{"id":273,"date":"2007-02-07T11:08:49","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T17:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/02\/07\/good-words-to-you\/"},"modified":"2007-02-08T01:18:09","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T07:18:09","slug":"good-words-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/02\/good-words-to-you\/","title":{"rendered":"“Good Words to You”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fishing around for a headline to this, I remembered the above. It’s the outcue for the audio column on NPR’s Morning Edition<\/i> that the late poet John Ciardi used to do in the early to mid-1980s. He considered origins, histories and roots of words in them. Posthumously, in 1987, Harper published a book of his, by that title. It’s in the same warm memory set as hearing Ellen Gilchrist, in the same years and the same time of day.<\/p>\n

“Outcue.” The spellcheck dings it, and it’s not in Webster’s New World, but from my time in radio I can attest it’s real. It is a term for the phrase a broadcast journalist uses, with some consistency, that flags the producer at the home studio to open the mike for the anchor to resume. “Reporting from Fayetteville, this is Ben Pollock.” “And that’s the way it is.” Ciardi might have said if he lived into the Clinton presidential years, “Yes, that’s what ‘is’ is. This is John Ciardi, wishing Good Words to You.”<\/p>\n

On the night stand is Let Me Finish<\/i> by Roger Angell (Harcourt, 2006). It’s a collection of reminiscences, more than a well-transitioned memoir. It’s the first book in a long time that has challenged me to hit the dictionary. Angell is not trying to be Safire, nor is he one to prefer the ol’ 25-cent words over nickel ones. He simply is addressing general topics in a sophisticated way. Also, people once used larger words. I’m also working on Team of Rivals<\/i> by Doris Kearns Goodwin, where the self-educated Abe Lincoln, speaking to the commonest of common folk, used a vocabulary that would stump today’s wannabe gang-banger. It’s fun to learn something new.<\/p>\n

Angell is best known for magazine articles on baseball, but he’s been a longtime writer and editor at The New Yorker.<\/i> Aha! He is the son of noted editor Katherine Angell and stepson of E.B. White. Aha aha! Big words. No, “Andy” White does not approve of big words in his Elements of Style.<\/i> But if you read his smooth essays elsewhere, Mr. White used a nice vocabulary well.<\/p>\n

Riposte. Persiflage. Bushwa. Purdah. These are Angell’s words that stumped me. Here’s what they mean. Sharp retort. Frivolous writing or speaking. Nonsense. Secluding women from the outside world.<\/p>\n

Let’s try these words out: A clever riposte is impossible to the president’s response of persiflage when asked about oppression by purdah. Bushwa, all agree.<\/p>\n

Commonplace book. I know this one. I should post mine, but am not sure of the best format. After all, it’s not a book, and these days not commonplace either. Reading someone’s commonplace book is a cross between checking out a person’s book, video or audio collection, and out-and-out snooping in a diary. It’s a collection of a person’s favorite sayings, maxims, quotes of others that ring true, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

A small sample<\/a> has been on my site for a long time.<\/p>\n

Here is an addition for mine, from Angell’s book. He recalls editing a piece by fellow New Yorker<\/i> staffer William Maxwell, a novelist who edited Cheever and Welty, among others. Here’s why: Maxwell says after Angell gives up trying to fix one of his sentences: “I don’t want to be too<\/i> clear.”<\/p>\n

Amen, brother. -30- <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fishing around for a headline to this, I remembered the above. It’s the outcue for the audio column on NPR’s Morning Edition that the late poet John Ciardi used to do in the early to mid-1980s. He considered origins, histories and roots of words in them. Posthumously, in 1987, Harper published a book of his, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-of-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5053,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2015\/01\/losing-miller-williams\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":0},"title":"Losing My Neighbor Miller Williams","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Of course I'd known of him, Miller Williams. In the 1990s, living in Little Rock, I was relearning how to read verse. He was an Arkansas poetry icon, along with Maya Angelou and John Gould Fletcher. We claim a good share of songwriters as well. Miller died Jan. 1, 2015,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The documentary series \"Men & Women of Distinction\" of the Arkansas Educational Television Network featured poet Miller Williams. The half-hour video was premiered in November 2010 at the University of Arkansas Global Campus auditorium in Fayetteville. Afterward, Williams was congratulated during a reception and posed for pictures. Here, Ben Pollock (from left), Christy Pollock, Miller Williams, Crescent Dragonwagon and Amy Wilson. Photo by Dwain Cromwell","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Miller-Williams-Crescent-AmyLou-Pollocks-by-Cromwell-1110-1000x750-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/07\/deathly-hallowed-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":1},"title":"Deathly Hallowed Words","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"You can read here the last, first: He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4666,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/12\/dinting-not-daunting\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":2},"title":"Dinting Not Daunting: Daily Diary for December","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I lost in \"NaNoWriMo\" this past month. The goal of National Novel Writing Month, held every November, is to craft at least 50,000 words of a new novel (not revising a draft nor picking up an abandoned manuscript) in those 30 days. This was my fourth try, beginning in 2007.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/word-pictures-picture-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":3},"title":"Word Pictures. Picture Words","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Museum of Art had a special exhibit of the calligraphy of the 17th-century Japanese artist Ike Taiga, as well as his wife, Mamie. As is customary, he illustrated the words with scenes of woods, mountains and a few people here and there. Often Taiga and Tokuyama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":376,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/12\/one-third-short\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":4},"title":"One-third short","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Hats off to the organizers of National Novel Writing Month. This group began in 1999 with 21 participants who challenged one another to write 50,000 words of a novel (which makes for a short but complete novel, Gatsby length) in 30 days. The month chosen is November. The word count\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6265,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2019\/01\/2000-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":5},"title":"2,000 Words","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Main photo NBC News,\u00a0inset photo Snopes.com \"A picture is worth a thousand words.\" This is my Facebook profile photo and cover photo for Sunday. Can't stomach it for more than that nor wish others to deal with it longer either. \"Revulsion\" is not an impeachable offense for Donald J. Trump,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photos of Trump about to welcome Clemson football team with silver, candles and prepackaged fast food, and a photo from Snopes of Roger Stone's Nixon tattoo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/facebook-page-012719.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/facebook-page-012719.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/facebook-page-012719.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/facebook-page-012719.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}