Librarin* (for Librarian*)

Most librarians I know are pretty happy with their jobs, but there was a time not too long ago when librarianship—along with teaching, nursing, waitressing, sales, and secretarial work—was one of the only occupations open or friendly to women. Therefore, there were very likely females in our profession who might have occasionally wished they were in another one. In any case, I love this photo, in which a former "salesgirl, librarian, and sixth-grade school teacher" is shown positively beaming as she works on a car during the WWII "Rosie the Riveter" days. I imagine there's something about standing when you're supposed to be sitting, making noise when you're used to being (and making others be) quiet, and getting your hands dirty instead of keeping them clean that really must have felt quite freeing. This pre-women's-lib "liberation," however, was very ephemeral since the moment our "boys" came back from the war, women were promptly returned to their traditional places, most of them ending up at home, not working for a paycheck. I was just visiting a library over in Hillsdale, New York, that had an assortment of free books available in the lobby. A first paperback printing of The Feminine Mystique caught my eye. It had originally sold for 75 cents and I was oddly gratified to see that the copy had a man's name written inside its tattered covers. Published in 1963, this feminist classic by Betty Friedan will mark its fiftieth anniversary next year. The Feminine Mystique was the first book of its type that I had ever read and therefore it made a huge impression on me; I read it toward the end of high school in the early 1970s. Friedan discusses "the problem that had no name" and gives plenty of examples of the kind of sexist propaganda being dispensed by so-called "women's magazines" during the postwar baby boom. I still remember the time I had to look up the word inferior in the dictionary after puzzling over an article in one of my mother's mags entitled: "Are Women Really the Inferior Sex?" Never has a definition felt more deflating. While there are certainly individuals and even entire cultures who still believe this, women as a rule are not considered inferior anymore, but are definitely in; you can read all about the history of the women's movement today in virtually any library in the country. Librarin* was found once in OhioLINK this morning, and 30 times in WorldCat.

(Photo by Ann Rosener, circa February 1943, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Astair (for Astaire)

Adele Astaire (born Adele Marie Austerlitz) was born on September 10, 1896. (She died in 1981 at the age of 95). Adele was the older sister and long-time dance partner of Fred Astaire; they performed in theater and vaudeville together for 27 years, starting at the ages of eight and five. Adele was actually the more well-known of the pair during their professional association and was especially well-liked by British royalty. She was even asked by author J.M. Barrie to play Peter Pan onstage, but had to turn the offer down. She was considered to be more outgoing than her relatively shy brother and she enjoyed saying and doing outrageous things. According to Fred's son-in-law, Richard McKenzie, Adele and Fred were playing Scrabble one day when he noticed her laying down the letters C-U-N. Aghast at this "emerging vulgarity," Fred demurred. However, as she later told his daughter Ava: "I could have been spelling anything! Like cunnilingus." And of course she was correct: there are several different words that begin that way (cuneiform, cuneal, cunning, and even the rarely used cunctative, meaning "characterized by delay; tardy; dilatory), though none of them nearly so eye-catching as the infamous "C-word"—which has been around for ages, but which the Scrabble dictionary and many others have pointedly omitted. (At least until fairly recently.) There were seven cases of Astair (for Astaire) in OhioLINK today, and 83 in WorldCat. It's possible some of these may be correctly spelled names (NACO gives one example: Astair Gebremariam Mengesha), so be sure to check your sources.

(Publicity photo of Adele and Fred Astaire, 1919, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Oilv* (for Oliv*)

I love olive oil, you love olive oil, who doesn't love olive oil? Especially since we've been told for years that it's one of the healthiest fats to cook with, plus it comes in such pretty glass bottles and decorative containers. But it appears that love, like power, can corrupt, and there's a lot of corruption going on right now in the olive oil business. Actually, it's not just now; according to a 2007 article in The New Yorker by Tom Mueller: "Olive-oil fraud was already common in antiquity." But as consumption of the oil has increased ("thirty-five per cent in southern Europe, its traditional market, and more than a hundred per cent in North America" over the past decade), adulteration, marketing scandals, and other forms of false advertising have risen as well. The website Truth in Olive Oil contains some helpful information to guide the consumer, but in general you should look for a deep green oil, bottled in dark glass, certified organic, and of course "extra-virgin" (although this term is often applied to a less than virginal product). Your best bet for where to place your money would seem to be, if counter-intuitively, California. One of my favorite insights from Mueller is that real olive oil is "fruit juice." Not-so-real olive oil is an inferior mix of improperly prepared olives mixed with other types of oil. OhioLINK reveals six impurities with regard to today's typo; there were 63 found in WorldCat.

(Italian olive oil, from the city of Manerba del Garda, northern Italy, July 2007, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Covention* (for Convention*)

Taking a break from the Democratic convention on TV last night, I was checking out a classic sitcom when I suddenly heard Batman say: "If you can't trust the voters, whom can you trust?" Well, for starters, I'm not sure whether we can trust that "whom" there or not. Frankly, I've always found the matter of who versus whom, especially in certain contexts, a little confusing. It's not a problem when the word follows a preposition (in, for, to, etc.), but how about in a question like Batman's? Shouldn't that "whom" be "who"? Isn't that how most of us mere mortals would say it? After consulting Google, it looks like Batman (channeling his inner Bruce Wayne) is right; however, his way may be taking the highway. In fact, according to Henry Hitchings, author of The English Wars: A History of Proper English (2011), that war may already be lost. Hitchings, for whom many grammar "rules" are simply conventions, tells us that "whom seems to be receding." So whom shall we turn to for guidance? Can we convene a group of grammar geeks to come to our rescue? Consult the nearest copy of Who's Who for some names? Or should that be "Who's Whom?" Just kidding, I'm voting for "who," but you're free to vote for whomever you like. Seriously, though, here's how to remember it. If the word in question comes in the form of a question, just supply a plausible answer. If it's "I can trust him (or her)," it should be whom. There were 24 cases of Covention* in OhioLINK, and 544 in WorldCat.

(Photo of Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, 1971, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Carlina + Carolina (for Carolina or Carlina)

I've blogged about Loudon Wainwright III before, but seeeing as how today is the old chap's birthday, here's another shout-out to someone I consider to be one of the finest singer-songwriters in the country. Wainwright was born on September 5, 1946, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His mother was a yoga instructor and his dad worked as a writer and editor for Life magazine. Wainwright the elder also played piano and enjoyed writing songs. Loudon followed in his father's footsteps and learned how to play guitar, but after moving to San Francisco in his early twenties, he sold his instrument in order to afford yoga lessons. Nice tribute to his meditative mom, but Loudon's true calling was louder. While working in a boatyard in Rhode Island, an old lobsterman inspired his very first song, "Edgar." Soon after that, Wainwright bought another guitar and wrote almost twenty songs in less than a year. Since that time, he has scarcely let up, with 25 or so albums currently to his name. Here's wishing a very happy birthday to North Carolina's native son, along with a poignant farewell to summer, a season best summed up by one of my favorite Loudon Wainwright tunes, "The Swimming Song": This summer I went swimming / This summer I might have drowned / But I held my breath and I kicked my feet / And I moved my arms around / Moved my arms around... I held my breath and I kicked my feet and I found ten cases of today's combination typo in OhioLINK, along with 103 in WorldCat.

(Swimmer at Carolina Beach, North Carolina, 14 July 2012, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Foward* (for Forward*)

Journalists and grammar experts have been engaging in a rather pointed political debate lately over the Obama camp's minimalist new campaign slogan: "Forward." That's with the period included. "Forward. Period. Full stop"—as the president himself has apparently joked. The stalled buzzword's been getting a bit of flack from both sides of the aisle and for a couple of different reasons: it's wrong because it's an incomplete sentence, or it's right because it's an imperative. Newspaper columnist June Casagrande agrees that there is something slightly off about this slogan, but it may not be what the critics think. She argues that "Forward." is not an imperative nor a declarative sentence (unless you mean to forward an email, for example, and it would still need an object: forward what?), but explains that legitimate sentence "fragments" can and often do end in periods. In any case, she thinks that the period here looks a little odd and out of place. (I see her point. A one-word sentence in a book or article, surrounded by other sentences, needs a period after it, for obvious reasons. But this is more like the door of a restroom reading "Women." or a directional sign saying "Left." or "Right.") Even the sentiment behind it is kind of lame, it seems to me. It's clearly meant to evoke exhortations like "Onward and upward!" but "Forward." just sounds sort of grim and resigned. In any case, it does make you ponder the question of what periods are actually for. (And to wonder, perhaps, what the next one in our own country's history might be like.) I suppose forward is better than backward, though (except for when it isn't), so rather than resign ourselves to 29 examples of Foward* in OhioLINK, and 595 in WorldCat, let's move forward today and try to correct this error.

Note to irony lovers: Casagrande's otherwise excellent column contained a rather unfortunate period-implicated typo of its own: "Because 'Forward.' Is not a complete sentence, it's an error to end it with a period."

( Copy of the figurehead statue "Forward," which was created at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893 by artist-in-residence Jean Pond Miner. The title of the statue adopts the motto of the State of Wisconsin, and funding was provided by the women of that state. From Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Transced* (for Transcend*)

"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard..."—taken from a verse in the sacred Hindu text the Upanishads. I caught the 1946 film adaptation of the book The Razor's Edge on TCM the other day and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As did guest programmer Drew Barrymore, who thanked host Robert Osborne (he claimed it was one of his top three all-time favorite films) for introducing her to it. (I myself had my good friend, and classic movie fan, P. to thank for the fortunate heads-up.) The book, written by W. Somerset Maugham, traces the spiritual voyage and search for transcendence undertaken by World War I veteran Larry Darrell. Larry is played by Tyrone Power in the movie, which also features Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, and Herbert Marshall as Somerset Maugham. Like life itself, this story has got it all: love, death, personal identity, travel abroad, romantic entanglements, societal expectations, drinking problems, and the quest for God. And it's wonderfully written, expertly directed (by Joseph L. Mankiewicz), and beautifully acted to boot. According to some, the protagonist was based on another prominent author, Christopher Isherwood, who nevertheless repudiated the link in the pages of Time magazine. Maugham was a highly regarded author and travel writer with an unusual empathy for women and their sexual natures. He is perhaps best known for the semi-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage, which was made into a film starring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard in 1934. The typo Transced* was found 16 times in OhioLINK, and 426 times in WorldCat.

(Cover of The Razor's Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham, 1946 paperback edition, Triangle Books, from Wikipedia.)

Carol Reid