Verbal Stuff I Like: Mr. Breakfast Edition

I was wondering one day how to make a soft-boiled egg. Making a hard-boiled egg is a piece of cake. You put an egg in boiling water and neglect it for as long as it ususally takes you to neglect things. After you come back to it, you boil it a few minutes longer if there's any water left. And you've got a hard-boiled egg.

A soft-boiled egg takes more planning. By planning, I obviously mean googling the matter. (So the question arises, if it's so obvious, why am I bothering to tell you? Good question.) So I ended up at the website of Mr. Breakfast. Julie B. asked, "Dear Mr. Breakfast, How do you boil an egg?" Mr. Breakfast acknowledged--correctly, in my opinion--that this is a great question (I would have used "excellent" instead of "great," but that's just a matter of emphasis). Mr. Breakfast then says, "I refer to boiled eggs as 'flash-boiled-then-simmered eggs'. I wasn't sure if you meant 'soft-flash-boiled-then-simmered eggs" or 'hard' so I cooked up a response for both." In point of fact, he doesn't refer to boiled eggs as anything other than boiled eggs anywhere else on the page. But I'm gladdened to know that he intended to do so. Nevertheless, this isn't why I chose Mr. Breakfast for the Verbal Stuff I Like series. Here's his recipe for soft-flash-boiled-then-simmered eggs (or, as he refers to them, soft-boiled eggs). But that's not why I'm featuring him here either. Anyhow, the recipe (which applies only to large eggs):

Remove desired number of eggs from the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.

Place eggs in a small sauce pan and add just enough water to completely cover eggs.

Bring the water to a rolling boil. Covering the pan will lead to a quicker boil and is recommended.

Immediately reduce heat to simmer and remove the cover from the pan.

The amount of time the eggs are allowed to simmer will determine the degree to which the yolk is cooked. A cooking time of less than 4 minutes is not recommended.

Soft-cooked runny yolk:
5 minutes (4 minutes for medium eggs; 6 minutes for extra-large eggs)

Medium-cooked creamy partially-firm yolk:
7 minutes (6 minutes for medium eggs; 8 minutes for extra-large eggs)

Carefully remove the pan from the stove top and place beneath the kitchen faucet. Run cool water into the pan for a minute until the water is cool to the touch. This reduces the temperature enough so the eggs won't continue to cook under their own internal heat. It also brings them down to a more appropriate serving temperature.

To serve soft-boiled and medium-boiled eggs: Place cooked egg in an egg cup. Small cappuccino cups work in a fix. Crack with a small spoon and consume directly from the shell.

Just to illustrate his point clearly, Mr. Breakfast follows the recipe with a very cool picture:

But as I was saying, this isn't why I'm quoting Mr. Breakfast here. No, it's because of this:

Quick & Dirty Method Of Hard-BoilingWhen Mr Breakfast was in college, a vibrant yellow yolk wasn't nearly as important to him as chasing skirts and getting stoned on beer. I--me being him--would simply bring water to a boil, place my eggs in the water and remove them all when the first crack appeared in any one of the eggs. The eggs would naturally be slightly over-cooked. But the negative effect of slight-overcooking was one of appearance. The yolk was more of an off-yellow, just-short-of-green color. The eggs still tasted great.

The change of person, from "him" talk to "I" talk, was in itself not a big deal (at work, I'd pretend to be bent out of shape by it, but not in real life). But the explanatory "me being him"--well, as regular readers of this blog may not be surprised to hear, this appealed to me and won Mr. Breakfast this spot in the Verbal Stuff I Like series.

New Chicago Manual

I admire The Chicago Manual of Style (except for the usage guide by Bryan Garner)--in fact, I explained here why I don't use italics when referring to it, an explanation based on the then-current sixteenth [oops!, I meant the fifteenth] edition. I also admire Carol Fisher Saller's The Subversive Copy Editor.

The Chicago Tribune carries an article by Steve Johnson about the new sixteenth edition of the manual, featuring this paragraph:

"Our readers really told us very clearly, 'We don't want to have to think about it that much. Just tell us the rule!,'" Saller says.

If I had been writing this, and if there had been any hint of exclamation on Saller's part, I would have written this as

"Our readers really told us very clearly, 'We don't want to have to think about it that much. Just tell us the rule!'!," Saller says.

But misfortunately, or perhaps not, I didn't write it, and I don't know whether there was any hint of sclam from Saller herself.

Verbal Stuff That I Like: Raymond L. Weiss Edition (and this one is serious); and, My Hypocrisy

So far, the items in the "Verbal Stuff That I Like Series" have made the cut by virtue of their quirkiness. This one is absolutely serious. It is from Maimonides' Ethics: The Encounter of Philosophic and Religious Morality (1991) by Raymond L. Weiss, pp. 4-5:

Maimonides himself uses the expression ["philosophic ethics"]. It is even possible that he was the first to do so; at any rate, to my knowledge, he has no predecessor in this matter.

"To my knowledge." It is rare to see a scholarly author acknowledge that a "there is no" statement reflects the extent of their knowledge. And as Weiss notes, a statement about "the first" is a negative statement--it means that there was none earlier. Similarly any statement about "the only," "the largest," "the whateverest"--these are equivalent to saying that there is no other, no larger, no whateverer.

I truly got pleasure from this statement of Weiss's. And after typing up the preceding paragraph, I realized what a hypocritical droplet of whiteout I am. On the occasion once every several blue moons when I come across a parenthetical "to the best of my knowledge," I query the author about it. "This statement about the best of your knowledge could be made about many negative statements in your manuscript," I write. "Why does this one in particular call for the disclaimer?" The question isn't sarcastic, although authors may take it that way. At any rate, they always delete the qualifier.

So why am I pleased by Weiss's statement even though I query it in my own work? I don't know. Maybe it seems more organic in Weiss's case and more thrown in in the others; Weiss's statement, after all, is tentative: "It is even possible that he was the first to do so." I think that's probably it. And what would I have done if I had worked on Weiss’s manuscript? I might have queried it. Maybe, maybe not. A trainload of such tentative statements, each of them carrying the disclaimer, it would make tedious even the most engaging work.

Anyhow, I admire Weiss’s honesty, and that of the other authors who make such a disclaimer, even though I attempt to wave a hatchet at it when it appears on my virtual desk. Go figure.

Verbal Stuff That I Like: Claudia Schmidt Edition

Decades ago, literal decades, when I was just a young ramshackle, I was a fan of Claudia Schmidt, a musician who frequently venued in the greater metropolitan region I then lived in (I mean, it wasn't greater then than it is now, but it is greater than other metro regions). I live there still. A few years ago, I went to hear her when she came on tour through these parts once again. In the intro to a song titled "Banana Moon," she said something about most of our moonage. I like "moonage," and in fact it may be because of similar utterances that I was a fan of hers. In part. The music is good too.

Did she say most of our moonage is nonfull? I'm not sure; in a dream, perhaps.

Verbal Stuff That I Like: Tech Edition

This (with some redactivity to keep the identity of my employer[s] unknown) is from an e-mail from the tech guy at work.

During the maintenance periods, well-behaved servers will queue messages that are bound for unavailable Wherever email systems.

No clue what it means, but I like it. But hey!, I do have some speculation about what "well-behaved servers" means. In The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., in chapter 5 ("Grammar and Usage" by Bryan A. Garner), in "Glossary of Troublesome Expressions" (sec. 5.202), the entry for gentleman reads

This word is a vulgarism when used as a synonym for man. When used in reference to a cultured, refined man, it is susceptible to some of the same objections as those leveled against lady. Use it cautiously. Cf. lady.

This is the only place in the manual where Garner uses vulgarism; nowhere does he define it. (Although he does implicitly define a "cultured, refined" person throughout the chapter; it seems to mean somebody who writes and talks the way Garner wants them to.) But it's likely that vulgarisms are a subset (whether proper or improper, I don't know--we disapprove of impropriety, but if the set is a set of improprieties, is a proper subset itself improper?), and where was I anyway? Right, I remember now. Vulgarisms are probably a subset of those usages that Garner dislikes. So maybe, taking a cue (and/or queue) from Garner, would a well-behaved server be one who says to a cultured, refined male patron "Would Monsieur like an extra shot of horseradish juice?" instead of "Would The Gentleman like an extra shot of horseradish juice?"?

Or whatever. One of these years, I'm going to post my review of Garner's chapter. When I get around to it.

Verbal Stuff That I Like: A New Feature

I gripe too much. Too much negativity. "Jeepolas!, we're all doomed!, somebody said 'therefore' with insufficient support. Yiiiiighhhh!" Well, I guess a flimsy "therefore" can potentially doom us under some circs (and is "potentially" redundant here, or does it provide some needed emphasis? beats me).

Point is, I really do bellyache too much. So I'm going to make a point of posting about verbal or logical stuff that I like. Some of it may be trivial. (But more importantly, I began this graf with "Point is" and then I began the next sentence with "So I'm going to make a point of." Sad.)

So here it is. This blog, as you probably know by now, has no opinion on this article by Jonathan Chait with the title "Deficit Commission Is Harshing My Mellow." But the blog does love that title.

Let's get marginal

Can you find the probable error (as opposed to statement that you disagree with) in this?

The most recent NBC/WSJ poll... show[s] a plurality (45-43) preferring a Republican-controlled Congress.

--Jonathan Chait, "Republican Health Care Fratricide," New Republic, posted June 30, 2010

OK. What does it mean to talk about "a plurality (45-43)" in a random sample? In this case, it probably means 45 percent of the sample prefer a Republican-controlled Congress and 43 percent prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. And if we look at the poll Chait links to, that is in fact what it means. But when polling numbers are this close, we need to look at the margin of error. In the linked-to poll it says from the start that the margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points. But the difference between the percentage that prefer Congress (R.) to Congress (D.) is less than the margin of error. Which means that the poll shows no plurality here. This is what some correctly call a statistical dead heat or a statistical tie. Chait is mistaken when he says the poll shows a plurality.

This is something you see a lot of. Consumers (and writers) of news need to watch out for this. As do you and I, my colleagues.

Pitiful

The New Republic is currently running a stupid and inane series called "Dispatches from the Blago Trial" by Margo Howard. In the third installment, Howard makes fun of Mike Ettinger, the attorney for Robert Blagojevich, Rod's brother:

Robert gained top military clearance because he was involved with Persian missiles and in charge of three "nucular" warheads (this pronunciation no doubt a tip of the hat to George W. Bush, this Blagojevich being a Republican).

Howard impresses here with witty commentary about "nucular." But what about those Persian missiles? What involvement did this U.S. military guy have with Iranian weaponry? Why didn't a journalist like Howard find this odd? Why didn't her editors at The New Republic?

Here's my guess about what happened. In Chicago, 39th Street is also (and primarily) known as Pershing Road. The Chicago pronunciation of the street's name is "Perzhing." Whether that's the pronunciation of Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing's name, or of Pershing missiles, I don't know. But my guess is that Ettinger applied the Chicago pronunciation of the street name to the missiles, and Howard didn't notice. Maybe she didn't know about Pershing Road or its pronunciation, maybe she didn't know about Pershing missiles. Whatever.

The point for readers of this editorial blog is that if we see something that seems very odd, such as a U.S. military person who works with Persian missiles, we need to query it. Another lesson, for all of us, is that if you're going to make fun of someone's pronunciations, you should try to look nonignorant when you're doing it. The best bet might be to not make fun of other people's pronunciations.

Says who?

Geoffrey K. Pullum at Language Log surmises that The New Yorker has a policy against putting said and the like before the subject, no matter the length of the subject. Says Pullum,

The New Yorker apparently has a house-style prohibition on (if I may use the technical terms employed in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) subject postposing in a parenthetical report frame for directly reported speech, even when the quoted speech is preposed.

He cites this quotation, which I haven't verified:

"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," Christopher Hitchens, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky, says. (Larissa MacFarquhar, "The devil's accountant", The New Yorker, March 31, 2003, p.67, column 2.)

Obviously--so obviously that I feel silly pointing it out--this sentence could be made into a much easier read. As Pullum points out

the New Yorker's fierce and unyielding house style code will not allow the subject to be postposed, to yield what could have been a perfectly acceptable sentence:

"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," says Christopher Hitchens, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky.

(Here I note that Pullum is inconsistent on whether "the" should be treated as part of the title of the magazine. In work, I need to notice this stuff, but in real life I passionately don't care about it. I mention it for the sake of my professional cred.)

I bring this whole thing up for a few reasons. First, it's interesting (if you're interested in this stuff, which I am). Second, obviously, if we come across this sort of antipostpositional nonsense in our work, we need to correct it (not that it's incorrect--it's just nonreadable). The third thing is less obvious and much more important. Early on, Pullum says the magazine "apparently has a house-style prohibition on...subject postposing." Later, he says the mag's "fierce and unyielding house style code will not allow the subject to be postposed." This is very seriously non-OK, and it happens a lot in the scholarly stuff we edit. Some new information is suggestive of something or other blah blah yuck yuck, and therefore whatever. We need to protest when the author of a work we're editing magically goes from suggestivity and apparentness to a solid "therefore," or, as in this case, forgets that something is merely apparent. I mean, right, we should make the protest look like a query. And they may say, incorrectly, that it's fine. But we need to do our job.

I realize Pullum may have been quasi-jokey when writing about the "fierce and unyielding house style code." But in editing scholarly books, this is a joke we need to be humorless about.

THE NEXT MORNINGWell, of course what Pullum did was probably OK. My point was that we need to be vigilant about maybe's that morph into defintely's. I actually do think that Pullum's was better than harmless--it was downright OK. But it would be non-OK for someone in our trade to not notice it and not at least be given pause by it.MAJOR EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE MIKESTER (VIZ, ME)Note two of the phrases in the previous paragraph. "What Pullum did was probably OK...I actually do think that Pullum's was better than harmless--it was downright OK." I noticed this in reviewing the paragraph and decided to keep it as an object lesson. It's hard not to fall into this trap, but we editors of scholarly material need to be on the lookout for it. And any of my colleagues who didn't notice what I did should consider finding honest work instead of what we do.

Frog crisis in Greece

Language Log is often interesting. I'm linking to this post because there's a comment by me, dated this morning. It's about the kind of stuff that makes you go "whaa?"