…it’s my Supreme Court nominee. Of all the things for the left to get its panties in a new wad about.
Though this does remind me of a pet peeve of my own, and a much more egregious one (I just heard it again yesterday morning on the local news). The female anchor (not to pick on her, men do it, too) was describing some sort of brutal crime, after which she said that the police were still looking for the “gentleman” who perpetrated it.
Apparently, many people are no longer familiar with the meaning of the words “lady” and “gentleman” (it just occurs to me that people in show business compliment their audiences by addressing them as “ladies and gentlemen” — do they say that at WWE events? Wishing to see such an exhibition doesn’t seem very ladylike…). They are not synonyms for (respectively) “woman” and “man.” They are describing a particular sort of woman or man. As far as I know, and from all I’ve heard about her public conduct (and ignoring rumors about her private life, about which I’m indifferent), Elena Kagan is a lady. And the guy the news reporter was describing was no gentleman.
I suspect that the phrase is an oxymoron, sort of like “French victory.” Anyway, if anyone would know how economically crazy the French are, it would be Veronique.
[Wednesday afternoon update]
I’m shutting down comments on this post, because it seems to have become a spam magnet.
The first hint of a problem came on April 22, when engineers first spotted the data pattern change. Since then, they’ve been working to fix the glitch and began sending commands back to Voyager 2 on April 30.
Because Voyager 2 is so far from Earth, it takes 13 hours for a message to reach the spacecraft and another 13 hours for responses to come back to NASA’s Deep Space Network of listening antennas around the world.
I grew up listening to Ernie call games—sometimes in bed, having smuggled a portable radio between the sheets; sometimes with my grandfather, on summer nights at a house in northern Michigan that had no television. Harwell’s distinctive voice—nasally, with the hint of a southern twang—was unforgettable. The sound of my mother’s voice will stay with me always; so will Harwell’s. Like all great radio men, he had a few special phrases. Home runs were “looong gone!” A batter who took a called third strike “stood there like a house by the side of the road.”
The habit that amazed me in my early years occurred after foul balls at Tiger Stadium. A ball would fly into the stands and Harwell would announce that a lucky fan from Owosso or Wyandotte or wherever was going to take it home. For years it puzzled me: How does he know that?
Those are my summer memories, too. And I wondered the same thing. I hate to say that he was making it up, but I’d like to see another explanation. All I know is that I’d like to think that he did know it. Who did it hurt?
I’ve discussed this before, but here are some thoughts on one of the dumbest songs ever written (Give Peace A Chance is a runner up). It never previously occurred to me, though that Lennon might have actually been mocking his own fans with it. I suppose it’s possible.