Calm to my Chaos |
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Wednesday, January 29, 2003
A list of words and terms that Graydon Carter, Editor-in-Chief of Vanity Fair, has banned from appearing in the magazine: aka bed-sitter (for apartment) boasted (as in had or featured) boite (for restaurant) chortled (for said) chuckled (for said) cough up (as in to spend) doff donned (as in put on) eatery (for restaurant) executive-produced and such like flat (for apartment) flick freebie freeloader fuck (OK for exclamation, not for having sex) funky garner glitz golfer graduate (v) honcho hooker joked (for said) moniker opine (in any form) paucity pen (used as a verb) plethora quipped row (meaning to fight) sleze titles of booked, movies, plays, etc.: no diminutives - i.e., not Prin for The Prince of Tides tome (for book) wanna weird Monday, January 27, 2003
Revisited one of my favorite pieces of writing this weekend. It's included in the volume, "Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History", edited by William Saffire. (Saffire also writes the weekly "On Language" column in one of my favorites publications, The New York Times Magazine.) The book includes some wonderful works, with my favorite being a speech on Independence Day by lecturer Frances Wright. Scottish-born Frances Wright is known for being the first woman to gain fame by giving public lectures in America. She delivered the address on July 4, 1828 in New Harmony, a cooperative colony founded in Indiana. The most impressive thing about this work is the way Wright takes an idea (in this case patriotism) and shows how its traditional boundaries on an issue can be extended to encompass a larger focus. For example, thinking of patriotism as something not reserved for a single country, but as something that can be applied to mankind as a whole. She takes a very “people are people” approach to this issue. My thinking is that things can only be bettered by applying this thinking too all things in life. This brief address has some of the most amazing word-usage I've have yet to read. I’ve bolded some of my favorites. Enjoy. "Our hearts should expand on this day, which calls to memory the conquest achieved by knowledge over ignorance, willing cooperation over blind obedience, opinion over prejudice, new ways over old ways…” “Each Fourth of July would then stand as a tidemark in the flood of time by which to ascertain the advance of the human intellect, by which to note the rise and fall of each successive error, the discovery of each important truth, the gradual melioration in our public institutions, social arrangements, and, above all, in our moral feelings and mental views…” - Again, the above is something that can be applied to any significant event in the lives of many, or our lives in a singular sense. When something significant happens to us as individuals, it’s almost as if this event is a puzzle piece and we have to reflect on what has happened and what will happen going forward so we can see where this piece fits into the larger scheme. “In continental Europe, of late years, the words “patriotism” and “patriot” have been used in a more enlarged sense than it is usual here to attribute to them…the word “patriotism” has been employed, throughout continental Europe, to express a love of the public good; a preference for the interests of the many to those of the few; a desire for the emancipation of the human race from the thrall of depotism, religious and civil: in short, “patriotism” there is used rather to express the interest felt in the human race in general than that felt for any country, or inhabitants of a country, in particular. And “patriot,” in like manner, is employed to signify a lover of human liberty and human improvement rather than a mere lover of the country in which he lives, or the tribe to which he belongs.” “But let us rejoice as men, not as children – as human beings rather than as Americans – as reasoning beings, not as ignorants. So shall we rejoice to good purpose and in good feeling; so shall we improve the victory once on this day achieved, until all mankind hold with us the Jubilee of Independence.” 
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