of "to gift". It addresses the subtle distinction between handing an article to a person versus celebrating the transfer as a significant moment of altruistic generosity.
They're adverbs that have the same form as the corresponding adjective but which don't end in the typical "ly" and tend to be frowned on by grammarians. Examples (flat or bare adverbs first): quick (fast) >quickly; slow >slowly; bright > brightly. Then there are the irregular comparative adjectives and numerical adjectives which can be considered flat adverbs, e.g. good, bad, more, less, first, last. Their use ebbs and flows in advertising especially: "Eat fresh;" "Smile More. Pay Less;" "Think Different." Only issue, as far as I'm concerned is, does their use change the meaning of the sentences.
If I write a parody, am I allowed to enlist someone else to sing and record it? It's very hard to compete anymore when other Losers make such fabulous videos.
I could do something like that, I’m unpracticed but have some credits in college and local musical theater. Can’t play piano. You can always find YouTube music though. Matt Monitto, Sandy Riccardi, Jon Jensen, Jesse Rifkin are performers many more.
I would love to hear you sing! Do you ever write parodies? If so you should record yourself singing them. You come to the holiday party--would you come to the flushies too and help lead the singalong! That would be awesome! Great to hear about everyone's hidden talents. Do you still do local musical theater? What have you been in? Is there any video to prove it?
I used to get the music from online and record myself singing them but I'm not a very good singer anymore. My breath support has gotten worse and worse from years of paralysis and thus sitting in a wheelchair all day every day. Before my car accident in 1996, I used to play the guitar and sing. I had written over 100 songs between the age of 16 and 24, not including song parodies. My older brother's band performed and recorded a few of them--I only have one of them on a cd they made in the 90s. I don't have anybody in particular in mind at the moment to record a song I was just checking to see what parameters there might be for doing it.
To be honest, unless you're a very good singer (or can have a very good singer sing for you) AND that person has an animated demeanor (or you have entertaining graphics) AND the song is short (and preferably the lyrics are subtitled on the video), it's better to go with just the lyrics. I've run lyrics by people but decided to pass on their videos. (The accompaniment, ironically, is one thing that you CAN get around; there are lots of karaoke-type tracks you can sing along to.)
But if the lyrics are too long in text, you cut them down. If they can't be cut to an adequate length without losing the punch, you won't run it just in text, either. On a video you can let it run longer. That's the reason I was asking about possibility of having someone else do it. I am going to see if I can enlist help but will probably just send the lyrics and hope for the best.
Take it from me: Nobody wants to watch someone just sit and sing a song for much more than two minutes unless the person is really entertaining, or there's some stage business or animation going on -- people want to watch something. We can watch Jonathan Jensen play the piano while he's singing, both very well -- but his song is barely over one minute.
Okay, if you have a whole band playing, or you're a super solo performer, you might be able to get away with it. But even Randy Rainbow, who is unbelievably consistent in quality, is putting on a total comedy act with every video. AND he has costumes, AND graphics, AND subtitles. And that's why people will watch it for four minutes.
We /have/ had some very nice just-the-song videos over the years. But not a lot. In addition to Laurie Brink's "Rudy's Crazy," which I linked to at the top of the column,
Well, I guess I may as well go fuck myself... The parody I'm referring to isn't THAT long but I get it. You're telling me not to bother so I won't bother, I think maybe my time and money would better spent elsewhere than this fucking competition. I don't need the public abuse.
Okay, I don't feel like answering any more parts of that six-part question, so I'm going to sign off and take a walk and have some lunch with the Royal Consort. But I'll check back later, and the comments thread and the poll remain open for I think two more days. I'm pretty sure I'll get notifications of new comments, so chat away. Thanks, all!
And I was just informed this afternoon that Jonathan has just gotten his 300th blot of Invitational ink! Pretty quickly, too -- it's just been six years. Jonathan learned about the Invite through the song parody contest for which he sent the video atop today's page, then tried his hand at the other contests as well -- and got better and better.
Also: Jonathan, as he has many times now, will be playing piano (or more likely an electronic keyboard) as accompaniment at the Flushies this year!
Clever work from Jesse Rifkin, who took the initiative to find the precise citation in the D.C. Criminal Code. Even though he wasn't born till Paul McCartney was 50 years old, Jesse has a full Beatles repertoire as a professional performer at the Georgetown Piano Bar.
Looks like the third runner up made it in by the skin of their teeth. I don’t get the sense they’re disappointed either, though. I do wish 12 people had taken the opportunity to keep everybody stuck inside that building for a little longer, say, through mid November.
We won't know until July 11. That happens to be my wedding anniversary, so I have extra reason to hope. But man, why did he schedule it to take place the week before the Republican convention? This is a dangerously long interval.
We’re not going to have what I’d like most - the Lyndon LaRouche scenario in which the candidate runs from the confines a jail cell. If I remember correctly, that didn’t do much to dissuade his supporters, either. Whatever happens, the left-leaning amongst us will consider it too lenient, and others will find it an outrage to treat a politician in that manner. You know, the “lock her up” crowd.
Pat - Am I being too persnickety about these usage preferences? 1) The position of "only." It should be "I want only a few peanuts." not "I only want a few peanuts." Only modifies "a few." Otherwise you are implying that you don't need peanuts, you only want them. 2) The proper pronoun for a person is who, not that. "He's the kind of guy who loves peanuts," not "He's the kind of guy that loves peanuts." (And I understand that neither of these affects clarity.)
Hi, Nip 'Em: I used to be persnickety about that, too, but I decided that in ordinary conversation, it's a perfectly standard -- and as you say, understandable -- usage to move the "only" away from the technically literal position. If I were writing, say, a contract, or even a formal news story, I would insist on placing "only" before the word it was referring to.
I see 'that' instead of 'who' way too often - and I think it *does* affect clarity (or at least interrupts the flow)
I really don't like referring to people with "that," either. It's like calling someone "it."
It can avoid gender terms.
Using "that" instead of "who"?
I might make a distinction between "he's a guy who loves peanuts" and "he's the kind of guy that loves peanuts." I think introducing "kind" makes a difference. As for "only," when editing I never correct this in dialog but often will in third-person narration. First-person narration could go either way depending on the style.
What bugs me is “actually”, when it adds nothing. “I actually went to the store yesterday.
That sentence would make no sense, yeah. Usually it's used to clarify or correct something in a previous statement. I think we pedants could use "Well, actually ..." as our epitaphs.
Indeed. My daughter and I, both natural editors, joke about how often we use "actually." My granddaughters also seem to have inherited the gene.
after all the back and forth yesterday, I actually ended up going to the store after all. Can you believe I actually went to the store yesterday with everything else I had to do?
Instances where "that" is a lifesaver. In a recent New York Times review: "He had three young daughters who May suddenly needed to raise, in addition to her own daughter from a previous marriage." Obviously, that "who" should be "whom." But I would be inclined to opt for "that" instead, given that "whom" seems to make so many people profoundly uncomfortable. :)
I think "whom" is perfectly fine there. Except for the "who," It's written in standard written English, not in a way that sounds like how someone would actually talk while chatting (i.e., if someone were to say that sentence in a movie, you'd roll your eyes).
I have to admit at this point that I personally use "whom" easily in conversation, but I'm not going to argue that everyone should.
I also use "whom" in conversation, but I'm an editor.
The uses of only does bother me and I see a lot that are wrong. But people ought to know what they want to say. It is much like "I could care less ...". when they mean " not care."
VPL: Since there probably haven't been a lot of comments about the Vancouver Public Library, could someone please explain?
Not sure if we're being whooshed or trolled, or if this is a legitimate comment, but: https://owad.de/word/vpl
I'm glad to know that this old staple of Gene's chat has fallen out of circulation. It refers to Visible Panty Line through one's clothes; it's in a line in the party scene "Annie Hall." It turns out that some men prefer this look. Sigh.
Thank you! I never would have guessed, despite having seen "Annie Hall" dozens of times. Some men prefer this look? Well, all I can say is: human sexuality is a many-splendored thing.
I've seen "Annie Hall" only once and wouldn't have caught the reference from there, but one of the authors I follow has a character who is described as being devoted to the VPL. I find it very repulsive and decidedly non-classy. I just always assumed women sporting it didn't have full-length mirrors.
It’s an old topic from the WaPo days, Visible Panty Lines.
There is also the Virtual Planetary Laboratory. The Principal Investigator of the VPL is aware of the alternative definition, and it does not amuse her.
Lot of good there, the Jesse’s, Beverly. The really familiar ones seem like the biggest surprises.
Do you mean the tailgaters featuring the most familiar songs? That's not surprising you like them best -- your mind already knows that line, understands it to mean a particular thing, and so it's funnier to see that turned upside down.
This also tends to apply to our contests to reinterpret a headline: If the headline is mystifying to begin with, a total change of context isn't as funny as if you'd understood that the original headline was about a basketball game or a weather report.
I’ve always wondered if you shied away from political humor because it will offend one side. Local sports teams, modern music like rap. DC cannabis laws. Brand names in case they offend a WaPo sponsor. Do you feel there are things that categorically aren’t funny.
1. Do you think we shy away from political humor? Since we began The Style Invitational in 1993, we have featured political humor, much of it pretty strong, approximately every single week of every single year.
2. We do not worry about offending one side. We try not to take total cheap shots, humor based on inaccuracies. Racist or otherwise hateful humor isn't funny to us and we don't run it.
3. Since December 2022, we are no longer affiliated with The Washington Post, which is why we are here begging for your paying subscription. Nor are we a local Washington publication; we're on Substack, which goes everywhere. A majority of our regular contestants, the Losers, are still based in the Washington area because they got to know us from The Post.
4. Not that we EVER hesitated to criticize the local sports team, politicians, or Post advertisers. In fact, I worry a bit that we still focus on D.C. fodder like its terrible sports teams and its often inconvenient Metrorail system..
I should have said blatant one-sided political humor. It’s easy to knock Trump.
Okay Pat-the-Past-Perfect have at it:
(1) The "Oxford Comma" (aka "serial commas" ) question. Use it or lose it ?
(2) Possessive apostrophes for words ending in an "s."
(3) When to use dash marks and which ones: the en, em or figure.
(4) Sentence ending prepositions
(5) The use of split infinitives. Eww or yay ?
(6) Flat adverbs. Should we "ly" or not ?
Just when you thought it was safe to read the comments. Did I mention "verbing ?" (um... does the question mark go inside or outside the quotation marks ?)
You asked six questions. I'll answer the first one and see if I have time for the others. I've decided to use the "Oxford comma" here in our Substack Invitational before "and" or "or" for items in a series ("X, Y, and Z"); it's a change from the style at The Post, where I worked for 40 years, so I probably slip here and there. I chose to use it because there are so many times when you HAVE to use that comma anyway - -when the series are complex, when you have a series of full independent clauses, etc. -- that you might as well use it in the unambiguous cases as well. We don't have the worries about space that we did in a print paper.
You're welcome to choose or answer something not even asked under the no rules, just right sensibility here Or is that Outback Steakhouse ? So many references, so little time.
For much the same reason -- consistency -- I also go with "s's" for the possessive in names ending in S. The Post also adopted this style maybe 20 years ago. It had a few exceptions for sound, like names ending in the pronunciation of "eez," but that might have changed as well.
There are those signature spacey question marks again. So unconventional.
Think you need a new hobby.
Normally I skip your posts, Dale, because, damn, you're so long-winded, but today I did read this one.
"Verbing."
It's "given" or "gave," not "gifted," people! "Given" and "gave" are perfectly good words - why use a word that means something else entirely?
I'm honored. In future, I'll try to limit my posts to single words for you. But then again, you obviously have a working scroll function on your device so that may not be necessary.
Yes! Very peculiar and annoying, the now-ubiquitous use of "gift" as a verb.
I don't entirely agree with the complaints over the verbization (nouning a verbing of a noun) of "to gift". It addresses the subtle distinction between handing an article to a person versus celebrating the transfer as a significant moment of altruistic generosity.
Flat adverbs? And I thought people did not know better. What are they. Does that justify "think different?" If so, I give it up.
They're adverbs that have the same form as the corresponding adjective but which don't end in the typical "ly" and tend to be frowned on by grammarians. Examples (flat or bare adverbs first): quick (fast) >quickly; slow >slowly; bright > brightly. Then there are the irregular comparative adjectives and numerical adjectives which can be considered flat adverbs, e.g. good, bad, more, less, first, last. Their use ebbs and flows in advertising especially: "Eat fresh;" "Smile More. Pay Less;" "Think Different." Only issue, as far as I'm concerned is, does their use change the meaning of the sentences.
And I always thought they were the evidence of ignorance.
They are controversial, but certainly have their place depending on what is being modified and their conscious use -- in dialogue, for example.
Personally, I thought the best one was the honorable mention about “Representative! Representative!”.
Obviously, we wouldn't have been able to run the last words of that were we still in The Post.
That was the one that hit closest to home...
If I write a parody, am I allowed to enlist someone else to sing and record it? It's very hard to compete anymore when other Losers make such fabulous videos.
Also, If a parody didn't get ink before but was linked to in SIDs or discussed in the old Conversational, can it resubmitted to this week's contest?
Go for it.
Yes, absolutely! It's up to you which of you gets the Unfabulous Prize were you to win. You'll both get Loser credit.
I could do something like that, I’m unpracticed but have some credits in college and local musical theater. Can’t play piano. You can always find YouTube music though. Matt Monitto, Sandy Riccardi, Jon Jensen, Jesse Rifkin are performers many more.
Oh I am Dan Helming.
I would love to hear you sing! Do you ever write parodies? If so you should record yourself singing them. You come to the holiday party--would you come to the flushies too and help lead the singalong! That would be awesome! Great to hear about everyone's hidden talents. Do you still do local musical theater? What have you been in? Is there any video to prove it?
I used to get the music from online and record myself singing them but I'm not a very good singer anymore. My breath support has gotten worse and worse from years of paralysis and thus sitting in a wheelchair all day every day. Before my car accident in 1996, I used to play the guitar and sing. I had written over 100 songs between the age of 16 and 24, not including song parodies. My older brother's band performed and recorded a few of them--I only have one of them on a cd they made in the 90s. I don't have anybody in particular in mind at the moment to record a song I was just checking to see what parameters there might be for doing it.
To be honest, unless you're a very good singer (or can have a very good singer sing for you) AND that person has an animated demeanor (or you have entertaining graphics) AND the song is short (and preferably the lyrics are subtitled on the video), it's better to go with just the lyrics. I've run lyrics by people but decided to pass on their videos. (The accompaniment, ironically, is one thing that you CAN get around; there are lots of karaoke-type tracks you can sing along to.)
But if the lyrics are too long in text, you cut them down. If they can't be cut to an adequate length without losing the punch, you won't run it just in text, either. On a video you can let it run longer. That's the reason I was asking about possibility of having someone else do it. I am going to see if I can enlist help but will probably just send the lyrics and hope for the best.
Take it from me: Nobody wants to watch someone just sit and sing a song for much more than two minutes unless the person is really entertaining, or there's some stage business or animation going on -- people want to watch something. We can watch Jonathan Jensen play the piano while he's singing, both very well -- but his song is barely over one minute.
Okay, if you have a whole band playing, or you're a super solo performer, you might be able to get away with it. But even Randy Rainbow, who is unbelievably consistent in quality, is putting on a total comedy act with every video. AND he has costumes, AND graphics, AND subtitles. And that's why people will watch it for four minutes.
We /have/ had some very nice just-the-song videos over the years. But not a lot. In addition to Laurie Brink's "Rudy's Crazy," which I linked to at the top of the column,
I loved Judy Freed's first-ink from Week 1503. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=086JEkZvlkk&t=5s (But it's under two minutes.)
Also, high school student Fiona Smith's great job for a song about the pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR7gPDAQQrk&feature=emb_logo
Well, I guess I may as well go fuck myself... The parody I'm referring to isn't THAT long but I get it. You're telling me not to bother so I won't bother, I think maybe my time and money would better spent elsewhere than this fucking competition. I don't need the public abuse.
Okay, I don't feel like answering any more parts of that six-part question, so I'm going to sign off and take a walk and have some lunch with the Royal Consort. But I'll check back later, and the comments thread and the poll remain open for I think two more days. I'm pretty sure I'll get notifications of new comments, so chat away. Thanks, all!
I vote Mark Raffman's "Marjorie! Taylor! Greene!" as the best Beatles entry.
My favorite is Gary Crockett's "When I was younger, so much younger than today,..."
Thank you, thank you for posting that initial winning entry by Jonathon Jensen! It made my day!
And I was just informed this afternoon that Jonathan has just gotten his 300th blot of Invitational ink! Pretty quickly, too -- it's just been six years. Jonathan learned about the Invite through the song parody contest for which he sent the video atop today's page, then tried his hand at the other contests as well -- and got better and better.
Also: Jonathan, as he has many times now, will be playing piano (or more likely an electronic keyboard) as accompaniment at the Flushies this year!
“Why don’t we do it in the road” made me lol!
Me too. It could have been the winner.
Clever work from Jesse Rifkin, who took the initiative to find the precise citation in the D.C. Criminal Code. Even though he wasn't born till Paul McCartney was 50 years old, Jesse has a full Beatles repertoire as a professional performer at the Georgetown Piano Bar.
Looks like the third runner up made it in by the skin of their teeth. I don’t get the sense they’re disappointed either, though. I do wish 12 people had taken the opportunity to keep everybody stuck inside that building for a little longer, say, through mid November.
We won't know until July 11. That happens to be my wedding anniversary, so I have extra reason to hope. But man, why did he schedule it to take place the week before the Republican convention? This is a dangerously long interval.
We’re not going to have what I’d like most - the Lyndon LaRouche scenario in which the candidate runs from the confines a jail cell. If I remember correctly, that didn’t do much to dissuade his supporters, either. Whatever happens, the left-leaning amongst us will consider it too lenient, and others will find it an outrage to treat a politician in that manner. You know, the “lock her up” crowd.
a little ditty to the tune of
"you must have been a beautiful baby"
(and a nod to the "farter in chief))
"Oh, you must have been a flatulent baby
"You must have been a gassy little child
"When you were only starting
"Just a little farting
"I bet you drove the little kiddies wild
"Oh you must have been a flatulent baby
"Cause baby get a whiff of you now
THUD's on the floor everywhere as folks drop like flies
Speaking of children farting (turn on the sound): https://www.oddballfilms.com/clip/9130_shiseido_soap
If you want to enter a song parody in this week's contest, please use the entry form. tinyurl.com/inv-form-74
Animal crackers in my soup,
They all micturate and they poop!
Make my lunch disgusting goop.
Animal crackers in my soup!
Old Zeb
You may know "super animals" from "Gravities Rainbow."
Her name is C. diff,
She is gut flora,
With cytotoxins everywhere
Caused diarrhea way down there.
She was Gram pos’tive
And anaerobic.
Being inside everyone
Made diagnosis really fun...
In overcrowded wards.
Infected more by spores.
The hosts were febrile and hyperthermic,
Who could ask for more...
At the Copra -- the Copra Phagous,
The hottest buffet west of Vegas!
At the Copra -- the Copra Phagous
Pica compulsions, the top ten revulsions
At the Copra...
I'm going to hurl...
Old Zeb