Away in a Food Trough

Let's face it. I'm not going to do any work today.

If I sound like I'm working by typing this, then the boss can

pretend to believe that I'm pretending to work. Right?

In honor of the season and my love all of the Brit accents, I present ...

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

riffing on "Away in a Manger"

(slightly off-colour, in a Scottish-kind o'wae)

For this and other off-colour Holiday Haters clips from YouTube, thank the Gray Lady.

Ode to Working Like a Dog

As we all rush mightily to complete tasks before our holiday breaks, I presenteth unto you ...

Peter Sellers performing 'A Hard Day's Night' by The Beatles, in the style of Laurence Olivier's interpretation of Richard III.

Thanks for the link Tim!

If I had a million £ ...

I'd be on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London faster than you can say Cheerio!

Why?

Imagine one sci-fi nerd/librarian/former English Major/Shakespeare lover, finding out that:

the Tenth Doctor aka David Tennant

and

Captain Picard aka Patrick Stewart

are appearing in Hamlet together

RIGHT NOW at the RSC!

This better hop the pond to the Great White Way.

I'm just saying.

This AngloSciFi-le demands it!

Plus, there's this!

My favorite painting AND David? Raptures!

Teaching Items of the Week

I was asked by people on the 'Net to continue my series of educational posts. So, et and voila: today's entry on proper capitalization, italization, and underline-zation of titles, etc.

I wholeheartedly believe in not reinventing the wheel. Therefore, when someone else can pull together a style guide, I will borrow from it ad nauseum.

Let me reiterate. I did NOT create this style guide. I am pilfering from others who thought long and hard about what would best serve the institution for which they write. They in turn borrowed from a variety of other sources. Go buy your own reference books from an independent bookseller or a big huge chain store which I will not name.

This [excerpted series of notes] is intended to help standardize the way [the institution] use the English language in [their] publications. It is based on a number of sources, including The Chicago Manual of Style, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Associated Press Stylebook, D. Kern Holoman's Writing About Music, and the good old English Dictionary (American Heritage College, Third Edition). The blend of these sources results in our own "house style." While there are exceptions to all rules, the goal is for our publications — catalogs, newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, etc. — to conform to one style.

A final note: Usage changes with time. New words come into the language, or th emeanings of old ones change. (Today, "web" means something different to most people than it did 20 years ago.) For much of this, there's no absolute "right" or "wrong" (to go back to "web," you'll see Web site written many ways in different publications: Web site, web stie, website, Website). We're not aiming to be "right;" we're aiming for consistency.

[For the record, the institution has this for “web” and other electronica]

W: Web site; Webmaster; World Wide Web
E: e-mail (only capitalized at beginnings of sentences)
O: online

Newspapers and magazines:

If a newspaper includes 'The' in its masthead, then 'The' should be capitalized. If, like the New York Post, 'The' is not included in the newspaper's title, then 'the' should not be capitalized. The complete title is rendered in italics.

An article in The Junkyard Journal. An article in The Journal.
A report in the New York Post… A report in the Post.
As a corollary, if "Magazine" is included in a magazine's title, it should be capitalized. If, as in the case of New York magazine, it is not, then it should be neither capitalized nor italicized.

Titles of works and parts of works

• Acts/Scenes: Capitalize and use numerals (Act 2, Scene 2)


• Articles, chapters, etc.: titles in quotes (e.g."Luxury in Hard Times" was the cover story of The New York Times Magazine.


• Books: titles in italics; chapters in quotes.
  
• Courses, class names: capitalize only if unique title, not generic subject (Arts in Education; music history, Classical Music in an Age of Pop; dance notation)
  
• Musical works (see Musical Terms section below)
  
• Newspapers, magazines: titles in italics (capitalize "the" if officially part of the masthead: An article in The New York Times; a report in the New York Post). Similarly, capitalize and italicize "magazine" if part of the title of the periodical: PC Magazine surveyed 100 laptop users. New York magazine has good theater listings.
  
• Organizations: capitalized (but do not capitalize "the" in an organization's name)


• Performance series: capitalize only; no quotes or italics: Lincoln Center's Great Performers series.


• Plays, movies, TV shows: titles in italics: The Merchant of Venice; 60 Minutes


• Recordings, CDs: capitalize but do not italicize if generic; italicize if descriptive title (his recording of sonatas by Bach; his recording The Art of the Countertenor)


• Roles: capitalize only, no quotes or italics. (He played Romeo in the production of Shakespeare's classic love story.)

Musical Terms
Most of the style rules regarding musical terminology are consistent with D. Kern Holoman's book Writing About Music, so if something doesn't appear in this manual, please refer to it. (One notable exception: Capitalize Op. when abbreviating opus.)

TITLES OF WORKS

Generic titles are not italicized, only capitalized (Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 or Beethoven's Second Symphony; Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1).

Generic titles include, but are not limited to, symphonies; sonatas; concertos; suites; trios, quartets, quintets, etc.; names of dances (e.g. waltzes, mazurkas); fugues; inventions; canons; masses; etc.

When not referring to a specific title, do not capitalize: Mozart's symphonies; Beethoven's sonatas, etc.

Movements of works are not capitalized: The first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Descriptive titles are italicized when the name was given by the composer (Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz); otherwise, nicknames follow in parentheses and quotes: Schubert's Symphony in B Minor ("Unfinished") or Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony.

Songs and Arias - In quotes ("Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. They all sang "God Bless America.")

KEYS, PITCHES, ETC.
Major, Minor: Both are capitalized only in titles (Sonata in C Major, Concerto in E Minor; hyphenate only if in adjectival use: E-Minor Concerto). If not part of a title, capitalize the pitch name, but lower case "major" and "minor": He transcribed the work from E minor to G minor.

Sharp, Flat: Do not capitalize in titles; do not hyphenate unless adjectival or compound (Sonata in B flat; Nocturne in C-sharp Minor)

Pitches: Capital letters, spell out "sharp" and "flat" (B flat, C sharp)

Opus numbers, Kochel numbers, etc.: Abbreviate, with a space between the period and the number (Op. 46, No. 2; K. 449, etc.; an exception is BWV, which takes no periods).

PERIODS OF MUSIC HISTORY
When referring to a specific era in musical history, the name of the period is capitalized: Baroque music; Classical; Romantic; etc. However, classical music is lowercased when referring less specifically to music of the Western European tradition (classical music as opposed to rock music). Do not capitalize medieval music, or modern or contemporary music.

SPELLING OF COMPOSERS' NAMES

Use accent marks in names. Use transliterated, Americanized spellings: Rachmaninoff (not Rachmaninov); Tchaikovsky; Prokofiev; etc.For names with "von," usually the "von" is dropped: Weber, not von Weber; Gluck, etc. (There are exceptions, however: von Bülow, for example.)

Language Oddities of the Week

With thanks to Gale Q. from the Big C for this week's guest installment:

Let's face it. English is a crazy language.

Think about these:

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

English is a crazy language! Here's more to illustrate:

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; no apple or pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? We say one goose, but two geese, so why not one moose, two meese, and one index, two indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends, but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital; ship by truck and send cargo by ship;have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

P.S. Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick?'

P.S. Poor Amber. She's just going to be so confused.